Contents
Three - ANOTHER VIEW OF THE VACUUM
The noblest employment of the mind of man,
is the study of the works of his creator.
AkhenatonSimple Algebraic Notation Back
A review of simple algebraic notation follows.
1. Two symbols or letters with a plus sign between them are meant to be added together.
2. A symbol or letter followed by a minus sign and another symbol or number indicates that the second is to be subtracted from the first.
3. Two or more symbols or numbers adjacent to one another mean that each must be muliplied by the others.
4. A slash between two means that the first is divided by the second (for instance, miles per hour, our measure of speed, is often abbreviated m/h, meaning miles divided by hours).
5. A whole number or fraction above and behind a symbol or letter is called an "exponent" and means that the symbol or letter is to be multiplied by itself as many times as the exponent indicates (for example, "aaa" would be indicated as "a3" or "xxxxx" would be indicated as x5).
6. When a letter or symbol with an exponent is multiplied by the same letter or symbol with an exponent, the exponents are added (for example, x2x3 = x5).
7. When a letter or symbol with an exponent is divided by the same letter or symbol with its own exponent, the exponent of the latter is subtracted from the exponent of the former (for example, x7/x4 = x3).
Dimensional analysis is a ten dollar term for analyzing by using simple terms for dimensions. In this little book, I am using time as "t", mass as "m", primal mass as "M", and distance as "d". This means that an area would be "dd", a volume would be "ddd", velocity would be d/t, acceleration would be d/tt, and so on. Actual numbers or constants are not used in dimensional analysis. It is merely a way to analyze things using the basics of dimensions.
For instance, speed is measured in miles per hour, feet per second, or kilometers per hour. Miles, feet, and kilometers are all units of distance, "d". Seconds and hours are all units of time, "t". So dimensionally, speed is d/t.
A vector is something with a direction and a magnitude. It can also have a location in some instances. For instance, when two children are playing on a see-saw (teeter-totter), one might weigh 60 pounds and the other might weigh 72 pounds. The 60 pounder would be the cause of a vector of 60 pounds magnitude, in this case a force, with a direction of down and a location at one end of the see-saw. The 72 pounder would be the cause of a vector of 72 pounds magnitude, with a direction of down and a location at the other end of the see-saw. Vectors can be added and subtracted directly from one another as long as they are along the same line. In a sense, they can be added and subtracted from one another when both are operating on the same point. In this case, they form a resultant which is their final effect upon the point at which they converge.
Vectors I - Vectors II
For a long time, we have been thinking of a universe that is made of nothing (empty space) and particles that form things that have various appearances of solidity. A bit more recently, we began to realize that what we call "things" are not really solid (not even black holes), and that the "particles" of which they are composed are in constant motion with vast spaces between them, so that each thing, were we to perceive it without its "shield" of light waves, would seem quite ethereal, more so even than a fog. And these particles may not really be particles.
The "particles" of which things are made, at one level, are what we call atoms, little ethereal constructions of what we call protons, neutrons, and electrons. Atoms come in all sizes and join in many ways to form what we call things. When joined, we call this joining a molecule. You, the chair you are sitting on, the floor you stand on, the air you breathe, the water you drink, the food you eat, and this book, all are made of molecules which are conjoined atoms.
Each atom has what is called a nucleus which is made of some relatively "close-packed" protons and neutrons. A proton has what we call a positive electric charge. An electron has what we call a negative electric charge. According to classical physics, one of each combined to make a neutron, makes the neutron neutral in charge, which is where it gets its name. So, these three particles, the proton, the electron, and the neutron make an atom, and two of these particles, the neutron and the proton, make up an atomic nucleus. But since each neutron is really one each of the two other constituent particles, there are really only two particles involved: the proton and the electron.
Each atom also has one or more "orbiting" electrons, one for each "free" proton in the atomic nucleus. "Orbiting" is given quotation marks because no one really knows the path or paths the electrons follow as they move about the nucleus. "Free" is given quotation marks because we are speaking of protons that are not married to electrons to form a neutron. It might be best to think of a neutron as a marriage between a proton and an electron, and a proton in the nucleus as having an electron in "orbit" that is his girlfriend. The boyfriend proton and the girlfriend electron are not married because the girlfriend electron can be a girlfriend to any other proton in the nucleus or to a proton in another nucleus if she wishes. In fact, she might be a girlfriend to all of the protons in the nucleus at once (if there is more than one), along with her sisters, if any, which are also "orbiting."
In current day physics, the proton is made of two up quarks and one down quark, while the neutron is made of two down quarks and one up quark. These conclusions were found by blasting two stable "particles" (the proton and the neutron) into small "pieces" of extremely short-lived "particles" called "quarks." To me, the conclusions reached in this fashion are fully as reasonable as stuffing a person with dynamite, exploding the dynamite, and then stating that he or she is made of "up" parts (those hurled skyward) and "down" parts (those hurled earthward). Since each quark can be colored either red, green, or blue (or red, yellow, or blue - according to who is talking), this can be analogous to having each up or down part of our exploded person divided into rare, medium, or well done.
However, not too long ago, a high-energy electron beam was first sent into the nucleus of a hydrogen atom (a proton) and quarks appeared to exist as constituent point-like particles of the proton. This experiment made a little more sense, and has led to our theory on the nature of quarks, and the constitution of protons and neutrons (see Book Six of this series).
Particles that are smaller than atoms, are called "subatomic" particles. If we do not consider the neutrino (which is not really a particle), there are only two relatively stable subatomic particles, the proton and the electron. To date, no one has been aware of any of these disappearing or changing into another type of particle under "normal" conditions. However, there have been many discoveries of transitory subatomic particles which last for an instant and are gone. The neutron is an intermediate category. It usually remains stable while part of a nucleus, but a divorce can occur, and the partner proton and electron can go their separate ways. Then the neutron is no more.
Molecules are marriages of atoms and can also break up to form different things. Water, for instance, can break up into hydrogen and oxygen. Table salt can break up to form sodium and chlorine. But atoms seldom break up. Men have made atomic bombs. The reactions in these powerful devices consist of atoms breaking up. This is often called transmutation of the elements.
Through an electron microscope, an atom looks much like a little cloud, possibly because the subatomic particles are moving so rapidly, and possibly because they do not look like solid objects either.
The electron is now considered to be a point-like particle without dimension or structure, and with only a small fraction of the proton's mass. It has been easier to study because it moves from atom to atom or molecule to molecule with ease. An electric current is a good example of this. It takes less energy to accelerate the electron in a particle accelerator. And the electron is on the outside of any atom or molecule whereas the protons are part of the atomic nuclei. Today, the electron is sometimes thought of as "condensed energy" or a particle with some strange characteristics.
The electron seems to spin. And the spin seems to have angular momentum. And when the angular momentum should be reduced (when the electron is disturbed), it remains as it was. Every electron apparently has the same mass, size, spin direction, and angular momentum as every other electron. And every electron has innate angular momentum that will not be diminished.
Why, we ask, does angular momentum remain constant even after it has supposedly been disturbed? Why does every electron have the same spin direction and the same angular momentum? Frankly, the only other things we know that have such a quality are whirlpools, all in the same depth of water, with the water passing through holes of the same size. This would imply that an electron is actually a vortex like the whirlpool that forms when you drain bathwater. However, this has been considered improbable because:
1. Matter is considered particulate, solid, while the space around it is empty. If we have a vortex, the implication is that the center of the vortex is empty and the space around it is full.
2. A vortex implies an inward flow of a fluid medium, and that would mean a place for the medium to flow. There does not seem to be such a place.
In spite of these objections, let us examine the possibility that electrons are vortices.
In the Philosophical Magazine, series 5, December, 1887, an account of an experiment appeared. It had been performed by Albert Abraham Michelson and Edward William Morley. These men had been attempting to prove the existence of ether, the theoretical medium for waves of electromagnetic radiation.
Electromagnetic radiation is the larger category of which light, radio, x-rays, and the like are subcategories. Since this radiation moves through space as something similar to what most scientists think of as waves, it was thought that space had ether in it. Just as air is the means of transmitting sound, it was thought that ether was the means of transmitting electromagnetic radiation.
The earth rotates about a 1,000 miles per hour at the equator, moves about 67,000 miles per hour around the sun, and the sun moves even faster about the galactic center. It was thought that this fast motion of the earth in an ether that was stationary, would cause light to have different velocities between one direction and another when the two directions were ninety degrees apart. This was a logical assumption because ether was not likely to be found in profusion in a solid mass like the earth, and it should be stationary, or nearly so (shouldn't it?). So the experiment was performed based upon the foregoing assumptions.
The result was, according to most current-day texts, a bust in the sense that very little difference between the two velocities was found. And from this conclusion, Einstein's theory of relativity was formulated. But let us go back a bit.
The assumption that the ether would be basically stationary is not necessarily correct. If subatomic particles are vortices, then large amounts of them together, like those that form our planet, would be sucking in the ether in vast quantities. Any massive body would pull it in with a high velocity. Furthermore, the velocities of the earth spinning and moving about the sun and the galaxy could be minor if the ether near the earth moved with the earth. So the ether might not be stationary at all. In fact, it might be so different that it would be best to give it a new name.
Since the word "ether" connotes the old qualities, I am coining the word "nether" to take its place. Nether will be the new hypothetical medium through which electromagnetic radiation moves. This is also the word the ancient Greeks used as a name for the underlying substance, portrayed in mythical form. It could also be a contraction of the the words "not ether."
Even though nether might be moving in great quantities into the earth, there should have been some variation in the light velocities in the Michelson-Morley experiment. And, in fact, there was some variation. However, it was so slight that it was considered insignificant and was subsequently suppressed either by intent or by accident. This slight variation is in keeping with the theory of nether moving into the earth.
An interesting footnote to all this is that Einstein, when looking for the unified field theory, used tensor analysis to postulate light moving within the fabric of space. The fabric of space is merely another way of saying nether. Tensor analysis is basically an advanced form of vector analysis with some structural engineering thrown in. The tensor equations seemed to describe the motion of light. It would appear that Einstein had some inkling of a medium through which light could travel, implying that light is traveling as a unique waveform.
Today, we know about black holes which are composed of "particles" of matter compressed to the point that they nearly touch each other. Light cannot escape from a black hole. If nether were flowing into matter this dense, it would come in at a velocity in excess of lightspeed and light would definitely not escape.
Another interesting fact is that light travels most quickly in space devoid of any matter whatsoever. Sound travels most quickly in very dense matter. Matter is the medium of sound. Perhaps space or nether is the medium of light.
It is interesting that the real doers, the people who work with radio and other forms of electromagnetic radiation, still use the term "ether" in their work and use it as if it had always been there even though the theoreticians have declared that it is not there. Remember that, at one time, the bumble bee could not possibly fly and there was a well-known substance called phlogiston that every flammable substance contained which allowed it to burn.
Protons and electrons do not act like normal particles and from now on I am referring to them as "vorticles", things that act like both particles and vortices. In high speed accelerators, vorticles collide and act like vortices. Yet, under other circumstances, they act like we believe particles should act.
When electrons move through a wire they generate a "flux field" around the wire that is strongest when close to the wire, and which lessens with the distance away from the wire. The flux field has polarity so that it can generate electric current in a nearby wire. This is the principle behind radio and television. It is the expanding flux field of the antenna for the sending station, moving outward like a ripple on a pond, that causes current in your receiving antenna.
Because early pioneers in electricity did not understand its nature very well (perhaps we still don't), they gave the direction of the current in the wire as the opposite of the electron flow. It is still debated, to date, whether it is actually electron flow that generates electricity as opposed to "hole" flow (the "holes" are where electrons must go in their orbit around an atomic nucleus). However, the answer may be a little of both. The electrons might be flowing one way which makes the holes seem to flow the other way. Obviously, electrons flow through the wire because the definition of an ampere of electricity proves it. The ampere is a measure of electric current and is defined by the number of electrons which move within a given length of time, and this movement is measured by counting them as they act (the current which on passing through a silver nitrate solution will deposit silver at a rate of .001118 gram per second).
Engineers define the polarity (direction) of flux lines by something called the right-hand screw law. They say the direction of current flow through a wire is analogous to the direction that a right hand screw moves and the flux polarity is analogous to the direction the screw is turning. An electrician calls it the right hand rule. When the thumb of the right fist is extended to represent the direction of current, the fingers are curled in the direction of the flux. Since current was originally designated in a direction that has been found opposite to electron flow, electron flow uses the left hand rule. These rules are merely abitrary conventions because no one really knew which direction flux went or current flowed when the rules were assigned.
The flux field is the result of electron spin. As the electrons move along the wire, they all point in the same direction and thus their collective spins cause the flux field. But it has not been known why the electrons point in the same direction as they move. If the electron is a vortex, its "mouth" would tend to point in the direction it is moving because that would be the direction that would require the least energy for the vortex to collect the nether. The movement of the nether would create the flux field which would cause electrons in nearby wires to all point in the direction where their incoming nether would best interact (interact with the least energy needed).
When direct current (current moving in one direction only) moves through a wire that is bent to form a helix (spiral), it forms an electromagnet. This is because the flux is directed one way inside the helix and another way outside the helix. If the flux is actually a flow around the wires from nether moving inward, there would have to be nearly the same amount of nether moving inside the helix as outside. This would mean that the nether inside would be compressed much more than that outside, and it is true that pressure exists inside. High intensity electromagnets have to be used with only extremely short bursts of current because a long burst will cause them to explode. The reason the short bursts work is: the inertia of the material of which they are made will prevent them from exploding as long as the bursts are short enough and not resonating with the material itself.
Think of the helix as a pipe in which the nether flows downward, while outside it flows upward. The same nether must flow downward that flows upward because the wire that is the helix is generating a "flux field" that is the same all the way around it. Outside the pipe is an infinity of space. Inside the pipe is only a little space. So the nether must be compressed inside the pipe.
We can now say that if the nether exists, it must have two qualities. First, it has inertia or it would not form a whirlpool because whirlpools are caused from conservation of momentum and momentum implies a type of mass. Mass is almost synonymous with inertia. Second, it prefers to be at equal pressure throughout. This is true because it causes high-intensity magnets to explode.
With this in mind, we might think of a new definition for mass. The mass of a vorticle (electron or proton) might be the amount of nether that moves into it in a particular length of time. Thus, an electron would have only a small amount of nether moving into it in a second's time while a proton would have many times more nether moving into it in a second's time.
You may have played with bar magnets as child. If you did, you know that they have a "north pole" and a "south pole." The poles are the ends of the magnet. A north pole will attract a south pole but will repel another north pole. And a south pole will repel another south pole. It is like the ends of the magnets are heterosexual. The north pole might be male and south pole female. Male and female attract strongly. Male and male repel. Female and female repel. If this analogy upsets anyone, it was not meant to.
If there is a nether, this behavior is easily explained. When a north pole and a south pole are joined, there is less compression of the nether. The two joined ends no longer compress nether as they did when they were apart. In fact, they are no longer ends, but instead, are in the middle of a longer magnet.
When like poles are pushed together, the nether is increasingly compressed the closer together that they are pushed. So they try to stay apart.
Magnets I - Magnets II It is a common misconception that the flux lines show a direction of flow. Actually, the flux lines only show a contributing vector to the resultant flow direction and indicate the nether density by their spacing. The more closely they are spaced, the greater the nether density. This will be covered in more detail later.
When electricity moves along a wire, it does so by means of something called electromotive force which is just a push that makes electrons move along the wire. This push can be furnished by means of a battery, a generator, or an alternator. The battery uses chemistry to push electrons at one terminal and pull them at the other. The generator and the alternator use magnetic fields to push the electrons.
The principle behind the generator is that of moving a wire through a magnetic field. If we view the wire from one end as it resides in a magnetic field created by a north pole above and south pole below, and if we move the wire from right to left, electrons will be pushed along the wire away from us. This is because the nether flowing from one pole to the other is compressed and bent by the wire on the left side and decompressed on the right side. The compressing and bending means that the nether Mass flow is accelerated on that side, and this causes the vortex that is an electron to wish to make the accelerated side align with the nether flow into the electron. This makes the electron orient its "mouth" away from you and the easiest way for the mouth to bring in nether is by moving in the direction the mouth is pointed. So the electron is oriented by the magnetic field and pulled along by its mouth. The current (energy) generated in this fashion is the basis for transmission of electricity through wires and is a direct result of the mechanical energy used to make the wires move.
Wire I - Wire II And if there is no wire and we simply "shoot" an electron into a magnetic field, the same effect is present. The electron is oriented by the magnetic field and then moves the way it is pulled by its mouth. This causes the electron to follow a curved path. When it is thrown into a magnetic field that has a north magnetic pole on top and south magnetic pole on the bottom, the electron curves to the right.
The following is taken largely from an article in Scientific American called "Building World-Record Magnets" by Greg Boebinger, Al Passner, and Joze Bevk. Their article is well written and some of their words are included here with as little change as possible (see italics). Since very little of their relatively long article can be shown here, the reader is encouraged to read it in its entirety.
The Greeks and the Romans are credited with the first known awareness of magnetism over 2,000 years ago. In 1821, Ampere established the fact that magnetism is caused by electrical charges in motion, and that electrical current in a wire produces an electromagnetic "field." By 1925, Ampere and Faraday had separately investigated the mechanical forces experienced by current-carrying wires in a magnetic field.
No one has established that an electron is actually spinning; the prosaic terminology acknowledges that if the electron were a small sphere of negative electrical charge, it would have to rotate to generate its observed magnetic field.
Although all materials contain about 10 to the 24th power electrons per cubic centimeter, in most materials the electron spins point in random directions and the magnetic fields therefore cancel one another. In permanent magnets, on the other hand, the electron spins are aligned - typically 1 to 10 percent of them - within small regions called magnetic domains. Each domain acts as a single microscopic magnet, established by the fields of many individual electrons.
[The idea of the electron as a small sphere or that it must be spinning is contrary to my understanding but normal for contemporary physics at this point.]
In effect, permanent magnets have established magnetic domains which mimic a coil of wire through which a current flows. Or, perhaps it is better to say it the other way around since we came up with coils of wires and nature came up with magnetic domains. When electrons align themselves to establish these domains, they reinforce one another so that they maintain their alignment and the magnetic domain remains "permanent." I placed permanent in quotes because certain actions can cause the alignments to once more become random (such as demagnetizing the heads of a tape recorder).
Not only do moving electrons give rise to magnetic fields, but magnetic fields exert forces on moving electrical charges. In most samples we study, these are the electrons, which in metals move about freely and in insulators travel in confined orbits centered on a given atomic nucleus. Magnetic fields interact with both these types of orbital electron motion. Moreover, an external magnetic field causes the spins of electrons to align. Thus, magnetic fields interact with the electrons' orbital motion and spin, in a material under study.
Permanent magnets can be created by placing a ferromagnetic material in a strong magnetic field - just as the opposite can occur when permanent magnets are placed in a strong alternating magnetic field. Actually, even a weak magnetic field such as the earth's can be used to create a permanent magnet if the ferromagnetic material is tapped with a hammer to jar its electrons into the correct alignment.
Superconductivity is the name for what happens when electricity (electrons) move through a material unimpeded by electrical resistance. Superconductivity results from the pairing of electrons with spins aligned in opposite directions. These pairs of electrons, held together by a certain binding energy, travel throughout the superconductor without encountering resistance. A sufficiently high magnetic field can inject enough energy to sever this binding, destroying the superconductivity.
[The foregoing theory for superconductivity is an older theory to which we do not subscribe. It is being replaced by newer theories.]
The more intense the applied magnetic field, the more energetic is the probing of electronic behavior.
The unit of the magnetic field is the gauss, and as a benchmark, the strength of the earth's magnetic field is about one-half gauss.
[The earth's magnetic field varies so that half a gauss is very approximate.]
Iron-based refrigerator magnets, of the kind that hold recipes, are a few hundred gauss. The most powerful permanent magnets... have fields of 3,000 or 4,000 gauss, and several of them could easily lift the entire refrigerator."
"Although the future will surely bring improvements in permanent magnets, their ultimate strength is probably limited to around 30,000 gauss, simply because there is a limit to the density of electrons whose spins can be aligned... Thus, the most intense fields are produced by electromagnets [coils of wire] whose magnetism is a simple consequence of moving charges [electrons]."
In our laboratory we have achieved magnetic fields of 730,000 gauss... Generating fields of this intensity...requires an electric current pulse ...that exceeds albeit momentarily, the amount of current flowing through 15,000 100-watt lightbulbs. Because the magnetic forces on current-carrying wires are proportional to the product of the electric current and the strength of the magnetic field, our wires are subjected to an explosive pressure exceeding 200,000 pounds per square inch... - more that 35 times the pressure on the ocean floor under four kilometers of water...
In principle, the field that an electromagnet can generate is unlimited: infinite current would produce an infinitely intense magnetic field. In practice, nature is not so accommodating. As the fields exceed half a million gauss, the forces imposed on current-carrying wires surpass the tensile strength of hardened copper...
Flux I - Flux II World-record electromagnet designs take different approaches... They are divided into two broad classes: DC (direct current) magnets... and pulsed magnets (energized by a short pulse of current). [Author's note: Due to the short duration of the current in a non-destructive pulsed magnet, the inertia of the material prevents it from flying apart.] Pulsed magnets, which can be further divided into destructive and non-destructive designs, seek to avoid the problem of excessive heat by limiting the duration of the magnetic field to under a second. The destructive pulsed magnets also sidestep the stress problem. They are designed for a single pulse, which they never survive intact. The pulse lasts only a few microseconds before a mechanical shock wave, moving at the speed of sound, obliterates the magnet.
...One destructive design achieved nearly 10 million gauss with the help of high explosives which symmetrically compressed the magnetic field to an exceedingly small volume around the sample (much the same kind of implosion sets up the fast fission reaction in an atomic bomb).
...nondestructive pulse magnets... make possible a much wider assortment of scientific experiments, because pulse duration is ... to a range of 10 to 100 milliseconds.
... The intensity of the magnetic field is greatest in the center of the magnet and decreases more or less linearly through the 14 layers of the magnet. The greatest stresses... occur in the fourth layer from the center, because the stress... is proportional to the product of the local magnetic field, the electric current density in the wire, and the radius of the layer of wire.
The article goes on to explain how to make a magnet withstand extreme pressure from within. But what makes this pressure? There is a name for it. It is called magnetic-field intensity, but this is only a name. My view is that the magnet is a "pipe" or tube of coils in which nether must flow outside and inside, with the same volume of nether per time moving outside and inside. Outside of the pipe, there is infinite area through which the nether can move. But inside, there is only the cross-section of the pipe. So the nether is compressed. And it wishes to expand. Ergo, it tends to destroy high-intensity magnets.
My wife has an attitude about current theory and the way names are used to ignore the truth. She feels that the current scientific theories in relativity, particle physics, quantum mechanics, quantum electrodynamics, quantum chromodynamics, and like fields are elaborate attempts to prove that the emperor has clothes.
We dance around in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.
Robert FrostContents - Next