Potential,...Energy,... volt,... EV, etc.

[Dan Tibbets]

Dan, can you define a surface?

You might have a EUREKA moment followed by FACEPALM followed by DOH!

A surface (with real surface area greater than 1/ infinity) would be present for any particle or source that was not by definition a point. As I understand Gauss law this is best illistrated by a infinatly large plane with some surface charge. Suspended above this is a test charged particle. This test charged particle will obtain some finite velocity - the terminal velocity irregardless of how far above the plane it starts. In a video by a MIT professor, this is demonstrated with a metal coated and charged pingball ball suspended next to a ~ 1 meter square metal coated and charged carboard "plane" TGhis is of course not an infinate plane, but so long as the test ball is suspended at a distance somewhat less than the length of the plane, Gauss Law equations better defines the deflection than the inverse square law- which again only absolutely applies to a point source. Or, approximately to a source of a given diameter which is much less to somewhat less (?) than the distance to the test particle.

The pertinent video lecture is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxasQBBlWmk

As Richard Hull points out, the physics is complicated and dependant on a complex mixture of physical interactions that are difficult to model.

An example of a modeling error involving point like structures (lines) versus real surface area structures that persisted for over a decade is EMC2/ Bussard assumptions (in mathmatical models) that the Polywell Magrid was made up of infinately thin line magnet structures- surface area was thus zero (almost). This allowed for simplification of models and led to a made up feature called the "Funny Cusp" between infinity thin magnets spaced infinity close to each other. This of course was nonsense, but it was not caught by anyone despite multiple reviews, etc. Finally this was corrected (led to WB6). The biggest consequence was that ExB transport across the magnetic fields with subsequent impacts on the real magnet surface areas could not be ignored. This necessitated a compromise in the separation distance between the magnets. The cusps were wider but tolorable, and ExB losses were adequately controlled. Or at least that was the goal.

Also, in the Polywell (the positively charged magrid version), any electron that escaped through a cusp with any outward energy that was below the escape energy (potential on the magrid) would stop, reverse and reenter the same cusp with the potential energy from the magrid (or some consistent energy below that due to other considerations). The electrons that had higher up scattered or down scattered energies (but still below the escape energy- KE greater than the Magrid opposite potential energy/ voltage) would still reenter at at almost the same KE. This is a manifestation of the dominate Gauss Law considerations over the inverse square law considerations.

Dan Tibbets

[Steven Sesselmann]

Dan,

It's rather fascinating how little our understanding of a "surface" is, just look up the word surface on wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface

Very little is known about surfaces, yet our world is entirely made up of surfaces, the floor, the walls the table etc., but when we look into the atom we discover it's mostly empty space, so what is this thing we call a surface? Some attempts have been made to explain the surface tension in therms of electron charges, but the answer is even simpler.

All clues indicate that solid objects around us are are mostly empty space so if we use your example above we can illustrate any object as a point source with an isotropic potential field stretching to infinity.

Sounds simple enough right, but have you thought about why this field exhibits a surface at some arbitrary radius ?

Steven

[Dan Tibbets]

Dan,

It's rather fascinating how little our understanding of a "surface" is, just look up the word surface on wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface

Very little is known about surfaces, yet our world is entirely made up of surfaces, the floor, the walls the table etc., but when we look into the atom we discover it's mostly empty space, so what is this thing we call a surface? Some attempts have been made to explain the surface tension in therms of electron charges, but the answer is even simpler.

All clues indicate that solid objects around us are are mostly empty space so if we use your example above we can illustrate any object as a point source with an isotropic potential field stretching to infinity.

Sounds simple enough right, but have you thought about why this field exhibits a surface at some arbitrary radius ?


Steven

The answer is simple, at least for levels of understanding that are based on simplicity...

Classical physics are adequate for many things- it worked for Newton and I think all of Maxwell's equations, including Gauss Law. More refined understanding requires quantum mechanics.

For this discussion point sources are a relative condition where the interacting force originates from a structure much smaller than the distance to the object. This approximation is good enough untill the distance of seperation approaches the size of the interacting structures.

While we now appreciate the atomic nature of matter and the origin of forces from these tiny particles, the effects we experience in the macro world is mostly crowd effects, not individual interactions- at least such are not required to make predictions that are more accurate than our ability to measure the results. The effects are accumulative. We respond to the force fields associated with a collection of particles, and it is the size/ volume, etc. characteristics of these particles that determines the interaction and not any single particle by itself. The point perspective is modified or ignored. This is not necessarily kosher, but it is convenient and often extremely accurate. The derivation of Gauss law as it pertains to the interior of a hollow conducting sphere or cylindrical volume above a infinate plane is derived by considering the many point sources on the surface of the sphere/ plane. But, once derived we have a much simplier and useful construct for considering interactions. Also we have a handle on where this simplification begins to become excessively inacurate and we need to revert to the many point source interactions. A example of this in a Fusor may be the electrostatic force field that forms a potential well- that is due to a biased crowd of charged mobile and/ or fixed particles, and the individual (near) point like interactions that are the Coulomb collisions. Which perspective is used is based on your goals.

And, just to re scale your argument about atoms as point source particles, even protons and quarks and even gluons (?) are not point sources. Electrons may be point sources, at least I have not heard of anyone succeeding in detecting any measurable diameter for them. A proton is effectively a point source for an electron orbiting about 1 billion proton diameters away from it. But another proton or other charged particle inside the nucleus may be almost touching. Now the perspective of a point source is questionable. I'm sure this is taken into account in the fine scale descriptions of nuclear interactions. I think it is even applicable when describing the inertia of matter- Higgs interactions, etc.

Classical physics is a good description of the universe. Quantum mechanics is even better. Neither is perfect. They are tools to make predictions, not nessisarily representations of reality. What is the surface of a string in 10 dimensional space? In other words I cannot give an answer to your question, and I am not sure anyone can. I can only emphasize that there are "Standard Models" that are good at making predictions within the limits of our ability to measure, and within the exhaustion limits of the physicists willing to argue the issues and perspectives, and assumptions, and uncertainties, and biases. I could go on, but I am exhausted...




Dan Tibbets

[Steven Sesselmann]

Dan,

Thanks for making a good effort, it just highlights how inadequate the laws of physics really are. I think part of the problem is the way institutional science goes about teaching the subject. Students are rewarded for getting answers right not for thinking. Sure you have to think to get the answers right, but that's where it ends. The organisational structure of science is very similar to the church, where those learned people who master the "accepted" theory are promoted and decorated with robes and hats just like bishops. When these learned people stumble upon a problem they can't solve they inevitably substitute it with a unicorn and that unicorn then becomes part of the dogma going forward.

Now back to my original question about surfaces. The answer lies hidden in special relativity and it takes a little bit of untangling to extract, so I won't go into the details of it here, but we have to correct one thing in our current understanding of the world, namely how potential is absolute and limited just like the speed of light, and it certainly appears sensible to me that this limit is 938,000,000 volts

The first EUREKA moment is when you realise absolute potential is the same as absolute time, and how the flow of time is equal to a drop in potential, the reason we have not yet measured this is because the drop in potential is small. One year represents a drop in the absolute potential of around 0.0005 volts and for the standard unit of measure for time which is the second, it is approximately 1.5E-10 Volts

The observers NOW is simply a function of where on the absolute potential scale he, she or it is at any point in time, I decided to call this ground potential, even though two observers at ground potential can never share exactly the same potential (see Pauli exclusion principle).

The FACE-PALM moment is when you realise ALL surfaces we observe are at ground potential, and that these surfaces represent the absolute boundary between past and future. (remember higher potential is past and lower potential is future).

The DOH! moment is the realisation that everything we observe is happening NOW, not in the past as we have been led to believe, yes light travels at a finite speed, but what we see right now is and always will be NOW on the absolute time scale.

Bodies with different motions relative to the observer must therefore have differing surface potentials in order for the observer to see them NOW, so when we ionise a hydrogen atom the proton and electron must move at extremely high velocities in order to be in the observers NOW, and I have calculated that the proton needs to move at 2500 km/s and the electron at more than 99.5% the speed of light.

My view of reality is therefore that the world is what you want it to be, and by manipulating physical potential you can change the world around you.

Steven