Superconductivity at room temperature??

[Reality Check]

What I strongly believe is that when you have to invoke paranormal effects to interpret physics, you are not doing physics. Invoking the paranormal has been done since 1927: For example:
1. Wave particle duality: This is the idea that Nature is so paranormal that we cannot understand it, and just have to accept that it is as we perceive it without being able to explain it.
2. The double slit experiment which is explained in terms of the paranormal concept that when looking through which slit the particles are moving, the particles know this, and acts differently from when you are not looking.
3. Tha paranormal concept that our universe is constantly splitting into near similar multiverses.
4. Wheeler's delayed choice experiment which is interpreted in terms of the paranormal concept that what we do at present affects the past.
5. The paranormal concept of a "participatory" universe where waves are moving into a point from infinity.
6. Tha Aharanov-Bohm model according to which an electron can be affected in a paranormal manner by a magnetic field while not moving through the magnetic field.

It seems that you are the one believing in the paranormal when you cite the results from experiments and call them paranormal.

1. Wave particle duality: supported by experiments.
2. The double slit experiment: is an experiment !
3. Multi-world interpretation of QM is an interpretation.
4. Wheeler's delayed choice experiment has been actually done
   Jacques, Vincent; et al. (2007). "Experimental Realization of Wheeler's Delayed-Choice Gedanken Experiment". Science 315: 966-968. arXiv:quant-ph/0610241v1. Bibcode 2007Sci...315..966J. doi:10.1126/science.1136303.
5. That sounds like another QM interpretation (de Broglie–Bohm theory?).
6. Aharanov-Bohm effect: another experimental result
   Osakabe, N; et al. (1986). "Experimental confirmation of Aharonov-Bohm effect using a toroidal magnetic field confined by a superconductor". Physical Review A 34 (2): 815–822. Bibcode 1986PhRvA..34..815O. doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.34.815. PMID 9897338.

You really must get away from the delusion that the universe will act as you want it to act.
Instead do what scientists do - look at how the universe actually acts and accept it (no matter how strange it seems).

FYI: More strange stuff that is experimentally verified:

• Quantum eraser experiment.
• Stern–Gerlach experiment (wow, intrinsic angular momentum, i.e. "spin").
• Elitzur–Vaidman bomb tester.
• All that quantum computing stuff!

 

[johanfprins]

Originally Posted by johanfprins
It seems that we have been arguing past each other since my only argument was that the divergence cannot be caused by the static accumulation of the charge-carriers. If I have been misunderstood because I have been unclear on this, then I do apologise. I hope that my viewpoint is now clear.

Your "only argument"? You have been "misunderstood" and "unclear"?

We must go back to the history of this argument: You claimed that when one switches on a voltage across a circuit containing a superconducting element, there is an initial voltage across the superconductor which accelerates the charge-carriers within the superconductor; and that during this process of acceleration these charge-carriers are being trapped at the one interface, thus leaving positive charges behind at the other interface, so that eventually these accumulated, stationary, trapped charge-carriers totally cancel the voltage across the superconductor.

I have pointed out to you that it is not possible for charge-carriers which can be accelerated to accumulate to a high enough density so that they can totally cancel the applied electric-field while a current keeps on flowing. And that such a cancellation of the applied electric-field is only possible when there is no current flowing through the interfaces to a conductor.

You then came with your iron-copper-iron device and claimed that the change in electric field when passing from the iron into the copper or vice versa is a divergence that can only be explained in terms of Gauss’ law, and which thus requires the accumulation of negative charge-carriers when they flow from the copper into the iron. Since I have not encountered this argument before, it means that you have placed me on a learning curve; and when on a learning curve it is more possible to make mistakes.

Nonetheless, I argued that even if such an accumulation were to be possible, this accumulation can never be high enough to totally cancel an applied electric field. After further thought I came to the conclusion that the charge-carriers cannot accumulate at the interface at all since the increase in energy required for this to occur will be too high. I thus started arguing that the "divergence" you calculated by using a Gauss-volume across the interface cannot be caused by an accumulation of charge-carriers at the interface. The following statement must thus be seen within this context:

Originally Posted by johanfprins i.e:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php...postcount=1843
The divergence of an applied conservative electric field while a current is flowing is ALWAYS ZERO.

I do not deny that the electric flux as calculated changes, but I do not believe that this "divergence" is caused by an accumulation of charge-carriers; and therefore it cannot be explained in terms of Gauss’ law. Thus, my post means that in terms of Gauss’ law “the divergence of an applied conservative electric field while a current is flowing is ALWAYS ZERO”.

Clear as a bell. As of eight pages ago, you were perfectly clear about your belief that the divergence was itself zero. You have now changed this belief because Sol, Zig, and I were patient enough to ignore your insults and walk you five times through the derivation.

I decided to change my approach since it became clear that your thoughts were so ossified that you refused to even try to understand my argument. Thus, I decided to first convince you that the change in electric field is not caused by charge-carriers becoming immobile and being trapped at an interface: Leaving the possibility of “dynamic” accumulation as a dangling carrot in front of your noses.

It's incredibly annoying; you have now erased the memory of this walkthrough, and twisted it into "I knew all along that Gauss's Law applied to this interface accumulation of non-free charges."

This is proof that you went for the carrot. And I succeeded in getting you to acknowledge that the charge-carriers do not become immobile and trapped at the interface (see your post 2128 and posts following this post).

No you didn't, you made it up about two pages ago after one of your previous made-up objections collapsed. Again.

Correct, I deliberately created the impression that “I knew all along that Gauss’ law…..etc.”; and you took the bait.

I will now demonstrate to you that charge-carriers can also not “dynamically” accumulate at such an interface: Assume that one has a copper-element with length L and cross-sectional area A forming an interface with an iron element with length L and cross-sectional area A, and you switch on a voltage V across the copper-iron.

If for some reason the applied electric-field E were to be the same within the copper and the iron (i.e. the voltage across both of them equal to V/L) the currents through them will be different owing to the fact that R_CU is smaller than R_IR. Thus:

I_CU =(V/L)/ R_CU>I_IR=(V/L)/R_IR

This means that more charge-carriers are now flowing into the interface than flowing out of the interface: There will thus be a “dynamic” accumulation of charge-carriers; and this accumulation is actually caused by the fact that there is no “divergence” of the electric-field through the interface:

However, we know that the electric field does change when going through the barrier so that the voltage across the copper is V_CU and across the iron is V_IR where the total voltage V is the sum of these two voltages. In this case one has that:

I_CU =V_CU/ R_CU=I_IR=V_IR/R_IR

This means that the same amount of charge-carriers are flowing into the interface and out of the interface: There will thus be NO “dynamic” accumulation of charge-carriers; and this absence of charge-carrier accumulation is responsible for the change in electric-field through the interface: The latter change in electric field can thus not be a divergence caused by Gauss’ law; which requires an accumulation of charge-carriers as you all have consistently claimed on this thread: It is caused by just the opposite; namely the requirement that there can be no accumulation of charge-carriers within the interface.

 

[sol invictus]

There will thus be NO “dynamic” accumulation of charge-carriers; and this absence of charge-carrier accumulation is responsible for the change in electric-field through the interface

And.... Johan loops back to denying Gauss' law again. What fun.

 

[johanfprins]

Well...

Just last month there was an extreme thunderstorm here in Toronto with high winds and intense rain. A huge maple tree right in front of my house cracked in half and fell directly into the street. It formed a perfectly angled, somewhat porous damn across the entire street. On either side of the tree, water quickly began to accumlate and pretty soon there were two "lakes" on each side of the tree even though water was also flowing through the gaps between the tree and the road. Parked cars were nearly floated.

Long story short: water accumulated at a boundary through which it was flowing. I think I can confidently say that none of the water molecules in that accumulation were "bound" or "stationary". Impossible in the Prinsverse?

So you are claiming that the water accumulated by flowing at the same volume rate into and out of the boundary? WOW!!! Is this the D'rokverse? Please stop making me LOL.

 

[johanfprins]

Not at all. Who says they're permanent?

See my post 2143.

It's for the same reason that "density of cars" and "rate of cars" are different things. It's for the same reason that "rate of cars in " is not always identical to "rate of cars out". Because that's the way the conservation laws work.

Exactly! And Ohm's law mandates that the rate of charge carriers into the boundary must be equal to the rate of charge-carriers out of the boundary (see my post 2143). Thus no accumulation! Right?

 

[D'rok]

So you are claiming that the water accumulated by flowing at the same volume rate into and out of the boundary? WOW!!! Is this the D'rokverse? Please stop making me LOL.

The flow rate was constant. The water accumulated because it met resistance at the boundary. Simple. Similar to rapids in a narrow, rocky section of a river. Similar, I gather, to charge-carrying electrons at the boundary of materials with different resistivity.

 

[johanfprins]

All of the conservation laws you've tried to apply to electrons, Johan, apply to this water,

Nope! they do not: The charge-carriers flow past stationary opposite charges: Although polarisable, the water molecules are not charged and do not move through opposite charges.

 

[johanfprins]

No one ever said there were stationary charge carriers at the interface. We said there was excess charge density at the interface.

You have claimed that thre are excess charge-carriers within the interface when the charge-carriers flow into the interface. This is nonsense! If you want accumulated charge there, you must find it from somewhere else. It cannot be the charge-carriers themselves that accumulate within the surface.

Gauss's Law doesn't care how fast charge is moving; it doesn't care which charge is which. It cares about the density.

No problem with that: Only problem I have is that you claim that the charge carriers themselves accumulate within the interface while the same current I is flowing into and out of the interface. This is not possible. If you had a current flowing into and out of a volume this might be in principle possible: But it will still be impossible, since opposite charges always keep the energy as low as possible by cancelling (screening) each other. Thus there is no incentive for negative charges to accumulate, even within a volume, so that they will be more than the positive charges (stationary ions) within such a volume.

 

[D'rok]

You have claimed that thre are excess charge-carriers within the interface when the charge-carriers flow into the interface.

No one has claimed that. This nonsense about "excess" charge carriers appears to simply be your inability to understand the word "density".

 

[ben m]

Exactly! And Ohm's law mandates that the rate of charge carriers into the boundary must be equal to the rate of charge-carriers out of the boundary (see my post 2143). Thus no accumulation! Right?

Nope! Sometimes the Brooklyn Bridge has 10 cars/s coming in and 10 cars/s coming out and 100 cars present (and moving) in the middle. Sometimes the Brooklyn Bridge has 10 cars/s coming in and 10 cars/s coming out and 200 cars present (and moving) in the middle.

Sometimes a spot on the St. Lawrence River has 100 gal/s moving in and 100 gal/s moving out, and is 8 feet deep. Sometimes a spot on the St. Lawrence River has 100 gal/s moving in and 100 gal/s moving out, and is 4 feet deep.

To get from one state to the other---i.e. to add 100 "extra" cars to the bridge, to add 4 "extra" ft of water to a spot---you need to have had input > output at some point in the past. If the input is equal to the output, it means the state isn't changing any more. This isn't a difficult point.

All totally routine. In the Fe-Cu thing, we expect that transient input != output at the boundary, and we see the resulting charge accumulation because it alters the fields.

 

[ben m]

If you had a current flowing into and out of a volume this might be in principle possible: But it will still be impossible, since opposite charges always keep the energy as low as possible by cancelling (screening) each other. Thus there is no incentive for negative charges to accumulate, even within a volume, so that they will be more than the positive charges (stationary ions) within such a volume.

I agree that the charges are repelling each other. Remember, Johan, that one of the very first things I said about this charge sheet was that it was a stable equilibrium. I said that to answer exactly this question, because it's a fair and sensible question and I thought you would ask it.

(I didn't anticipate that you'd need a 5-page detour through denying vector calculus, through denying Gauss's Law and denying that you'd denied Gauss's Law, etc.)

The presence of this overdensity of charge is a stable equilibrium, and it's stable against the self-repulsion that would blow it up in the absence of other fields and current. What can I say? Work it out. Try displacing some of this charge (remember, to get rid of it you need to move current through the copper or the iron) and see whether the resulting fields encourage further dissipation, or whether the resulting fields act to restore the overdensity.

 

[johanfprins]

"Trapped"? "Immobilised"? Is water trapped or immobilized in a lake that has non-zero but equal inflow and outflow?

We are not talking about a lake which has a water level that can increase in height. Water flowing through a pipe or charge-carriers flowing through a material do not have this extra space to accumulate in. So please stop deliberately confusing this thread with your "lake" arguments. Surely, even you must have more intelligence than this.

The accumulated charge will dissipate if, for instance, you turn off the current, just as it accumulated when you turned it on. So no, I wouldn't say it's trapped. It just hit a point of greater resistance, quite like D'rok's tree, and accumulated there.

In a lake and D'rok's tree you have extra space (height) to accumulate in. That is why on one side of the tree the water is higher than on the other side. But within a pipe where you do not have extra space to accumulate in, you cannot have accumulation at any surface.

Don't be stupid - of course they can. Don't they have lakes or dams or sinks or bathtubs in South Africa?

Yes we have but we do not have lakes, dams, sinks or bathtubs within pipes or conductors.

 

[D'rok]

In a lake and D'rok's tree you have extra space (height) to accumulate in. That is why on one side of the tree the water is higher than on the other side.

You misread my story. The lake was on both sides of the tree. It was not a perfect damn, it was a porous one.

 

[johanfprins]

None of this makes your position appear reasonable. All of it makes you look more stubborn and foolish.

I believe in the right of the individual to have another opinion than I have. You obviously do not. In this case your opinion is wrong: Why do you not consider this possibility, or do you never consider the possibility that you might be wrong? It will not surprise me.

Consider, Johan, that you may be mistaken.

I do this every day. It is mandatory for a scientist to do this every day and also to consider the possibility that all the physics, we at present believe in, might be flawed.

Consider, just for a moment, that you may not be Galileo fighting the Catholic church.

I am not Galileo: But unfortunately the people in control of physics have become just like the Vatican in the time of Galileo. I am constantly gathering evidence, also from other scientists, that this is the case; and I hope one day, before I die, to lay this evidence before IUPAP.

 

[dasmiller]

We are not talking about a lake which has a water level that can increase in height. Water flowing through a pipe or charge-carriers flowing through a material do not have this extra space to accumulate in.

If you're constraining the analogy to apply only to systems of rigid pipes, then what is the analog for your case in which a charge separation was created by bringing a electric charge up to a lump of metal? I'd have thought that the analogous case would have been to simply tilt an open container of water, but if the water is contained in rigid pipes, I don't see how you'd get the analog.

ETA:

I believe in the right of the individual to have another opinion than I have. You obviously do not.

Nothing that anyone has said here (including D'rok) has ever questioned your right to have a differing opinion.

 

[johanfprins]

Originally Posted by johanfprins
I never stated that it's the entire discipline of physics that has been getting it all wrong for the last 80 years.
Oh really?


Quote:
The Physics Delusion
How the decline in scientific objectivity has transformed physics into a dogmatic, fundamentalist, organised-religion.


http://www.cathodixx.com/books.asp

Why do you always have to exaggerate? Oh yes you are a lawyer: I nearly forgot. This is obviously not the same as saying that the enitire discipline of physics has been getting it wrong for the last 80 years It only says that we have come to a stage where alternative ideas and models to accepted holy dogma are not tolerated by the "saints" who are in control of physics.

 

[D'rok]

I believe in the right of the individual to have another opinion than I have. You obviously do not.

Lemme get this straight. I am sure you are wrong; therefore, I do not believe in your right to have an opinion. You are sure I am wrong; therefore, you believe in my right to have an opinion.

Get a grip, Johan.

You are free to believe in whatever nonsense your little heart desires. You are not free to not have your nonsense challenged. That is because I (and everyone else on this forum) enjoy free speech am free to challenge you.

I believe in your right to believe in whatever you want. Is that clear enough?

Now please try to focus on giving evidence for your belief. Everything you have done so far has been a failure to do so.

In this case your opinion is wrong: Why do you not consider this possibility, or do you never consider the possibility that you might be wrong? It will not surprise me.

I could be wrong and you could be right. It's a question of probabilities. The fact that you appear paranoid and irrational does not help. It simply reinforces the probability that physics is right and you are wrong rather than the other way around.

I do this every day. It is mandatory for a scientist to do this every day and also to consider the possibility that all the physics, we at present believe in, might be flawed. I am not Galileo: But unfortunately the people in control of physics have become just like the Vatican in the time of Galileo. I am constantly gathering evidence, also from other scientists, that this is the case; and I hope one day, before I die, to lay this evidence before IUPAP.

There you go again. Just few posts ago, you said this:

I never stated that it's the entire discipline of physics that has been getting it all wrong for the last 80 years.

Yet you have said this and repeatedly. And you wonder why you aren't taken seriously?

 

[D'rok]

Why do you always have to exaggerate? Oh yes you are a lawyer: I nearly forgot. This is obviously not the same as saying that the enitire discipline of physics has been getting it wrong for the last 80 years It only says that we have come to a stage where alternative ideas and models to accepted holy dogma are not tolerated by the "saints" who are in control of physics.

Get a grip Johan. I am simply quoting your own words. You even set a specifc year - 1927 - for when it all started going wrong.

Is this your memory issues again? Can you seriously not remember making these claims?

 

[johanfprins]

That might be the picture you have in your head, but it's not the one the rest of us have, and it's obviously wrong. I've already explained that to you. For one thing, if charge carriers in conductors were incompressible, it would be impossible to charge a capacitor.

This is of course utter nonsense: A capacitor is charged by pumping charge from one plate to the other and in this case the current does not flow through the plate that it is pumped into: I have said from the start that charge can only accumulate within an interface if a current cannot flow through such an interface. If the current could have flowed through the plate and the space between the plates into the other plate, the capacitor plates will not charge" i.e. there will be no charge accumulation on the surfaces of the capacitors.

The lake example is simply to illustrate that your assertions about the mathematics are manifestly false.

Nope! It is NOT: As I have explained time and again, the water level of the lake can rise since there is extra space above the water of the lake. There is no such extra space within a conductor.

Go back to ben's series of examples that interpolate between Cu-Fe-Cu and Cu-nothing-Cu (i.e. a capacitor). In the limiting case of the vacuum capacitor, the current in the middle (which is vacuum) is obviously always zero.

Correct. I have never denied this.

And yet in that case, when the voltage is first switched on, the current in the copper is quite high at first. That by itself contradicts your assertion that the current must be the same everywhere in the circuit.

This is not a closed ohmic circuit through which a current keeps on flowing after switching on the voltage; which is the case we are discussing.

Now think (if you can) about the current in the cases where there's a material with non-infinite but very high resistance sandwiched in between the pieces of copper. Do you really think the transient currents must be the same in the copper and in that material?

When switching on the voltage, the electric-field will initially, obviously be the same within the whole sandwich, and this will cause different accelerations, so that under these condtions you will have Coulombic electrical interactions (backpressure) between the charge-carriers within the elements: Whether this will cause an accumulation of charge within the interface is a moot question; and it is probably impossible: If it does cause this, I suspect that the accumulation will be minor and of very short duration.

This phase will quickly settle down to a state where the flow into and out of an interface will be the same: In order to have this occurring, there can be no accumulation of charge carriers within any of the interfaces.

then during the transient stage Do you really think it's so completely different from a capacitor with vacuum in the middle?

Yes it is totally different. Since when the charge-carriers flow through the interface, the electric-field on both sides of the interface adjusts to prevent the accumulation of charge-carriers within the interface. This does not happen for capacitor plates. In the latter case, the electric-field becomes trapped between the capacitor plates and the current stops. Only in this case can the plates reamin oppositely charged.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

quantifying Prins's Law

When people propose a new law of physics, they should give a quantitative description of the law so we can work out its consequences and devise experimental tests of the proposed law. That's especially important when the proposed law contradicts the accepted laws of physics that are taught even to freshman, as in the case of several laws that have been proposed by Dr Prins.

[size=+1]Prins's Law[/size]

For the past several pages, Dr Prins has been arguing that charge cannot accumulate while current is flowing. Let us refer to that as Prins's Law.

Here are several statements of Prins's Law:

Not while a current is flowing, since as I have proved that while a current I is flowing, it must be the same along the whole circuit and there can then not be an accuimulation of charge at any interface between two different elements within the circuit.....You would have been correct if there were not a current flowing. But there is a current flowing so that charge-accumulation cannot occur.

In a metal, charge can only accumulate at interfaces when an electric-field is applied without injecting charge-carriers at the same time: i.e when there is no current flowing through the metal.

I have not denied the validity of Gauss' law when there is an accumulation of charge. I just claim that it does not apply when there is not an accumulation of charge.

I have pointed out to you that it is not possible for charge-carriers which can be accelerated to accumulate to a high enough density so that they can totally cancel the applied electric-field while a current keeps on flowing. And that such a cancellation of the applied electric-field is only possible when there is no current flowing through the interfaces to a conductor.

From the above statements, Dr Prins appears to accept the idea that charge can accumulate when no current is flowing, but cannot accumulate when current is flowing. In my attempts to formulate a quantitative statement of Dr Prins's Law, I have come up with the following questions.

• We know that charge can accumulate^*. If Prins's Law is correct, then charge can accumulate only when no current is flowing. If no current is flowing, then there does not appear to be any source of the accumulating charge. Huh?
• As described by Dr Prins, there seems to be a discontinuity between the laws of physics that hold when a current is flowing and the laws that hold when no current is flowing: No charge can accumulate when 100 amperes are flowing through a circuit; no charge can accumulate when 1 ampere is flowing through a circuit; no charge can accumulate when 1 picoampere is flowing through a circuit; but there is no apparent limit on the charge that can accumulate when 0 amperes is flowing. Huh?

I was hopeful that these (and other questions) would be answered by Dr Prins in response to Myriad's query concerning Faraday cages:

I tried asking this before, but I was ignored. I still think it might be a good way to establish some basics, so I'll try again.

Johan, you're familiar with what Faraday cages do, and how they work, correct?

So my question is, if you run a small DC current through a Faraday cage, does it stop functioning as a Faraday cage? (Let's say, for example, that the Faraday cage is cubic, and ungrounded, and the current is applied from one corner of the cube to the extreme opposite corner.)

If your claim that no local accumulation of charge can occur where a current is flowing is correct, then a Faraday cage, which normally cancels out externally applied electric fields by the local relocation and accumulation of charge within the conductive cage to offset the external field, should stop working, and no longer shield the inside from external electric fields, when the DC current through the cage is turned on. Do you predict that's what would happen, in an actual test?

Unfortunately, Dr Prins found that question to be confusing and, upon receiving further clarification, does not know how to answer it.

Perhaps one of the less confused participants in this thread can explain how Dr Prins might hope to answer Myriad's question and mine.



[size=-2]Footnotes

^*The idea that charges can accumulate is supported by experiments such as the following, which seems to work best indoors when the relative humidity is low: After inflating a sausage-shaped rubber balloon, rubbing it against my blue jeans, and placing the balloon vertically against a wall, the balloon sticks to the wall. For a while, anyway.

According to conventional physics, which Dr Prins often rejects, this phenomenon has something to do with an accumulation of charge. Eventually, however, the balloon is observed to fall down, which is usually explained by leakage of charge.

According to Prins's law, running a current through the balloon would prevent the accumulation of charge that allows it to stick to the wall. Does that work in reverse? That is, would running a picoampere of current through the balloon make leakage of charge impossible? If so, then attaching metalized balloons to walls for indefinite periods might become a commercially significant application of Prins's Law.[/size]