Merged Relativity+ / Farsight

[Tim Thompson]

Maxwell? (2)

As I asked …

In light of this observation, how do you justify your own explicit claim that you have Maxwell "on your side", supporting your claim that the electric field is not really a field, but only a force?

And Farsight answered …

Here's what you're referring to: ...

I fail to see the relevance. What does any of that have to do with whether or not an electric field is a "field"? The fact of the unified "electromagnetic field" is supremely irrelevant, and has no bearing on whether or not the electric field is also a true field. Maxwell, in my quoted passage, is explicit. He says that the electric field is a field and he even defines the field explicitly.

So I repeat: How do you justify your claim that maxwell agrees with you when he is on record explicitly disagreeing with you, as regards the "field" nature of the electric field?

 

[ben m]

Smart bloke was Faraday. He'd have known the electron isn't a point particle. Shame nobody had discovered the electron back then.

Since you're so fond of 19th-century references, Farsight, why don't you supply a reference for your claim that non-pointlike particles have elastic scattering cross sections that go like 1/q^2? Because I can supply lots of references saying the exact opposite, starting with E. Rutherford, The scattering of alpha and beta particles by matter and the structure of the atom, Philosophical Magazine, volume 21 (1911).

 

[Farsight]

If you meant the electron's fermion field (its Dirac spinor, if you like) then this would be fine.

But you don't mean that.

If you meant "I, Farsight, have invented a new hypothesis in which the electron is a whirlpool-like bit of electromagnetic field", that'd be at least a true statement, after which we could set about discussing experimental proof/disproof of your hypothesis.

I haven't invented a new hypothesis. Maxwell referred to vortices repeatedly. I've referred to spinors repeatedly, and hard scientific evidence repeatedly. And the point here is that the field we're dealing with is the electromagnetic field, not the electric field.

But you don't mean that either.

Rather, you mean "everyone knows the electron is a whirlpool-like bit of electromagnetic field, as I can show with quotes from Maxwell etc., I don't know why you uneducated nitwits disagree", which is the spectacularly double-down Farsight-patent-special wrongness that's been keeping JREFfers entertained for years.

Don't put words into my mouth ben. The field is the electromagnetic field. We can diffract electrons. The Einstein-de Haas effect is not something I made up. The wave nature of matter is beyond doubt.

ETA:

Since you're so fond of 19th-century references, Farsight, why don't you supply a reference for your claim that non-pointlike particles have elastic scattering cross sections that go like 1/q^2? Because I can supply lots of references saying the exact opposite, starting with E. Rutherford, The scattering of alpha and beta particles by matter and the structure of the atom, Philosophical Magazine, volume 21 (1911).

I've already referred to George Thompson who "was an English physicist and Nobel laureate in physics recognised for his discovery with Clinton Davisson of the wave properties of the electron by electron diffraction". Again, I'm not making this stuff up, see hyperphysics. I'm not some "my theory" guy. And I repeat: the electron is not a point particle. Don't you get it yet? I'm not wrong.

 

[Farsight]

I fail to see the relevance. What does any of that have to do with whether or not an electric field is a "field"? The fact of the unified "electromagnetic field" is supremely irrelevant...

Splutter!

I can't help you any further Tim. I suggest you do your own research.

 

[Farsight]

Skepticism is the state of mind involving the suspension of judgment and the maintenance of doubt until convincing evidence is available.

It certainly is. But that's not your state of mind. Your state of mind is convictional, and you're dismissing evidence that challenges it.

When one demonstrates strident disbelief in the face of overwhelming evidence in science, we have ignorant incredulity.

That we do.

When that same person misunderstands the science he professes to disbelieve, he is a crackpot!

I'm the one explaining electromagnetism here. You're the one who misunderstands it and disbelieves what I'm telling you. I refer to Einstein, Maxwell, Minkowski, etc, but you still think I'm making it up!

The alternatives to the megaverse I mentioned were clearly intended to be ironic -- but clearly that kind of subtly is beyond you. I am not "promoting" Susskind's concept of a megaverse. However, I do find it a provocative conjecture. Fine tuning presents a genuine cosmological problem. If you had a viable conjecture as an alternative to the megaverse to explain fine tuning, you might have contributed it on that thread, As it is, as usual, you have NOTHING -- just more bluster, ignorance and arrogance!

I've spoken about non-constant constants enough times. But there you are peddling the Goldilocks multiverse. Because you like woo. So much so that when I try to explain something and present the evidence, you dismiss it. The fine-structure constant α=e²/2εchc isn't constant, Planck's constant might not be, and optical clocks run slower when they're lower. You know that the same will be true for parallel-mirror light clocks, and you know that the coordinate speed of light varies in a non-inertial reference frame. So you know c is merely defined to be constant. You also know about conservation of charge and you know that c=√(1/εₒμₒ). So you ought to be able to look at α=e²/2εₒhc and ask yourself what's actually changing here? And since the Planck mission has found large-scale inhomogeneities, that might mean Lambda isn't constant either. But that's OK, you can happily dismiss all this as bluster, arrogance, and ignorance. Don't let mere physics get in the way of your precious multiverse, eh?

 

[ctamblyn]

Splutter!

I can't help you any further Tim. I suggest you do your own research.

You know, "do your own research" is a real classic in certain circles.

Tim is perfectly correct. The electric field and magnetic field are indeed fields according to the normal definition. The fact that you can take a collection of fields and also treat them as a single field does not affect the field nature of the collection's members. Otherwise, by your argument, electroweak unification means that the electromagnetic field isn't really a field at all, and the same would go for the neutrino and charged lepton fields.

 

[ctamblyn]

I've spoken about non-constant constants enough times. But there you are peddling the Goldilocks multiverse.

Edd addressed this argument in the "Is the Universe Unnatural" thread. The type of variation associated with the running of the e/m coupling is irrelevant to the type of variation discussed in the context of multiverse theories. Utterly so.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

I've spoken about non-constant constants enough times. But there you are peddling the Goldilocks multiverse. Because you like woo.

Now that is an ad hominem. Rather than ever offer any argument against the actual research programs investigating high-energy physics and the possibility that the value of certain constants are set within certain volumes at a certain cosmological era, you merely dismiss it as "woo". You did this in order to dismiss real critiques about your failure to produce evidence. Piling sin upon sin.

Similarly, you have tried to perform an ad hominem on me by attacking me for spelling while failing to answer my question for the details on your claims that an infinite universe cannot expand.

<snip>

Edited by Loss Leader: 

Edited for Rule 12

 

[ben m]

I haven't invented a new hypothesis. Maxwell referred to vortices repeatedly.

The electron was not discovered until 20 years after Maxwell's death. The wave nature of the electron was not discovered until 40 years after Maxwell's death. The Maxwell is not an authority on the nature of the electron. The electron has been studied in great detail from its discovery in 1897 to the present, and this actual study of the electron is my source of information about the electron. As of June 2013, the electron is known not to be a vortex.

The wave nature of matter is beyond doubt.

Yep. So is the particle nature.

The electron obeys the quantum-mechanical equations of a point particle. Including high-q^2 elastic scattering. Including diffraction. In quantum mechanics particles have both localizable properties and extended wave properties.

The electron does NOT obey the quantum-mechanical equations of a "field whirlpool with nothing in the middle". (There ARE such equations; in QCD, the glueball is an example.) Such things DO diffract (it's quantum mechanics, everything can diffract) but DO NOT undergo high-q^2 elastic scattering.

 

[Farsight]

Edd addressed this argument in the "Is the Universe Unnatural" thread. The type of variation associated with the running of the e/m coupling is irrelevant to the type of variation discussed in the context of multiverse theories. Utterly so.

No it isn't. It's absolutely directly relevant, along with the other constants that are alleged to be constant but aren't.

Readers: please ignore ctamblyn's haughty dismissal, it is based on ignorance, not expertise. The next time you're watching the Discovery Channel and some guy is peddling the Goldilocks multiverse, turn your BS detectors to max, and be sceptical.

Otherwise, by your argument, electroweak unification means that the electromagnetic field isn't really a field at all, and the same would go for the neutrino and charged lepton fields.

Straw man. See the electroweak interaction on Wikipedia and note this:

"In particle physics, the electroweak interaction is the unified description of two of the four known fundamental interactions of nature: electromagnetism and the weak interaction. Although these two forces appear very different at everyday low energies, the theory models them as two different aspects of the same force. Above the unification energy, on the order of 100 GeV, they would merge into a single electroweak force".

Your 511keV electron in the lab is not above the 100GeV unification energy. It does not participate in weak interactions by magicking up an 80GeV W boson out of nowhere. And I reiterate: it doesn't have an electric field and a magnetic field, it has an electromagnetic field.

 

[edd]

No it isn't. It's absolutely directly relevant, along with the other constants that are alleged to be constant but aren't.

Readers: please ignore ctamblyn's haughty dismissal, it is based on ignorance, not expertise. The next time you're watching the Discovery Channel and some guy is peddling the Goldilocks multiverse, turn your BS detectors to max, and be sceptical.

ctamblyn is right. There's a well defined value which changes very little if at all across space and time.

 

[ctamblyn]

No it isn't. It's absolutely directly relevant, along with the other constants that are alleged to be constant but aren't.

That argument of yours is pure poppycock, for the reasons given in the other thread (see here, for starters). For example, the fact that alpha is a running constant doesn't mean the the laws of chemistry will be different on another Earth-like planet elsewhere in the universe (which is the sort of thing some multiverse theories allow, and is the sort of variation which would overcome much of the fine-tuning problem).

Straw man.

You are arguing that because the electric and magnetic fields are better understood as two parts of the electromagnetic field, it is wrong to speak of them as fields in themselves. I am pointing out that since (according to electroweak unification) the electromagnetic field itself emerges from a "grander" one, by your own logic the e/m field is not in fact a field. Similarly, since the left-handed electron and neutrino fields can be combined into a single field (and indeed are), your argument would mean that they are not fields in their own right either. Otherwise, you are guilty of special pleading.

 

[Farsight]

The electron was not discovered until 20 years after Maxwell's death. The wave nature of the electron was not discovered until 40 years after Maxwell's death. The Maxwell is not an authority on the nature of the electron.

IMHO it is a great tragedy that Maxwell died when he did. If he'd been still around, I really do feel physics would be a long way ahead of where it is now.

The electron has been studied in great detail from its discovery in 1897 to the present, and this actual study of the electron is my source of information about the electron. As of June 2013, the electron is known not to be a vortex.

No that isn't known. That's what you've been taught, that's all. Go and do some research of your own instead of relying upon what you've been told. Think for yourself. You know about Thomson and Tait and their "vortex atoms" and their spherical harmonics. You know that in atomic orbitals "electrons exist as standing waves". Read this. Note this:

"The study of knotted vortices was initiated by Lord Kelvin back in 1867 in his quest for an explanation of atoms", adds Dennis, who began to study knotted optical vortices with Professor Sir Michael Berry at Bristol University in 2000. "This work opens a new chapter in that history."

Dennis was one of the organisers of ABB50/25 where Qiu-Hong Hu was talking to Sir Michael Atiyah about what sort of knot the electron was. You know, Sir Michael Atiyah? The TQFT guy? From Edinburgh? Look at the blue torus on the Edinburgh TQFT web page. What is "known" is going to change ben.

The wave nature of matter is beyond doubt.

Yep. So is the particle nature.

A particle like an electron is just a standing wave, ben. What else do you think it is? Some magic point of no dimension? Created by gamma gamma pair production? With a magnetic moment? That goes through both slits at once because we live in a multiverse? Which when annihilated with a positron gives you gamma E=hf photons again?

The electron obeys the quantum-mechanical equations of a point particle. Including high-q^2 elastic scattering. Including diffraction. In quantum mechanics particles have both localizable properties and extended wave properties. The electron does NOT obey the quantum-mechanical equations of a "field whirlpool with nothing in the middle". (There ARE such equations; in QCD, the glueball is an example.) Such things DO diffract (it's quantum mechanics, everything can diffract) but DO NOT undergo high-q^2 elastic scattering.

Oh come off it. The glueball is hypothetical. Gluons are virtual. Electrons are real. Don't dismiss the patent scientific evidence because the equations are those of a point particle.

 

[Farsight]

ctamblyn is right. There's a well defined value which changes very little if at all across space and time.

What value is that edd? The fine structure constant? I tell you, that varies with gravitational potential, and there's gravitational fields everywhere.

That argument of yours is pure poppycock, for the reasons given in the other thread (see here, for starters).

That link offers nothing. Again you're trying to claim that my argument has been countered when it absolutely hasn't.

For example, the fact that alpha is a running constant doesn't mean the laws of chemistry will be different on another Earth-like planet elsewhere in the universe (which is the sort of thing some multiverse theories allow...

No, but conservation of charge means that when α=e²/2εₒhc changes, it isn't because the e changes. It's because εₒ and/or h and/or c changes. It's that simple. But you dismiss it in favour of the multiverse. And say I'm I'm talking poppycock? LOL!

 

[ctamblyn]

Readers: please ignore ctamblyn's haughty dismissal, it is based on ignorance, not expertise.

Readers: since I am not selling anything, e.g. an awful, self-published pamphlet on Amazon, I'm happy for you to make your own minds up. Just be careful how much weight you give the available sources. On the one hand, you have the people who spend their lives studying the subject, produce testable theories and pit them against experiment to see if they work, while on the other hand you have a small group of armchair philosophers who disapprove of their flawed mental image of physics on aesthetic grounds.

 

[edd]

What value is that edd? The fine structure constant? I tell you, that varies with gravitational potential, and there's gravitational fields everywhere.

Equivalence principle?

 

[ctamblyn]

...

That link offers nothing. Again you're trying to claim that my argument has been countered when it absolutely hasn't.

No, but conservation of charge means that when α=e²/2εₒhc changes, it isn't because the e changes. It's because εₒ and/or h and/or c changes. It's that simple. But you dismiss it in favour of the multiverse. And say I'm I'm talking poppycock? LOL!

What you are saying is rooted in your own idiosyncratic views about reality and thus of deeply questionably credibility, and it is also totally irrelevant. Edd already explained it in the other thread and again above, as did I.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

No it isn't. It's absolutely directly relevant, along with the other constants that are alleged to be constant but aren't.

Readers: please ignore ctamblyn's haughty dismissal, it is based on ignorance, not expertise. The next time you're watching the Discovery Channel and some guy is peddling the Goldilocks multiverse, turn your BS detectors to max, and be sceptical.

Again, you are demonstrating that you have not been skeptical and that you are making judgments about a science you have never, ever investigated. The nature of the different physical constants in so-called multiverse theories are wildly different from the remarks and references that you have been giving. Only a cursory review of the relevant material is required to see this.

Straw man. See the electroweak interaction on Wikipedia and note this:

"In particle physics, the electroweak interaction is the unified description of two of the four known fundamental interactions of nature: electromagnetism and the weak interaction. Although these two forces appear very different at everyday low energies, the theory models them as two different aspects of the same force. Above the unification energy, on the order of 100 GeV, they would merge into a single electroweak force".

Your 511keV electron in the lab is not above the 100GeV unification energy. It does not participate in weak interactions by magicking up an 80GeV W boson out of nowhere. And I reiterate: it doesn't have an electric field and a magnetic field, it has an electromagnetic field.

Hardly a straw man, it is just a failure to see how your reasoning actually applies.

You are still dodging the question of how an infinite universe cannot expand.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

I'm the one explaining electromagnetism here. You're the one who misunderstands it and disbelieves what I'm telling you. I refer to Einstein, Maxwell, Minkowski, etc, but you still think I'm making it up!

Einstein, Maxwell, and Minkowski are not responsible for the grotesquely inaccurate "explanation" of electromagnetism you've been promoting throughout this thread, starting with your original post. Your incessant references to Einstein et alii have only made your failures to understand what they wrote abundantly clear.

Readers: please ignore ctamblyn's haughty dismissal, it is based on ignorance, not expertise.

Haughty dismissals of expertise have been a regular feature of this thread, but we've seen them most often in your posts.

That argument of yours is pure poppycock, for the reasons given in the other thread (see here, for starters).

That link offers nothing. Again you're trying to claim that my argument has been countered when it absolutely hasn't.

No, ctamblyn's link does indeed counter your argument.

Here's an example of someone giving a link that absolutely fails to deliver the goods:

Dennis was one of the organisers of ABB50/25 where Qiu-Hong Hu was talking to Sir Michael Atiyah about what sort of knot the electron was. You know, Sir Michael Atiyah? The TQFT guy? From Edinburgh? Look at the blue torus on the Edinburgh TQFT web page. What is "known" is going to change ben.

That blue torus is a pretty picture drawn by some graphics artist who may know nothing about mathematics or physics. That web page just lists the geometry and topology faculty at the University of Edinburgh. It says absolutely nothing about physics.

 

[ctamblyn]

Qiu-Hong Hu? That'd be the guy whose paper Farsight cites as support for his loopy photon model when he isn't using Williamson and van der Mark. That neither model has experimental support doesn't seem to matter.