Charge Explained

[Farsight]

Nicely laid out as always, Popular, and your friendly, informal writing style seems in top form. I’m concerned, however, that while very readability, the writing has strayed into serious inaccuracy.

Thanks for the layout compliment, Craig. I guess the inaccuracy aspect is why I'm asking for feedback. I'm sure I'll have some things wrong, and hope it's not something that totally shoots down this "toy model". It rather does seem to fly, but of course I would say that.

 

We know that high voltage is called high tension” – An incorrect but understandable confusion. High tension electric power lines are called “high tension” because the wires are under a fairly high mechanical tension, allowing them to be supported by fewer towers than “low tension” lines – the sort you see strung between wood poles in older neighborhoods. Coincidentally, high tension lines are usually higher voltage (100,000+ V) than low tension ones (typically 240 to 700 V) , because higher voltage allows a greater total power (voltage [math]\times[/math] current) to be carried by the same mass of wire of the same resistance, and because the customer at the end of the line usually expects 240 V or so.

I think this has changed somewhat over the years. If you do a google search on "high tension electricity" you see it discussed with no mention of powerlines. But noted. I’ll have a ferret around and perhaps clarify.

 

"high tension electricity" - Google Search

 

”It’s full of positive charge and negative charge. That’s why it’s got mass. That’s why it’s a material object.” - Colorful, but not entirely true. Although most all but one family of the “matter particles” (fermions), have both mass and charge, charge doesn’t cause mass – it’s just commonly found in particles that have it. If charge was necessary to have mass, neutrinos wouldn’t have mass, as theory predicts and experiments have confirmed (though not much, and not yet precisely measured).

Please refer to my MASS EXPLAINED essay. Also see page 105 of The Trouble with Physics. I'm saying that the thing we consider to be invariant mass is a measure of “stopped” energy. A photon travels at c, and has no mass. If you wrap it into a loop via pair production, it's now effectively "stopped", and so has mass. And charge. A neutrino travels at a little less than c, so it has some mass. If the chirality or curl was somehow neutral or balanced, it would have no charge. I ought to cover neutrinos at some point, they’re very interesting.

 

Worse for Popular’s description, according to current best theory, most of the mass in ordinary objects is not due to particles with charge (quarks and electrons, for the most part), or to a “matter particles” (fermions) at all, but due to the gluons (a kind of boson) that confine them. It’s more accurate to say “it’s full of strong atomic force – that’s why it has mass” than “it’s full of charge – that’s why it has mass”.

Fair enough. I’ve rather restricted myself to photons and electrons. I guess I ought to cover protons too.

 

If there wasn’t any charge, it would be a whole heap of gamma radiation” - The image evoked is almost too cool to criticize, but alas, the claim’s not true. If, though some inexplicable alteration of the fundamental nature of reality, charge ceased to exist, the most likely parallel for what things would look like is that it would be like the opaque plasma the Big Bang theory postdicts the universe was like during the “photon epoch” lasting from about 3 seconds to 380,000 years ABB – a big, nearly homogenous, glowing thing.

I was rather thinking of annihilation. We normally talk about the preponderance of matter over antimatter, but in a way the protons are antimatter, but some aspect of “geometry” prevents their mutual annihiliation with electrons. Of course, I really ought to talk about muon and tau leptons too, as well as their neutrinos.

 

When you look at a spoon you are seeing those electrons, or more properly, their charge” - As actually “seeing” electrons, in the sense of being able to optically resolve the arc occupied by individual atoms, is impossible, it’s understood that such talk must be very metaphorical. “Seeing their charge”, however, makes no sense to me. That electrons must have charge to interact in the way they do to produce absorb and emit the photons they do, causing me to see what I do, is clear. However, “seeing charge” implies you’d be able to see electricity, static charge, or distinguish matter from antimatter, in which all the charges are their exact opposites. In theory and in practice, you can’t.

Noted. I’ll look at my wording here.

 

I explained mass by talking about pair production, where a massless gamma photon is converted into an electron and a positron.”…”The electron and the positron annihilate, and become gamma photons flying off in opposite directions like that puff of muddy water.” - A minor detail, perhaps, but, unless the electron and positron from a pair production event have some fairly high-energy interactions prior to annihilating with one another, the result will be a single photon of the same energy as the original one.

Noted. Again I’ll look at my wording here.

 

Energy is fundamental. You cannot create energy, and you cannot destroy it. But you can create charge just as you can create mass, via pair production.” - Worded this way, this is self-contradicting. Mass-energy is (pretty much) fundamental – can’t be created or destroyed. However, if you say you can create mass via pair production, you’re necessarily destroying energy, and when antiparticles annihilate, destroying matter, energy is created.

We’ll have to agree to differ on this one Craig. Sorry. E=mc² means the energy is not destroyed, just tied up.

 

When it comes to the standard model, IMHO the Higgs Boson is “wrong”. The model of mass I’ve formed means it’s electromagnetic in origin. Whilst I have some issues with electromagnetism as regards fundamentality, it is a vector field. The Higgs field is a scalar field. So I just can’t see how the Higgs can be anything more than an abstraction.

 

I also think there’s an interpretational problem with gluons and quarks. I can’t justify this with any detail, but there’s lots to think about regarding “color” charge, maybe involving “bags” and a “cloverleaf” configuration. Maybe in three months time I'll have an essay on the subject. Meanwhile, thanks for the feedback.

[snoopy]

Although, you must admit, the way the light reflects off silver is much due to the free electrons in there.....

 

:doh:

 

Yeah Qfwfq which is why I never gave it too much thought the first time around I just glossed over it, still not expecting however 'charge' to be silvery in nature, more 'SQUID' coloured and 'qube' shaped. (terrible I know I really should give humour up) :evil:

 

Cheers

;)

[Farsight]

Hi Popular; I followed you here from other forums. There are some details about your concept that I want to understand better. I'll get into details as we progress.

 

Noted Drylab. Any forum in particular? I confess I tend to spread things around because feedback is sometimes rather thin. Albers is doing some maths on this and is looking for crossover or "latch" points to explain the lepton masses. Note that your "maximum charge" sounds unfamiliar. A proton has the same degree of charge or "twist" as an electron, but it's opposite, as per the positron, though with more energy turning in a tighter smaller loop or loops to yield a greater mass. The quarks make me think of trefoil knots or cloverleaf loops, but I confess I haven't thought it through. What's interesting is that if this toy model says that both electrical charge and gravity are geometrical in nature, it seems to offer some intriguing possibilities for color charge.

 

 

snoopy: you have to remember that silver isn't a colour, it's "reflection" caused by outright reflection, or some kind of refraction or bending or curl or chirality or helicity or twist. The colour of a bubble, of a spoon. No colour at all really, just the colour of distortion. Of "twist". Mull it over and it starts to gel after a while. But nothing beats playing with plates and making Falaco Solitons. Wow.

 

Craig: note the bit in the essay about refraction and why it happens.

[freeztar]

Thanks for introducing me to Falaco Solitons, Popular!

I just read up on them and they are fascinating indeed!

I found this site, which has this picture that I really like.

 

One thing I'm having trouble understanding is the "one dimensional string" that connects the vortices. How can you have a string that is one dimensional? :)

[snoopy]

Thanks for introducing me to Falaco Solitons, Popular!

I just read up on them and they are fascinating indeed!

I found this site, which has this picture that I really like.

 

One thing I'm having trouble understanding is the "one dimensional string" that connects the vortices. How can you have a string that is one dimensional? :)

 

Similar to a one dimensional line, one that has no edge, viewed side on it would disappear.

 

It's a purely mathematical construct so it is hard to visualise, but regarded by some string theorists as perhaps the ultimate solution of what space might be composed of.

 

Cheers

:hihi:

[freeztar]

Similar to a one dimensional line, one that has no edge, viewed side on it would disappear.

 

Ok, that helps a little bit. :)

It's a purely mathematical construct so it is hard to visualise, but regarded by some string theorists as perhaps the ultimate solution of what space might be composed of.

 

Cheers

:hihi:

 

If it's a "purely mathematical construct", then what is actually happening in the swimming pool and plates example?

 

I hope this isn't detracting from the thread topic, but Popular brought it up...so I ran with it. :eek:

[snoopy]

Ok, that helps a little bit. :)

 

 

If it's a "purely mathematical construct", then what is actually happening in the swimming pool and plates example?

 

:eek:

 

In the swimming pool example RH Klein is 'idealizing' the thread between the two spinning pools of water as 'one' dimensional, this is ok as long as a thing is thin enough in two dimensions. So he is idealizing the 'thread' to have just length for theoretical reasons and not width and height as I said this doesn;t matter as long as a thing is thin enough like in this example to do this.

 

It doesn't actually mean that the 'watery thread' is one dimensional but it can be idealized as such, such as atoms can be 'idealized' as point particles.

 

Trying to explain it without getting too technical

 

Cheers

:hihi:

[CraigD]

A couple of items seem to need a second round of feedback:

I was rather thinking of annihilation. We normally talk about the preponderance of matter over antimatter, but in a way the protons are antimatter, but some aspect of “geometry” prevents their mutual annihiliation with electrons.

Protons and electrons don’t annihilate. They combine to form neutrons in a process unimaginatively known as electron capture. Electron capture is most commonly observed in the decay or radioactive elements where a neutron is gained. Although electron capture releases energy, typically as an x-ray photon, the energy released is small compared to the mass-energy of the proton and electron.

We’ll have to agree to differ on this one Craig. Sorry. E=mc² means the energy is not destroyed, just tied up.

I don’t think we’re quite to the “agree to disagree” point, yet :)

 

What I was trying to note is how the symmetry of energy -> mass and mass -> energy conversion conflicts with saying “you can’t create energy” in the same breath you say “you can create mass”. To invert your statement “E=mc² means the energy is not destroyed, just tied up”, “E=mc² means the mater is not destroyed, just untied – energy is just untied matter”.

 

On to new material…

When it comes to the standard model, IMHO the Higgs Boson is “wrong”.

My own comfort level with the Higgs is low, too. Being, a rather “hands-on thought-experiment” sort, I’m hoping that upcoming LHC data will show some “tricks with Higgs” that will satisfy my need for tangible details – or find a glaring hole at the energies predicted for the Higgs.

 

A lot of my discomfort is due to not having personally derived the Standard Model. So, when I encounter a statement like “The Higgs boson is a hypothetical massive scalar elementary particle predicted to exist by the Standard Model of particle physics”, I can only tilt my head in bewildered semi-acceptance and think “uh, OK, predicted I suppose by someone who understands it better than I”.

 

Perhaps because 32 years of on-and-off-again but continuous computer programming has rendered me so comfortable with the idea of “reality as data”, I find I’m quite comfortable with a universe in which charge is just an attribute determining that a particle can interact via magnetic photons. I’d be equally happy (or, simplicity-lover that I am perhaps more) with a universe consisting only of neutrinos and W and/or Z bosons to carry their interactions – though, if that were the actual case, It would surely be a very different me being happy. :hihi: “Ultimate reality”, it seems to me, has to do with – terms are tenuous here – a “cosmic heuristic” defining entity/particle interactions, in which quantities - be they mass, charge, or even position – and the interactions entailing them are more emergent phenomena than fundamental things.

[Farsight]

Freeztar: yeah, I'm not too keen on the "one dimensional strings" either. In fact I'm not too keen on strings at all, but shhhh. However I can actually see a "one dimensional string" right here, right now: the crease in my pants.

 

Thanks for the response there snoopy. This idealization to one dimensional strings and dimensional points imHO causes quite a few problems in physics.

 

Protons and electrons don’t annihilate. They combine to form neutrons in a process unimaginatively known as electron capture...

No problem. It's basically the opposite of the neutron decay in the essay. I'll check my wording there.

 

I don’t think we’re quite to the “agree to disagree” point, yet :confused:

What I was trying to note is how the symmetry of energy -> mass and mass -> energy conversion conflicts with saying “you can’t create energy” in the same breath you say “you can create mass”. To invert your statement “E=mc² means the energy is not destroyed, just tied up”, “E=mc² means the matter is not destroyed, just untied – energy is just untied matter”.

I know what you mean, but I'm seeking "pure geometrical marble" and energy seems to be the more fundamental than other "fundamental" properties or... things.

 

On to new material…My own comfort level with the Higgs is low, too. Being, a rather “hands-on thought-experiment” sort, I’m hoping that upcoming LHC data will show some “tricks with Higgs” that will satisfy my need for tangible details – or find a glaring hole at the energies predicted for the Higgs.

 

A lot of my discomfort is due to not having personally derived the Standard Model. So, when I encounter a statement like “The Higgs boson is a hypothetical massive scalar elementary particle predicted to exist by the Standard Model of particle physics”, I can only tilt my head in bewildered semi-acceptance and think “uh, OK, predicted I suppose by someone who understands it better than I”.

 

Perhaps because 32 years of on-and-off-again but continuous computer programming has rendered me so comfortable with the idea of “reality as data”, I find I’m quite comfortable with a universe in which charge is just an attribute determining that a particle can interact via magnetic photons. I’d be equally happy (or, simplicity-lover that I am perhaps more) with a universe consisting only of neutrinos and W and/or Z bosons to carry their interactions – though, if that were the actual case, It would surely be a very different me being happy. “Ultimate reality”, it seems to me, has to do with – terms are tenuous here – a “cosmic heuristic” defining entity/particle interactions, in which quantities - be they mass, charge, or even position – and the interactions entailing them are more emergent phenomena than fundamental things.

 

All points notied Craig. Very interesting, thanks.

 

I'm in IT myself. I think it's good training for logical thinking.

[Farsight]

I missed this image from the essay, and will put it in.

 

[Qfwfq]

(terrible I know I really should give humour up)

Actually I liked the bit about 'qube' shaped.

[snoopy]

To Popular,

 

I have given this thread some more thought and as I said I don't really have a major problem with anything you have said apart from 'charge' isn't fundamental.

 

To my mind it's something that I don't think you have fully explained really even if I suspend my beliefs for a second and just accept charge as 'curl' or 'twist', I really don't see how you can have a useful physics without 'charge' and also I don't see what 'charge' breaks down to that is more 'fundamental' than 'charge'. So I'm left with the thought even after several readings of your paper that 'charge' must be 'fundamental'.

 

Falcao solitons included or not, Klein has postulated that it might explain quark interactions or galaxy interactions but even he didnt mention charge, although personally I don't quite see how facao solitons can explain quark interactions either.

 

Cheers

[Farsight]

I haven't covered protons at all, snoopy. My current thinking is that we're talking about some kind of trefoil knot of intense spatial stress, and the quarks are the individual loops. But I haven't thought it through, so I'm not sure.

 

 

I'm very confident that charge isn't fundamental. What is fundamental, is energy. A common form of this is the photon. It has no charge. And it has no mass either. But it does have energy. Or more properly energy/momentum. Energy is a "distance based view" of energy/momentum, whilst momentum is a "time based view". If you take a gamma photon of 1022KeV and fire it at an atomic nucleus you find that "pair production" creates an electron and a positron. These have mass, and charge. You've created these properties out of energy. Read the ENERGY EXPLAINED and the MASS EXPLAINED essays for details.

 

I've written a new essay SPACE EXPLAINED that talks about what a photon actually is. I really think I've nailed it. All this started as a "toy model" written in a "popular science" style that the layman can understand. But it's taken off. It flies, if you know what I mean.

 

PS: I'm also known as "Farsight" on other forums.

[arkain101]

I am curious.

 

What would you define fundamental as in the field of cosmology?

[Farsight]

In cosmology? I'm not sure if I'm on the right wavelength, but energy I guess. But I sometimes wonder if I ought to think in terms of "action", which is momentum multiplied by distance. Action is basically "something happening". It seems that's all it boils down to.

[snoopy]

What is fundamental, is energy. A common form of this is the photon. It has no charge. And it has no mass either. But it does have energy.

 

Yes I have read your ENERGY EXPLAINED and MASS EXPLAINED papers Popular

and I understand your taking on details which physics kinds of skirts either around or over. (which is very brave and commendable).

 

But physics does this kind of thing because it's very careful not to say to much about things it doesn't know or can't know.

 

I'm afraid I'm of the opinion that saying little and knowing what you are saying is accurate is better than saying a lot and being wrong in some areas.

 

You can't say that ENERGY is fundamental and nothing else is you end up with a physics which has little useful to say about the universe.

ie

E = E

 

I would much rather discuss

 

E = hV

E= mgh

E= k*(q1*q2/d)

E= 1/2 mv^2

E= mc^2

 

its rather more interesting I hope you would agree.

 

Cheers

:)

[LJP07]

I didn't like it at all and had to give up half way through. I haven't done Physics to a high standard so when I read the opening paragraph I expected to learn a great deal about Charge.

 

When I continued, I was awash with information that didn't make sense, for example the statement:

We measure this rate of flow in terms of amperage, and multiply by time to get charge, and multiply again by voltage to get energy. We work out that the amount of charge in a battery is all about the number of electrons available to flow, and we know that our charged-up balloon has a surplus of them above and beyond its protons.

Was horrid to me as I didn't know why you multiply here there and everywhere to get the values. This wasn't a good start as it's supposed to ease my way into the topic. However, maybe this is written to a higher standard that 17 yr olds whom haven't studied Physics it isn't for??

 

Either way, I'm not knocking it in terms of information as those that comprehend some if not all of it will and have said to like it. Methinks that it's not written very well and comprehensively for the layreader.

 

What standard of Physics are you writing these articles for?

 

LJP07