Electroboom: How Right IS Veritasium?! Don't Electrons Push Each Other??

[cbutlera]

..
What I calculate is the power at input vs power at the output.
For input force at the generator "G" wheel I just select a force so that generated power is 10W
This 10W is the applied to the motor wheel "M" so that vehicle can move from left to right.
To this 10W from input the Wind treadmill adds additional power in case A as vehicle speed is below wind speed and that additional power adds to the motor power.
The P_net = P_out  - P_in  and this in case A is 20W meaning vehicle will accelerate from left to right at 20W rate.
..

I think I have got it!  There is some method to your apparent madness.  I also apologise for poking a little fun at you last year, when I first joined in a little with this discussion and thought that you were trolling.  I now think that you genuinely believe that you have a good understanding of Physics.

It looks like you are doing the following:

You have a picture in your head of energy flowing from the wind treadmill through the vehicle and into the road treadmill.  You also picture some additional energy flowing from the wind treadmill and into the vehicle that can be used to accelerate the vehicle.

You have labelled what you regard as the motor as G, and the generator as M to humour the rest of us, because you are convinced that the opposite is the true direction of energy flow.

You first calculate the rate of work done on the road treadmill, which you call P_in.

You then calculate the rate of work done by the wind treadmill, which you call P_out.  You surmise that this must be equal to P_in (you think that it must be coming from somewhere) plus the rate of work done on the device labelled 'M'.

You conclude that the net power going into the vehicle is the difference P_out - P_in.

The fundamental problem is that you understand what energy is and can visualise it flowing around.  You need to unlearn this.  I don't know what energy is, and neither does anyone else with a reasonably good grasp of physics.  Richard Feynman didn't know what it was, and said the following.

"It is important to realize that in physics today, we have no knowledge of what energy is. We do not have a picture that energy comes in little blobs of a definite amount. It is not that way. However, there are formulas for calculating some numerical quantity, and when we add it all together it gives “28”—always the same number. It is an abstract thing in that it does not tell us the mechanism or the reasons for the various formulas."

This comes from the Feynman Lectures on physics page https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_04.html.  It is well worth reading this page.

It is better to think of energy as nature's checksum.  Conceptually make your calculations using position, force, mass, time and their derivatives.  Then calculate the total energy at the beginning and end to make sure you haven't made an error, or at any intermediate point if you wish.

Of course for complex systems, such a gas, calculating all of the positions, velocities and forces is impractical.  So using conservation of energy is a very useful shortcut, but it brings nothing new to the table.  It isn't an additional constraint on Newtonian mechanics, just a useful consequence of it.

If you are really determined to just use energy in your mechanical calculations you could use Lagrangian Mechanics, which is formulated in terms of energy.  It uses the Principle of Least Action to calculate the way in which a mechanical system will evolve with time.  But you need to learn to walk before you can run, so I would not recommend taking that path for the time being.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't be using energy and power in your calculations, just don't try to visualise it.  Keep your visualisations to intuitive concepts like position, mass and force etc.  You seem to have a good grasp of these, except when you think that they conflict with conservation of energy.  When that happens you defer to treating the conservation of energy as showing the real truth.

What you should do when you see such a conflict is to go back through your calculations and look for the error.  Energy is your checksum, and if it doesn't appear to agree with what the forces, masses, positions and velocities are telling you then there must be an error.

To try and bring this back to the battery, the switch and the light bulb, which is the correct topic for this thread.  Don't ask how the energy gets from the battery to the light bulb.  Instead ask how the electrons make the journey, and how the electromagnetic field makes the journey.  If you know those two things, then you know everything that you need to know.  Asking how the checksum made the journey doesn't mean anything.

[Naej]

Did you read Newton's second law? What does it say on the vehicle acceleration in A, B and C?

Do you disagree with my conclusions that are already there to see in the image?
If you do disagree then provide the correct equations and results. All data for the problem is there.

As far as I'm concerned the equations posted there and the results are consistent with what you will find in real world test (of course in real world test you need to add friction).  This is ideal best case scenario just so that there is no discussion about me adding to much friction loss.

The total force is equal to 0 and you said that the vehicle accelerates.
So: did you read Newton's second law? What does it say on the vehicle acceleration in A, B and C?
I already did provide the results: vehicle won't accelerate and you have surplus power from one wheel in A/C.

[Nominal Animal]

So. In the end, can someone tell the link between electrons, current and energy flow yet?

Okay, I'll make myself the laughing stock of everybody here, voluntarily, and will bite.


Current is defined as the net rate of flow of electric charge through a surface or into a control volume.  Electrons are one possibility for carrying such charge.  There are many different forms of energy, of which "electrical energy" –– really, easily accessible electric charges (batteries, accumulators, capacitors) or currents (DC or AC, like the mains current in your home) –– is just one form.  All transfers of energy can be considered energy flow.

When sufficiently isolated conductors are used, the current flows in the conductor.  For alternating currents, the current flows mostly on the surface of the conductor.

If the conductor becomes sufficiently hot, or the voltage between the conductor and a nearby other conductor becomes high enough, you can get an arc of electrons –– even if in vacuum.  This can burn through the isolating material, and in a gaseous atmosphere, create a plasma arc.  This, too, has useful properties.

Because moving charges always generate an electromagnetic field, it is also possible to couple another conductor inductively (via the magnetic field) or capacitively (via the electric field).  (The high potential difference between the conductor and a nearby isolated conductor is one way this coupling can occur; capacitively.)  Although the field interactions then carry energy from one conductor to the other –– very much inducing useful current or voltage in the other conductor ––, we do not usually call this kind of energy flow "current", because the interaction is through photons, non-charged particles.
(One exception is with coupled inductors, such as in transformers.  This is because current induces a magnetic field which in turn induces a current, and it is just easier for humans to say that "current is transferred", because saying "current in A generates a magnetic field that couples to B inducing a current".  But, in a strictly physical sense, the energy transfer is mediated by photons there, and there is no "current flow" between the two.)

How much of the overall energy is carried by the conductor, and how much by electromagnetic field interactions, depends completely on the topology: what kind of curve the conductor forms, and whether there are other conductors nearby so that they can couple to the EM field generated by the current flowing in this conductor.

The question posed in the thread title, "Don't electrons push each other", is a complex one.

The simple answer is that "That's a wrong question, because they interact. 'Push' is a completely wrong concept here.".
The complicated answer is quantum mechanics behind particle-wave duality.  In essence, electrons are both fields and particles.  When we look at interactions like the details of how electrons move in a conductor, we really need to look at the fields instead of considering them as particles, because electrons exhibit almost completely field-like behaviour there, and they interact in rather unintuitive ways.  Their behaviour has just about nothing to do with the marbles most people think about when they think about electrons; instead, they are delocalized, like smeared over a possibly very large volume.  The field of physics involved in this is electrodynamics, or if we get to high energies or really fast phenomena, quantum electrodynamics.

In a way, if we look at electrons bound to atoms or to a lattice like most metals, interacting electrons do not just 'push' but 'pull' and even 'twist' each other, depending on their quantum properties.  (The last depends on the orbital magnetic dipole moments of the interacting electrons, and is often neglected.)
For example, the interaction between iron (Fe) and chromium (Cr) atoms in for example stainless steel, producing its corrosion resistance, involves these "magnetic" 'twisting' interactions between electrons.

But even that is just a crude analog, and probably makes any physicists reading this laugh at me for trying to describe it this way...  It is one of those things that really is logical and rational, not "magic" at all, but is just not easily intuitively understood, because normal human-scale world does not contain suitable analogies at all.

[iMo]

..
"It is important to realize that in physics today, we have no knowledge of what energy is. We do not have a picture that energy comes in little blobs of a definite amount. It is not that way. However, there are formulas for calculating some numerical quantity, and when we add it all together it gives “28”—always the same number. It is an abstract thing in that it does not tell us the mechanism or the reasons for the various formulas."
..

We have got something like Planck's scale, time, force, length, energy, temperature, volume, area, density, frequency, momentum, acceleration.. Why we cannot define the smallest blobs of energy then?

@Nominal Animal: the issue I see is the e-field in a good conductor is almost zero, therefore there is almost none force which would push or pull the electrons somewhere. I think the drift speed (some XXum/sec in a copper wire at 1Amp current) is there only because the e-field is "almost zero" but not zero. There is the chaotic movement of free electrons in the conductors with Fermi speeds of 1570km/s but their vectors are random..

[Nominal Animal]

We have got something like Planck scale, time, force, length, energy, temperature, volume, area, density, frequency, momentum, acceleration.. Why we cannot define the smallest blobs of energy then?

I do believe Feynman was making the same point as Magritte, when he painted "This is not a pipe".

[electrodacus]

I think I have got it!  There is some method to your apparent madness.  I also apologise for poking a little fun at you last year, when I first joined in a little with this discussion and thought that you were trolling.  I now think that you genuinely believe that you have a good understanding of Physics.

It looks like you are doing the following:

You have a picture in your head of energy flowing from the wind treadmill through the vehicle and into the road treadmill.  You also picture some additional energy flowing from the wind treadmill and into the vehicle that can be used to accelerate the vehicle.

You have labelled what you regard as the motor as G, and the generator as M to humour the rest of us, because you are convinced that the opposite is the true direction of energy flow.

You first calculate the rate of work done on the road treadmill, which you call P_in.

You then calculate the rate of work done by the wind treadmill, which you call P_out.  You surmise that this must be equal to P_in (you think that it must be coming from somewhere) plus the rate of work done on the device labelled 'M'.

You conclude that the net power going into the vehicle is the difference P_out - P_in.

The fundamental problem is that you understand what energy is and can visualise it flowing around.  You need to unlearn this.  I don't know what energy is, and neither does anyone else with a reasonably good grasp of physics.  Richard Feynman didn't know what it was, and said the following.

"It is important to realize that in physics today, we have no knowledge of what energy is. We do not have a picture that energy comes in little blobs of a definite amount. It is not that way. However, there are formulas for calculating some numerical quantity, and when we add it all together it gives “28”—always the same number. It is an abstract thing in that it does not tell us the mechanism or the reasons for the various formulas."

This comes from the Feynman Lectures on physics page [url]https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_04.html[/url].  It is well worth reading this page.

It is better to think of energy as nature's checksum.  Conceptually make your calculations using position, force, mass, time and their derivatives.  Then calculate the total energy at the beginning and end to make sure you haven't made an error, or at any intermediate point if you wish.

Of course for complex systems, such a gas, calculating all of the positions, velocities and forces is impractical.  So using conservation of energy is a very useful shortcut, but it brings nothing new to the table.  It isn't an additional constraint on Newtonian mechanics, just a useful consequence of it.

If you are really determined to just use energy in your mechanical calculations you could use Lagrangian Mechanics, which is formulated in terms of energy.  It uses the Principle of Least Action to calculate the way in which a mechanical system will evolve with time.  But you need to learn to walk before you can run, so I would not recommend taking that path for the time being.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't be using energy and power in your calculations, just don't try to visualise it.  Keep your visualisations to intuitive concepts like position, mass and force etc.  You seem to have a good grasp of these, except when you think that they conflict with conservation of energy.  When that happens you defer to treating the conservation of energy as showing the real truth.

What you should do when you see such a conflict is to go back through your calculations and look for the error.  Energy is your checksum, and if it doesn't appear to agree with what the forces, masses, positions and velocities are telling you then there must be an error.

To try and bring this back to the battery, the switch and the light bulb, which is the correct topic for this thread.  Don't ask how the energy gets from the battery to the light bulb.  Instead ask how the electrons make the journey, and how the electromagnetic field makes the journey.  If you know those two things, then you know everything that you need to know.  Asking how the checksum made the journey doesn't mean anything.

I will agree that the way I make the calculations is maybe unusual but it is correct and consistent with all real world tests.

You say in so many words that I consider energy conservation as the checksum and you are correct because energy conservation is a law that nobody ever disproved.

As for my setup it is done so it exactly represents the blackbird with the treadmill model of blackbird being the easiest to visualize.
G / generator wheel is the same as the wheels driving the propeller on blackbird either the large one or the treadmill model.
The road treadmill is the treadmill used to demonstrate the propeller model can advance against the treadmill direction and it is represented as the case B) in my examples.
The propeller was replaced with a wheel as that is what a propeller is other than propeller travels through a medium and a wheel on the surface of a medium and thus it is the motor wheel.
The wind treadmill represents the air that is stationary in case B) same as in the treadmill test conducted indoors.

The reason why treadmill propeller model managed to move forward is due to pressure differential stored while it was placed on the treadmill and kept there with the hand.
The pressure differential storage is eliminated when propeller is replaced with a wheel M and since that is on a solid surface the air compressibility no longer plays a role.

As you claim to understand please share the results of the 3 examples. If you can not do that you can not claim to understand.

[electrodacus]

The total force is equal to 0 and you said that the vehicle accelerates.
So: did you read Newton's second law? What does it say on the vehicle acceleration in A, B and C?
I already did provide the results: vehicle won't accelerate and you have surplus power from one wheel in A/C.

No force equals zero. I refer just at the braking force when you want to generate 10W will need to to have an equal and opposite force on the motor wheel else you can not produce anything.
So in case A) where braking force is 5N this could not exist without the equal and opposite force at the wheel M.
There is a net power 20W in this case and so there is a net force in the same direction.
I made a calculation a bit earlier about the speed of the vehicle after one millisecond and if I remember correctly was around 0.06m/s so the net force at that moment will have been 20W/0.06m/s = 333.33N
This is of course idea case and so in real life that net force after first ms will have been smaller both due to friction losses but also due to materials not being an ideal solid they have either an elastic or plastic deformation. The elastic deformation means energy is temporarily stored thus force will not tend to infinite when vehicle starts to move.

Where is that so called surplus power going ? Is that so called surplus power the 20W and -4W that I calculated ?
The negative power is to show the direction that vehicle will move. witch is opposite for case C vs case A

[Naej]

..
"It is important to realize that in physics today, we have no knowledge of what energy is. We do not have a picture that energy comes in little blobs of a definite amount. It is not that way. However, there are formulas for calculating some numerical quantity, and when we add it all together it gives “28”—always the same number. It is an abstract thing in that it does not tell us the mechanism or the reasons for the various formulas."
..

We have got something like Planck's scale, time, force, length, energy, temperature, volume, area, density, frequency, momentum, acceleration.. Why we cannot define the smallest blobs of energy then?

@Nominal Animal: the issue I see is the e-field in a good conductor is almost zero, therefore there is almost none force which would push or pull the electrons somewhere. I think the drift speed (some XXum/sec in a copper wire at 1Amp current) is there only because the e-field is "almost zero" but not zero. There is the chaotic movement of free electrons in the conductors with Fermi speeds of 1570km/s but their vectors are random..

Who said they were the smallest? A black hole merger has a power close to the Planck power.

[electrodacus]

Okay, I'll make myself the laughing stock of everybody here, voluntarily, and will bite.


Current is defined as the net rate of flow of electric charge through a surface or into a control volume.  Electrons are one possibility for carrying such charge.  There are many different forms of energy, of which "electrical energy" –– really, easily accessible electric charges (batteries, accumulators, capacitors) or currents (DC or AC, like the mains current in your home) –– is just one form.  All transfers of energy can be considered energy flow.

When sufficiently isolated conductors are used, the current flows in the conductor.  For alternating currents, the current flows mostly on the surface of the conductor.

If the conductor becomes sufficiently hot, or the voltage between the conductor and a nearby other conductor becomes high enough, you can get an arc of electrons –– even if in vacuum.  This can burn through the isolating material, and in a gaseous atmosphere, create a plasma arc.  This, too, has useful properties.

Because moving charges always generate an electromagnetic field, it is also possible to couple another conductor inductively (via the magnetic field) or capacitively (via the electric field).  (The high potential difference between the conductor and a nearby isolated conductor is one way this coupling can occur; capacitively.)  Although the field interactions then carry energy from one conductor to the other –– very much inducing useful current or voltage in the other conductor ––, we do not usually call this kind of energy flow "current", because the interaction is through photons, non-charged particles.
(One exception is with coupled inductors, such as in transformers.  This is because current induces a magnetic field which in turn induces a current, and it is just easier for humans to say that "current is transferred", because saying "current in A generates a magnetic field that couples to B inducing a current".  But, in a strictly physical sense, the energy transfer is mediated by photons there, and there is no "current flow" between the two.)

How much of the overall energy is carried by the conductor, and how much by electromagnetic field interactions, depends completely on the topology: what kind of curve the conductor forms, and whether there are other conductors nearby so that they can couple to the EM field generated by the current flowing in this conductor.

The question posed in the thread title, "Don't electrons push each other", is a complex one.

The simple answer is that "That's a wrong question, because they interact. 'Push' is a completely wrong concept here.".
The complicated answer is quantum mechanics behind particle-wave duality.  In essence, electrons are both fields and particles.  When we look at interactions like the details of how electrons move in a conductor, we really need to look at the fields instead of considering them as particles, because electrons exhibit almost completely field-like behaviour there, and they interact in rather unintuitive ways.  Their behaviour has just about nothing to do with the marbles most people think about when they think about electrons; instead, they are delocalized, like smeared over a possibly very large volume.  The field of physics involved in this is electrodynamics, or if we get to high energies or really fast phenomena, quantum electrodynamics.

In a way, if we look at electrons bound to atoms or to a lattice like most metals, interacting electrons do not just 'push' but 'pull' and even 'twist' each other, depending on their quantum properties.  (The last depends on the orbital magnetic dipole moments of the interacting electrons, and is often neglected.)
For example, the interaction between iron (Fe) and chromium (Cr) atoms in for example stainless steel, producing its corrosion resistance, involves these "magnetic" 'twisting' interactions between electrons.

But even that is just a crude analog, and probably makes any physicists reading this laugh at me for trying to describe it this way...  It is one of those things that really is logical and rational, not "magic" at all, but is just not easily intuitively understood, because normal human-scale world does not contain suitable analogies at all.

Yes in Derek's example current flows through conductor.
The electric and magnetic field around a moving charged particle is conservative thus it is important to talk about energy storage, and it is also the reason Derek measures a current through the lamp much faster than the ns it will take for electron wave at almost the light speed to get there.
The energy is all converted in to photons but not instantly due to thermal storage.

Derek used thick copper pipes as the "wire" and a short 1kOhm resistor as the lamp/load.
If you can imagine a "wire" of that same length as his loop but so thin that the resistance was 1kOhm for that length and nothing else connected.
Then the "lamp" will have been all that long path so if it could get hot enough that it will all glow then you could visualize the path that energy travels through as it will be the wire and energy (all of it) is dissipated as radiated electromagnetic energy (photons) at hundreds of THz.

So all energy delivered by a battery or charged capacitor is delivered through wire and then from the wire all that energy is radiate as electromagnetic radiation.

So taken that long wire with 1kOhm resistance at 20V that will be 0.4W of power for one second will be 0.4Ws same as 0.4J
If you removed the source after 1s that energy will still be mostly stored in the conductor as thermal energy and over the next few minutes will be slowly related to space as photons.
There is nothing else 0.4Ws of stored energy will be transferred to wire (wire temperature will increase) and that energy will slowly be radiated to space.
There is no ridiculous energy exiting the battery in the vacuum or air around and from there enter the wire.

[Naej]

The total force is equal to 0 and you said that the vehicle accelerates.
So: did you read Newton's second law? What does it say on the vehicle acceleration in A, B and C?
I already did provide the results: vehicle won't accelerate and you have surplus power from one wheel in A/C.

No force equals zero. I refer just at the braking force when you want to generate 10W will need to to have an equal and opposite force on the motor wheel else you can not produce anything.
So in case A) where braking force is 5N this could not exist without the equal and opposite force at the wheel M.

So there is an equal and opposite force, but the total force is not equal to 0. Well. What are these ghost forces then?

Where is that so called surplus power going ? Is that so called surplus power the 20W and -4W that I calculated ?
The negative power is to show the direction that vehicle will move. witch is opposite for case C vs case A

Are you sure? What is the kinetic energy after a power of -4W during 1s? It should be -4J, with an imaginary speed I guess.

[cbutlera]

As you claim to understand please share the results of the 3 examples. If you can not do that you can not claim to understand.

I have already done that in my earlier message, to which you replied and which then prompted me to write the message that you quote.  I see no point in going around in circles.  I also couldn't care less whether you think that I understand the physics.

I have spent a little time trying to understand the model of the universe that you are using, and I think that do understand it.  You need to spend some time trying to understand the model that I and others are using.  It doesn't matter whether you think it is right or wrong, that doesn't stop you understanding it.  Galileo wasn't confused by the statements of those defending the Ptolemaic system.  He fully understood both the Copernican and Ptolemaic systems and indeed wrote a dialogue concerning those two alternate systems.  If I and many others are using the same model of the universe, then it must be easily comprehensible.  So there should be nothing to stop you comprehending it too, regardless of whether it is right or wrong.  Once you do understand it, you will be in a position to identify any material differences between the models.  Then you can decide who you think is right.

[electrodacus]

So there is an equal and opposite force, but the total force is not equal to 0. Well. What are these ghost forces then?

From the treadmill.

Are you sure? What is the kinetic energy after a power of -4W during 1s? It should be -4J, with an imaginary speed I guess.

It is negative yes because the vehicle moves in a different direction.
Obviously the vehicle can never get above wind speed powered by wind so some other energy like stored energy will have got the vehicle there.
If vehicle will have traveled at 10m/s instead of this treadmill theoretical discussion then it will have had some significant kinetic energy from witch 4J will have been subtracted after one second with 4W deceleration.
How do you distinguish between 4J you put in to a rechargeable battery or capacitor and 4J you take out of that. You will need to use a negative sign for one of them and it can be your choice for with one you do that.
I could have said -20W for A and +4W for C and still be correct but it seems more logical to have +20W for a vehicle moving in the desigered direction and -4W for one that slows down or moves into opposite direction.
Of course -4J sounds ridiculous for a vehicle at rest with no energy to take out of the negative sign is to show the direction that vehicle is moving as it is stationary in this example.
I only made the vehicle stationary as it seems most people can more easily understand what happens to a stationary vehicle than a moving one especially when it moves at different speeds relative to multiple mediums.
So case C) the vehicle with 10kg weight driving at 10m/s will have had 500J of stored kinetic energy thus one 4J will not have had much of an impact it will have been now at 496J so lower speed.
It just shows that case C is not possible without something else involved like pressure differential energy storage

[electrodacus]

I have already done that in my earlier message, to which you replied and which then prompted me to write the message that you quote.  I see no point in going around in circles.  I also couldn't care less whether you think that I understand the physics.

I have spent a little time trying to understand the model of the universe that you are using, and I think that do understand it.  You need to spend some time trying to understand the model that I and others are using.  It doesn't matter whether you think it is right or wrong, that doesn't stop you understanding it.  Galileo wasn't confused by the statements of those defending the Ptolemaic system.  He fully understood both the Copernican and Ptolemaic systems and indeed wrote a dialogue concerning those two alternate systems.  If I and many others are using the same model of the universe, then it must be easily comprehensible.  So there should be nothing to stop you comprehending it too, regardless of whether it is right or wrong.  Once you do understand it, you will be in a position to identify any material differences between the models.  Then you can decide who you think is right.

You mean the message you left today before this one ?
I read that fully and I fail to see where your answer is.
Result should be in international units so I expect Watt or Newton and direction the vehicle will move accelerated by whatever units you chose.
It doesn't matter your method of solving the problem  as long as the results are matching the reality (real word tests).
I seen no discrepancy between my results and real test results.

[Naej]

So there is an equal and opposite force, but the total force is not equal to 0. Well. What are these ghost forces then?

From the treadmill.

What are all the forces on the vehicle?
Did you read Newton's second law?

Are you sure? What is the kinetic energy after a power of -4W during 1s? It should be -4J, with an imaginary speed I guess.

It is negative yes because the vehicle moves in a different direction.
Obviously the vehicle can never get above wind speed powered by wind so some other energy like stored energy will have got the vehicle there.
If vehicle will have traveled at 10m/s instead of this treadmill theoretical discussion then it will have had some significant kinetic energy from witch 4J will have been subtracted after one second with 4W deceleration.
How do you distinguish between 4J you put in to a rechargeable battery or capacitor and 4J you take out of that. You will need to use a negative sign for one of them and it can be your choice for with one you do that.
I could have said -20W for A and +4W for C and still be correct but it seems more logical to have +20W for a vehicle moving in the desigered direction and -4W for one that slows down or moves into opposite direction.
Of course -4J sounds ridiculous for a vehicle at rest with no energy to take out of the negative sign is to show the direction that vehicle is moving as it is stationary in this example.
I only made the vehicle stationary as it seems most people can more easily understand what happens to a stationary vehicle than a moving one especially when it moves at different speeds relative to multiple mediums.
So case C) the vehicle with 10kg weight driving at 10m/s will have had 500J of stored kinetic energy thus one 4J will not have had much of an impact it will have been now at 496J so lower speed.
It just shows that case C is not possible without something else involved like pressure differential energy storage

The kinetic energy is 1/2*m*v². For this to be negative, the car would have to go not in a "different direction" but in an imaginary one.
In the real world, kinetic energy is positive.

Maybe do this easy exercise. A man is on a car travelling at 10 m/s (total mass=1000kg, no friction no engine). He pushes on a 1kg ball forward during 1s with 5N.
What's the speed of everything after, and what are the kinetic energies? And the powers?

[SiliconWizard]

I didn't really get past wheels of a single vehicle going at different speeds in a straight line. My idea of what would, or would not happen seems to have been shattered.

[cbutlera]

We have got something like Planck scale, time, force, length, energy, temperature, volume, area, density, frequency, momentum, acceleration.. Why we cannot define the smallest blobs of energy then?

I do believe Feynman was making the same point as Magritte, when he painted "This is not a pipe".

I don't see Feynman playing with words in that way.  I think he meant exactly what he said.

We can quantify energy down to the smallest scales and make calculations with it without knowing what it is.  "Shut up and calculate" as the saying goes.  But what is a Joule?  I may see one Joule apparently moving from A to B.  Someone looking at the same event from a different reference frame may see five Joules apparently moving from B to A.  So what is this thing that moved?

With the battery, the switch and the light bulb.  If we know how the electrons move and how the electromagnetic field evolves, then there is nothing relevant missing from the picture.  We don't need to account for how the energy made the journey from battery to bulb.  We just know that if we have got our sums right then the total energy of the system will be conserved.

[electrodacus]

What are all the forces on the vehicle?
Did you read Newton's second law?

Are you distracted by me using power instead of force ?
You can convert power to force at any time but power makes way more sense in this particular case with the available data and the questions asked.

The kinetic energy is 1/2*m*v². For this to be negative, the car would have to go not in a "different direction" but in an imaginary one.
In the real world, kinetic energy is positive.

Maybe do this easy exercise. A man is on a car travelling at 10 m/s (total mass=1000kg, no friction no engine). He pushes on a 1kg ball forward during 1s with 5N.
What's the speed of everything after, and what are the kinetic energies? And the powers?

All you need to have in that kinetic energy equation is a negative speed meaning speed in opposite direction.
There is already an easy exercise with 3 setups A), B) and C)
As I mentioned if you do not agree with that please solve it the way you think is correct.  Try not to invent more equation as you did on the wind power.

No friction and no engine suggest a vehicle coasting.
The ball is a bit strangely defined as mass is irrelevant if you provide the 5N constant braking force for a second that acts on the vehicle.

Vehicle starts at 0.5 * 1000kg * 10² = 50000Ws
After 0.1 seconds vehicle speed will drop to 50000Ws - (5N * 10m/s * 0.1s) =  49995Ws
sqrt(49995/(1000*0.5)) = 9.99949m/s
next 0.1 second   49995Ws - (5N * 9.99949m/s * 0.1s) =  49990.00026Ws
sqrt(49990.00026/(1000*0.5)) = 9.99899m/s
...
you get the idea 8 more time until you get to one second in 10 steps.  For more accuracy you can use 100 or 1000 steps
If you defined the ball as having a constant power say 50W instead of constant force of 5N calculation will have been much simpler.

And I guess the important part is that vehicle will have lower kinetic energy and lower speed than it did before the interaction with that ball.

[electrodacus]

I don't see Feynman playing with words in that way.  I think he meant exactly what he said.

We can quantify energy down to the smallest scales and make calculations with it without knowing what it is.  "Shut up and calculate" as the saying goes.  But what is a Joule?  I may see one Joule apparently moving from A to B.  Someone looking at the same event from a different reference frame may see five Joules apparently moving from B to A.  So what is this thing that moved?

With the battery, the switch and the light bulb.  If we know how the electrons move and how the electromagnetic field evolves, then there is nothing relevant missing from the picture.  We don't need to account for how the energy made the journey from battery to bulb.  We just know that if we have got our sums right then the total energy of the system will be conserved.

The one joule was converted to something else while moving from A to B
In this case 1J of electrical energy was converted in to we may call thermal energy (the radiated photons).
Now you have 1J less stored electrical energy in the battery or charged capacitor and you have increased the temperature of the conductor due to electrons traveling through wire and interacting with the atom lattice of the material.
So immediately after you have thermal stored energy in the conductor due to conductor thermal mass that will slowly be radiated to space around as infrared (maybe even visible) photons so electromagnetic radiation.

[Nominal Animal]

(Thanks, everybody, for not ridiculing my effort.)

@Nominal Animal: the issue I see is the e-field in a good conductor is almost zero

So?

Do not forget that in a conductor, both the outermost electrons bound to atoms and free electrons "shared by the lattice" are in constant interaction with each other.  Although individual electrons' velocities are low, a perturbation in one spreads at about two thirds the speed of light in vacuum, exactly because they are interacting, and that interaction always occurs at c.  Again, the electrons are not particle-like here, they are well delocalized ("spread out"), and can be considered to "overlap".

A crude analogy would be marbles in a channel all touching each other, like a Newton's Cradle toy at rest.  Whenever you push one in at one end, one will pop out.  If you have many of them in parallel too, then the velocity of each individual marble is low, but the number of marbles pushed in and out huge.  If you knock one marble in, it takes only a tiny fraction of a second for the outermost marble to ping correspondingly, even though the velocity of any individual marble is very low.  (Consider, in particular, how the length of the marble chain doesn't really affect much how long that takes.)

If the electrons were to move like a rigid body, then the speed of electricity in a conductor would be infinite.  In practice, there is a bit of, uh, "flex?", in how the fields interact, so in typical conductors it is about two thirds of light speed in vacuum.  (It obviously depends on the lattice structure and the exact properties of the interacting electrons.)

If there is a significant electrical field in a conductor, the electrons would no longer have an uniform charge distribution (in the direction of that field).  Instead of a conductor, it would act more like a semiconductor or insulator.

It is exactly because the interactions spread out any perturbation so fast, that the electric field in a good conductor is minimal: the charge density (along the conductor, not necessarily across the conductor) stays nearly constant.

We have got something like Planck scale, time, force, length, energy, temperature, volume, area, density, frequency, momentum, acceleration.. Why we cannot define the smallest blobs of energy then?

I do believe Feynman was making the same point as Magritte, when he painted "This is not a pipe".

I don't see Feynman playing with words in that way.

It is not wordplay.  It is a fundamental idea of what physics and mathematics are.  Philosophy, not wordplay.

I may see one Joule apparently moving from A to B.  Someone looking at the same event from a different reference frame may see five Joules apparently moving from B to A.  So what is this thing that moved?

Right.  Physics models the observations, and never tries to explain what 'that thing that moved' is; only quantify it and describe how it behaves.

[Naej]

What are all the forces on the vehicle?
Did you read Newton's second law?

Are you distracted by me using power instead of force ?
You can convert power to force at any time but power makes way more sense in this particular case with the available data and the questions asked.

Did you read Newton's second law?
I think you distract yourself when there are 2 speeds involved.

The kinetic energy is 1/2*m*v². For this to be negative, the car would have to go not in a "different direction" but in an imaginary one.
In the real world, kinetic energy is positive.

Maybe do this easy exercise. A man is on a car travelling at 10 m/s (total mass=1000kg, no friction no engine). He pushes on a 1kg ball forward during 1s with 5N.
What's the speed of everything after, and what are the kinetic energies? And the powers?

All you need to have in that kinetic energy equation is a negative speed meaning speed in opposite direction.
There is already an easy exercise with 3 setups A), B) and C)
As I mentioned if you do not agree with that please solve it the way you think is correct.  Try not to invent more equation as you did on the wind power.

No friction and no engine suggest a vehicle coasting.
The ball is a bit strangely defined as mass is irrelevant if you provide the 5N constant braking force for a second that acts on the vehicle.

Vehicle starts at 0.5 * 1000kg * 10² = 50000Ws
After 0.1 seconds vehicle speed will drop to 50000Ws - (5N * 10m/s * 0.1s) =  49995Ws
sqrt(49995/(1000*0.5)) = 9.99949m/s
next 0.1 second   49995Ws - (5N * 9.99949m/s * 0.1s) =  49990.00026Ws
sqrt(49990.00026/(1000*0.5)) = 9.99899m/s
...
you get the idea 8 more time until you get to one second in 10 steps.  For more accuracy you can use 100 or 1000 steps
If you defined the ball as having a constant power say 50W instead of constant force of 5N calculation will have been much simpler.

And I guess the important part is that vehicle will have lower kinetic energy and lower speed than it did before the interaction with that ball.

The computation was simple, but ok.
How about this: one limo A at 10m/s its wheels are connected to a 1kW generator, another limo B is next to it at 11 m/s with a 1kW electric engine connected to the generator.
Which limo accelerates/decelerates?

[electrodacus]

Did you read Newton's second law?
I think you distract yourself when there are 2 speeds involved.

It seems you do not understand what it means for a vehicle to be connected to two mediums at different speeds and to be powered by that difference.
Such a vehicle can not exceed the delta between those two speed without using energy storage.

The computation was simple, but ok.
How about this: one limo A at 10m/s its wheels are connected to a 1kW generator, another limo B is next to it at 11 m/s with a 1kW electric engine connected to the generator.
Which limo accelerates/decelerates?

Sorry but I do not understand your problem. Please be more specific.
Limo A is at this time at 10m/s. I guess there is no engine or anything it was just pushed at 10m/s and there is no friction.
What is with the 1kW generator ? is that connected at the wheel and just dumps 1kW as maybe heat in to a resistor ?
What is the weight of lima A ? without that there is not enough data to provide an answer to your question.
 
Limo B "1kW electric engine" do you mean 1kW electric motor maybe powered by a battery ? and then this is "connected to the generator" ?

I can just know based on how you define the problem that you have no clue about the subject.

[gnuarm]

Of course you screwed the numbers.  You know this clearly shows you to be wrong, so you have to "simplify" it to a point where you have constructed an example that breaks.  It's not the concept that is broken, just YOUR example. 

I can fix your example very easily.  First your typo has to be fixed.  "The 1.2kg balls that also move at 1m/s" should be "The 1.2kg balls that also move at 10 m/s", no? 

Then change the spacing of the balls from "1 m" to 0.1 meter.  Now the balls will hit the sails and the car will be propelled faster than the wind.

Thanks for correcting my typo. It is 10m/s as you correctly pointed out.

OK we can change the ball distance to 0.1m it will make no difference.
Now you have about 5 balls moving around between sails assuming they do not fall down.
The reason for simplification is so you understand that air is made from individual molecules. It is not a long stick pushing the vehicle as Derek falsely explained in his video.

But now the balls do strike the sail for any vehicle speed below 4 times the wind speed.  For all vehicle speeds below that, the sails are moving at less than the wind speed, and the wind particles will impact the sails.  The power imparted to the sails is defined by the formula you insist is the correct formula for a sail in the wind. 

The vehicle with wheels that Derek falsely claimed to be the equivalent of a direct downwind vehicle is actually the equivalent of a direct upwind vehicle with input wheels on the floor and output wheel traveled on the lumber.
Confusing input with output will result in ridiculous conclusions.

You are just trying to muddy waters here.  I'm not interested in discussing other models.

Back to latest example where wind speed is 5m/s and vehicle speed 10m/s in the same direction as the wind.
Will the vehicle/sails not hit the balls? no matter how small or spaced apart?
And vehicle hitting the balls is very different from balls hitting the vehicle. One case will slow down the vehicle and the other one will accelerate the vehicle.

Yes, the wind will impact the sails when the vehicle is moving at any speed that is less than four times the wind speed.  This is because the wind is moving faster than the sails which move at 1/4 the vehicle speed.

Good thing we don't need to worry about the sails hitting the wind.  That doesn't happen.  The wind is 5 m/s and the sails are moving at 2.5 m/s.  So the sails will be inflated by the wind with a relative speed of 2.5 m/s. 

Do you concur? 

[gnuarm]

So. In the end, can someone tell the link between electrons, current and energy flow yet?

That depends on the size of the sail.

[gnuarm]

So. In the end, can someone tell the link between electrons, current and energy flow yet?

Well in both cases some people argue that there's invisible energy stored here and moving there, which just happens to explain what you see. 

Anyone know who Andrea Rossi is?  He is a well known con-artist and "free energy" inventor.  He claims to have invented several devices that are just short of being commercialized.  When anyone wants to view his inventions to verify they work, he severely limits their ability to inspect the devices and constructs elaborate explanations for how they work. 

ED's methods remind me of Rossi.  If someone looks like they are going to pin you, change the discussion to something else so you can add more confusion. 

That's why ED wants to talk about balls striking the sails instead of the wind.  Now he wants to talk about the sails hitting balls.  lol 

He is the one who insists the proper equation is

P_w = 0.5 * air density * area * (wind speed - vehicle speed)³

Yet, he now will not acknowledge this equation.  He wants to talk about balls instead of wind and wants to talk about the speed of the sail when it is folded up, not in contact with the wind and other absurdities. 

Yes, ED is a troll in the true sense of the term, and I am as guilty as anyone for feeding him.  Even in the face of incontrovertible evidence the vehicle can be propelled faster than the wind, he does a shuffle and a side step and simply won't discuss the fact as he previously had stated.

[electrodacus]

But now the balls do strike the sail for any vehicle speed below 4 times the wind speed.  For all vehicle speeds below that, the sails are moving at less than the wind speed, and the wind particles will impact the sails.  The power imparted to the sails is defined by the formula you insist is the correct formula for a sail in the wind. 

You are just trying to muddy waters here.  I'm not interested in discussing other models.


Yes, the wind will impact the sails when the vehicle is moving at any speed that is less than four times the wind speed.  This is because the wind is moving faster than the sails which move at 1/4 the vehicle speed.

Good thing we don't need to worry about the sails hitting the wind.  That doesn't happen.  The wind is 5 m/s and the sails are moving at 2.5 m/s.  So the sails will be inflated by the wind with a relative speed of 2.5 m/s. 

Do you concur?

No I do not concur.
You have a trouble understanding the dynamic of all this.
When vehicle is below wind speed the sails will be hit by air particles from the back of the vehicle accelerating the vehicle forward.
When vehicle travels atr wind speed there is no interaction between those particles and vehicle.
When vehicle speed is above wind speed the air particles will be hit by the vehicle.  So the other side of the sail will collide with the air particle slowing the vehicle down.
Keep in mind that in all the above I removed the air compressibility from the equation so it is like if I was talking about water not air.

You fail to understand the change in direction. What side of the sail will be in cont with the balls and what hits what.
That 5m/s wind moves from the front of the vehicle to the back. You may be confused because you select car speed of 10m/s and wind speed of 5m/s
So wind speed relative to ground will be 5m/s from left to right while wind speed relative to a 10m/s moving vehicle will be 5m/s from right to left.

Vehicle experiences a head wind of 5m/s.