Author Topic: "Veritasium" (YT) - "The Big Misconception About Electricity" ?  (Read 263955 times)

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Offline HuronKing

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Re: "Veritasium" (YT) - "The Big Misconception About Electricity" ?
« Reply #1625 on: March 22, 2022, 05:43:25 pm »
Hey,

I'm only going to respond to this tidbit below because you've written a lot, the discussion is getting kind of unwieldy, and I think we've both said what we want to say. But I don't wish to diminish the effort you put into writing your reply! I read it and consider my reply to it as "nod thoughtfully and smile."  :D


Probably the real "physicists versus engineers" debate is whether to use i or j for the complex number. And the answer is obviously j because what the heck do you call current then?  :box:

You can probably guess my response even when you wrote that! Engineers don't use j (or i). Is there any place in engineering, anywhere, where sqrt(-1) has any physical relevance at all? The only place I've ever seen it doing something useful (beyond being an arcane convenience for mathematicians) is in a Feynman lecture where it quasi-continuously described a wave function inside and out of an energy well or something (I can't find it now).

Have you done any work in power engineering? The concept of 'reactive power' is immensely important and is mathematically described perfectly by the usage of sqrt(-1):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_power#Reactive_power

And power factor correction to reactive loads is a big deal:
https://www.cui.com/catalog/resource/power-factor

This is just one example. Really the sqrt(-1) shows up anywhere you have harmonic frequency response.
https://electrical-engineering-portal.com/harmonics-influence

And it's ALL OVER THE PLACE in antenna design and simulation. I did a bit of simulation for my RF engineering professor in HFSS when I did my graduate program which he used for cubesat antenna designs. Even with the software doing most of the work for me... the math still kinda sucked to input, lol:
http://www.ece.uprm.edu/~rafaelr/inel6068/HFSS/HFSS_Antenna_v2015_v1/workshop_instructions_trainee/ANSYS_HFSS_Antenna_W03_1_Post_Processing.pdf
« Last Edit: March 22, 2022, 05:48:54 pm by HuronKing »
 

Offline HuronKing

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Re: "Veritasium" (YT) - "The Big Misconception About Electricity" ?
« Reply #1626 on: March 22, 2022, 06:02:00 pm »
And if you still don't believe me, I'll just refer you to C. Proteus Steinmetz who introduced complex numbers to electrical engineering in 1893 and, in doing so, massively revolutionized and simplified the solutions to engineering problems:
https://kupdf.net/download/complex-quantities-and-their-use-in-electrical-engineering_5900f124dc0d60ae1f959ea1_pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20140105044817/http://zrno.fsb.hr/katedra/download/materijali/966.pdf

 

Offline aetherist

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Re: "Veritasium" (YT) - "The Big Misconception About Electricity" ?
« Reply #1627 on: March 22, 2022, 06:59:21 pm »
And if you still don't believe me, I'll just refer you to C. Proteus Steinmetz who introduced complex numbers to electrical engineering in 1893 and, in doing so, massively revolutionized and simplified the solutions to engineering problems:
https://kupdf.net/download/complex-quantities-and-their-use-in-electrical-engineering_5900f124dc0d60ae1f959ea1_pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20140105044817/http://zrno.fsb.hr/katedra/download/materijali/966.pdf
Interesting.
Can anyone show me where Steinmetz believed that electricity is due to drifting electrons?
Can anyone show me where Steinmetz believed that the transient impedance was the same animal as resistance?
Steinmetz (stone mason) would have loved my new (electon) electricity, photons hugging a wire.
Both of us were born in Germany. And our names end in z. But my back aint bent.
« Last Edit: March 22, 2022, 07:03:49 pm by aetherist »
 

Offline HuronKing

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Re: "Veritasium" (YT) - "The Big Misconception About Electricity" ?
« Reply #1628 on: March 22, 2022, 07:23:29 pm »
And if you still don't believe me, I'll just refer you to C. Proteus Steinmetz who introduced complex numbers to electrical engineering in 1893 and, in doing so, massively revolutionized and simplified the solutions to engineering problems:
https://kupdf.net/download/complex-quantities-and-their-use-in-electrical-engineering_5900f124dc0d60ae1f959ea1_pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20140105044817/http://zrno.fsb.hr/katedra/download/materijali/966.pdf
Interesting.
Can anyone show me where Steinmetz believed that electricity is due to drifting electrons?
Can anyone show me where Steinmetz believed that the transient impedance was the same animal as resistance?
Steinmetz (stone mason) would have loved my new (electon) electricity, photons hugging a wire.
Both of us were born in Germany. And our names end in z. But my back aint bent.

Oh you'll want to stay far away from Steinmetz.

*lowers voice*

Steinmetz was an 'Einsteinian.'
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Four_Lectures_on_Relativity_and_Space/MtTPAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover


https://cdm16694.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/schmuse/id/15
https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/albert-einstein-and-charles-steinmetz-1921-general-electric-company/BgEoPZI-5J12Zw

PS
I should add that whatever Steinmetz's opinions about electrons is largely obsolete. He died in 1923, 1 year before Louis de Broglie proposed the wave-particle duality of matter and 6 years before it was experimentally proven. He also died before the Pauli Exclusion Principle was proven (which is an important principle for describing the properties of conductors).

The difference between science and pseudoscience is that the pseudoscientist is obsessed with cults of personality and whatever some-such-and-such 'big name' thought about something. Physics has moved on, even from the legendary genius of Steinmetz. This is 2022, not 1922.
« Last Edit: March 22, 2022, 07:56:46 pm by HuronKing »
 
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Offline aetherist

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Re: "Veritasium" (YT) - "The Big Misconception About Electricity" ?
« Reply #1629 on: March 22, 2022, 08:37:43 pm »
And if you still don't believe me, I'll just refer you to C. Proteus Steinmetz who introduced complex numbers to electrical engineering in 1893 and, in doing so, massively revolutionized and simplified the solutions to engineering problems:
https://kupdf.net/download/complex-quantities-and-their-use-in-electrical-engineering_5900f124dc0d60ae1f959ea1_pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20140105044817/http://zrno.fsb.hr/katedra/download/materijali/966.pdf
Interesting.
Can anyone show me where Steinmetz believed that electricity is due to drifting electrons?
Can anyone show me where Steinmetz believed that the transient impedance was the same animal as resistance?
Steinmetz (stone mason) would have loved my new (electon) electricity, photons hugging a wire.
Both of us were born in Germany. And our names end in z. But my back aint bent.
Oh you'll want to stay far away from Steinmetz. *lowers voice*

Steinmetz was an 'Einsteinian.'
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Four_Lectures_on_Relativity_and_Space/MtTPAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover


https://cdm16694.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/schmuse/id/15
https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/albert-einstein-and-charles-steinmetz-1921-general-electric-company/BgEoPZI-5J12Zw

PS
I should add that whatever Steinmetz's opinions about electrons is largely obsolete. He died in 1923, 1 year before Louis de Broglie proposed the wave-particle duality of matter and 6 years before it was experimentally proven. He also died before the Pauli Exclusion Principle was proven (which is an important principle for describing the properties of conductors).

The difference between science and pseudoscience is that the pseudoscientist is obsessed with cults of personality and whatever some-such-and-such 'big name' thought about something. Physics has moved on, even from the legendary genius of Steinmetz. This is 2022, not 1922.
Did Steinmetz believe in electrons?
Did Steinmetz believe that electricity was due to drifting electrons inside a wire?

It appears that Steinmetz was an Einsteinist in that Steinmetz believed that the speed of light was a constant.
What would Steinmetz have thort about DeWitte finding that the speed of electricity is not a constant (coax cables)?
And about Torr & Kolen finding that the speed of electricity is not a constant (coax cables)?

What would Steinmetz have thort about new (electon) electricity?
 

Offline penfold

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Re: "Veritasium" (YT) - "The Big Misconception About Electricity" ?
« Reply #1630 on: March 22, 2022, 09:07:26 pm »
And if you still don't believe me, I'll just refer you to C. Proteus Steinmetz who introduced complex numbers to electrical engineering in 1893 and, in doing so, massively revolutionized and simplified the solutions to engineering problems:
https://kupdf.net/download/complex-quantities-and-their-use-in-electrical-engineering_5900f124dc0d60ae1f959ea1_pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20140105044817/http://zrno.fsb.hr/katedra/download/materijali/966.pdf
Interesting.
Can anyone show me where Steinmetz believed that electricity is due to drifting electrons?
Can anyone show me where Steinmetz believed that the transient impedance was the same animal as resistance?
Steinmetz (stone mason) would have loved my new (electon) electricity, photons hugging a wire.
Both of us were born in Germany. And our names end in z. But my back aint bent.

No, no, no... I thought we got to the "electricity" isn't due only to electrons, whether they drift, glide or skate point, yeah, it's also not only fields and there's a bit in the middle that we've not provided an answer to yet... doesn't mean an answer doesn't exist, just nobody has given it to you.

Talking of Steinmetz... reminds me of magnetic losses... that's worth a look at with regard to electons, especially in soft-ferrite and iron powder type cores, EM properties of the bulk material, their heating under AC magnetic fields and temperature variations thereof do provide some results that fit very nicely within Drude type electron drift models... worth a look perhaps. It's not necesarily a fully closed proof of drift, but it narrows down the number of apparently free variables.

 

Offline aetherist

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Re: "Veritasium" (YT) - "The Big Misconception About Electricity" ?
« Reply #1631 on: March 22, 2022, 09:24:11 pm »
And if you still don't believe me, I'll just refer you to C. Proteus Steinmetz who introduced complex numbers to electrical engineering in 1893 and, in doing so, massively revolutionized and simplified the solutions to engineering problems:
https://kupdf.net/download/complex-quantities-and-their-use-in-electrical-engineering_5900f124dc0d60ae1f959ea1_pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20140105044817/http://zrno.fsb.hr/katedra/download/materijali/966.pdf
Interesting.
Can anyone show me where Steinmetz believed that electricity is due to drifting electrons?
Can anyone show me where Steinmetz believed that the transient impedance was the same animal as resistance?
Steinmetz (stone mason) would have loved my new (electon) electricity, photons hugging a wire.
Both of us were born in Germany. And our names end in z. But my back aint bent.
No, no, no... I thought we got to the "electricity" isn't due only to electrons, whether they drift, glide or skate point, yeah, it's also not only fields and there's a bit in the middle that we've not provided an answer to yet... doesn't mean an answer doesn't exist, just nobody has given it to you.

Talking of Steinmetz... reminds me of magnetic losses... that's worth a look at with regard to electons, especially in soft-ferrite and iron powder type cores, EM properties of the bulk material, their heating under AC magnetic fields and temperature variations thereof do provide some results that fit very nicely within Drude type electron drift models... worth a look perhaps. It's not necesarily a fully closed proof of drift, but it narrows down the number of apparently free variables.
I am ok with drifting electrons inside a wire, & i am ok with drifting electrons causing heating & resistance & energy loss.
But i aint ok with drifting electrons causing electricity.
There is some talk of drifting electrons feeding a magnetic field back into the circuit or something – i will have to have a think about that.

What did Steinmetz think of the electric energy being in the Poynting Field? I think Steinmetz agreed.
 

Offline TimFox

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Re: "Veritasium" (YT) - "The Big Misconception About Electricity" ?
« Reply #1632 on: March 22, 2022, 09:37:14 pm »
What did Steinmetz think of the electric energy being in the Poynting Field? I think Steinmetz agreed.

That's a fair question to ask, but perhaps you can find something in Steinmetz' writings to back up your guess that "Steinmetz agreed", since you are treating him as an heroic source.
 

Offline aetherist

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Re: "Veritasium" (YT) - "The Big Misconception About Electricity" ?
« Reply #1633 on: March 22, 2022, 09:46:09 pm »
What did Steinmetz think of the electric energy being in the Poynting Field? I think Steinmetz agreed.

That's a fair question to ask, but perhaps you can find something in Steinmetz' writings to back up your guess that "Steinmetz agreed", since you are treating him as an heroic source.
I have some of his writings. And i have his 4 lectures. I will have to have a read.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015078008185&view=page&seq=61&skin=2021
 

Offline HuronKing

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Re: "Veritasium" (YT) - "The Big Misconception About Electricity" ?
« Reply #1634 on: March 22, 2022, 09:57:22 pm »
Did Steinmetz believe in electrons?

Who cares? He died before he knew about the Pauli Exclusion Principle, the Dirac Equation, Wave-Particle Duality etc etc etc... Which means he did not know about electrons and photons to the extent we do now.

If he believed in electrons, great! But he didn't know what we know now.
If he didn't believe in electrons, that's okay too. It's not his fault he died before so much more was discovered about them.

Whatever he believed about electrons is incomplete and irrelevant to our current understanding. Although, from a historical point of view, if you read his lectures on relativity you'll see he was very close to describing a proto-idea of quantum field theory.

This is like asking if Newton believed in galaxies...

Quote
Did Steinmetz believe that electricity was due to drifting electrons inside a wire?

Who cares?

Quote
It appears that Steinmetz was an Einsteinist in that Steinmetz believed that the speed of light was a constant.

LOL are you choosing to ignore the evidence of your own eyes? Steinmetz delivered 4 scathing lectures in which he went through all of special relativity and general relativity. He was into the whole thing, hardcore. I'm surprised you weren't aware of how thoroughly he shreds ether to pieces.

Quote
What would Steinmetz have thort about DeWitte finding that the speed of electricity is not a constant (coax cables)?

Steinmetz knew that dielectrics affect the speed of light - it's not light in a vacuum anymore...

Quote
What would Steinmetz have thort about new (electon) electricity?

Krapp. Next?  :scared:
« Last Edit: March 22, 2022, 09:59:08 pm by HuronKing »
 
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Offline aetherist

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Re: "Veritasium" (YT) - "The Big Misconception About Electricity" ?
« Reply #1635 on: March 22, 2022, 10:17:14 pm »
Did Steinmetz believe in electrons?
Who cares? He died before he knew about the Pauli Exclusion Principle, the Dirac Equation, Wave-Particle Duality etc etc etc... Which means he did not know about electrons and photons to the extent we do now.

If he believed in electrons, great! But he didn't know what we know now.
If he didn't believe in electrons, that's okay too. It's not his fault he died before so much more was discovered about them.

Whatever he believed about electrons is incomplete and irrelevant to our current understanding. Although, from a historical point of view, if you read his lectures on relativity you'll see he was very close to describing a proto-idea of quantum field theory.

This is like asking if Newton believed in galaxies...

Quote
Did Steinmetz believe that electricity was due to drifting electrons inside a wire?
Who cares?
Quote
It appears that Steinmetz was an Einsteinist in that Steinmetz believed that the speed of light was a constant.
LOL are you choosing to ignore the evidence of your own eyes? Steinmetz delivered 4 scathing lectures in which he went through all of special relativity and general relativity. He was into the whole thing, hardcore. I'm surprised you weren't aware of how thoroughly he shreds ether to pieces.
Quote
What would Steinmetz have thort about DeWitte finding that the speed of electricity is not a constant (coax cables)?
Steinmetz knew that dielectrics affect the speed of light - it's not light in a vacuum anymore...
Quote
What would Steinmetz have thort about new (electon) electricity?
Krapp. Next?  :scared:
Can u show me where Steinmetz ever mentions the STR cause of magnetism around a current carrying wire.

In his 4 lectures, can u show me where Steinmetz ever mentions the STR cause of magnetism around a current carrying wire.

I think that u can't.
So, in the only area where he should have some expertise (electricity & em radiation) & can comment on STR, he is mute.
 

Offline penfold

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Re: "Veritasium" (YT) - "The Big Misconception About Electricity" ?
« Reply #1636 on: March 22, 2022, 10:43:40 pm »
[...]
What did Steinmetz think of the electric energy being in the Poynting Field? I think Steinmetz agreed.

I don't think Steinmetz did any particular work which would have led to a contrary opinion, I suspect that he'd have spotted any deviations from Maxwell, of which Poynting is a theorem, and his years overlapped with the advent of the Drude model - I've no reason to suspect he would have disagreed with either.
 

Offline aetherist

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Re: "Veritasium" (YT) - "The Big Misconception About Electricity" ?
« Reply #1637 on: March 22, 2022, 11:26:52 pm »
[...]What did Steinmetz think of the electric energy being in the Poynting Field? I think Steinmetz agreed.
I don't think Steinmetz did any particular work which would have led to a contrary opinion, I suspect that he'd have spotted any deviations from Maxwell, of which Poynting is a theorem, and his years overlapped with the advent of the Drude model - I've no reason to suspect he would have disagreed with either.
But, Steinmetz knew that the ave drift velocity of electrons varied with the dia of the wire squared.
Steinmetz knew that the magnetic field depended on the amps in the wire, not on the dia, ie not on the ave drift velocity.
Steinmetz knew that by doubling the dia or by halving the dia then the magnetic field did not change.
But STR said that the magnetic field did change.
STR said that u could get a magnetic field 1000 times stronger by simply using a very thin wire.
So, Steinmetz committed suicide. Admirable.
 

Offline HuronKing

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Re: "Veritasium" (YT) - "The Big Misconception About Electricity" ?
« Reply #1638 on: March 22, 2022, 11:33:17 pm »
Can u show me where Steinmetz ever mentions the STR cause of magnetism around a current carrying wire.
In his 4 lectures, can u show me where Steinmetz ever mentions the STR cause of magnetism around a current carrying wire.
I think that u can't.

Oh, but yes I can. It's on p.20-21 of the lectures. He uses relativistic field theory to explain the emergence of electromagnetic interactions (notice his careful use of relative velocities) in a chapter called "Conclusions from Relativity Theory."

Quote
So, in the only area where he should have some expertise (electricity & em radiation) & can comment on STR, he is mute.

He's not mute - he's simplifying the explanation. If you read Steinmetz's introduction to the lectures he says explicitly that he seeks to only give a layman's explanation of special and general relativity theories... it's NOT his complete exegesis on the theories or all their consequences. Are you insane?

But lucky for me, I don't need to hang my hat on every word out of Steinmetz's mouth on lectures about relativity to an audience of mathematical laymen in the early 1920s. I have Edward Purcell, Chapter 5:
https://cdn.bc-pf.org/resources/physics/Theory/Purcell-electricity_and_magnetism_3rd_edition.pdf

Coming back to Steinmetz, he's obviously familiar with, and agrees with, Einstein's solution to the moving conductor problem (that electric fields in one moving frame of reference must give rise to magnetic fields in another frame of reference) because he's heaping praise on special relativity all throughout the text while ripping ether as a useless paradigm.

And he does mention electrons on p.8 of the lectures (and how they provide evidence for special relativity).

You really need to give up trying to co-opt Steinmetz for your crankery. I know why you latched onto him as soon as he got mentioned - because other cranks on the Internet have tried to co-opt Steinmetz. He won't help you - he was a filthy Einteinist and he helped nail the coffin shut on the ether.

Quote
The hypothesis of the ether has been finally disproven and abandoned. There is no such thing as the ether.
Charles Steinmetz p.16
 

Offline aetherist

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Re: "Veritasium" (YT) - "The Big Misconception About Electricity" ?
« Reply #1639 on: March 23, 2022, 01:12:30 am »
Can u show me where Steinmetz ever mentions the STR cause of magnetism around a current carrying wire.
In his 4 lectures, can u show me where Steinmetz ever mentions the STR cause of magnetism around a current carrying wire.
I think that u can't.
Oh, but yes I can. It's on p.20-21 of the lectures. He uses relativistic field theory to explain the emergence of electromagnetic interactions (notice his careful use of relative velocities) in a chapter called "Conclusions from Relativity Theory."
Quote
So, in the only area where he should have some expertise (electricity & em radiation) & can comment on STR, he is mute.
He's not mute - he's simplifying the explanation. If you read Steinmetz's introduction to the lectures he says explicitly that he seeks to only give a layman's explanation of special and general relativity theories... it's NOT his complete exegesis on the theories or all their consequences. Are you insane?

But lucky for me, I don't need to hang my hat on every word out of Steinmetz's mouth on lectures about relativity to an audience of mathematical laymen in the early 1920s. I have Edward Purcell, Chapter 5:
https://cdn.bc-pf.org/resources/physics/Theory/Purcell-electricity_and_magnetism_3rd_edition.pdf

Coming back to Steinmetz, he's obviously familiar with, and agrees with, Einstein's solution to the moving conductor problem (that electric fields in one moving frame of reference must give rise to magnetic fields in another frame of reference) because he's heaping praise on special relativity all throughout the text while ripping ether as a useless paradigm.

And he does mention electrons on p.8 of the lectures (and how they provide evidence for special relativity).

You really need to give up trying to co-opt Steinmetz for your crankery. I know why you latched onto him as soon as he got mentioned - because other cranks on the Internet have tried to co-opt Steinmetz. He won't help you - he was a filthy Einsteinist and he helped nail the coffin shut on the ether.
Quote
The hypothesis of the ether has been finally disproven and abandoned. There is no such thing as the ether.
Charles Steinmetz p.16

Purcell ch5 is no better. He in effect confirms that STR infers that there is no limit to the hi-strength of a magnetic field around a current carrying wire if u make the wire thinner & thinner. And, no limit to the lo-strength if u make the wire thicker & thicker. All wires carrying the same say one Amp.
What to call it?  Einstein's Magnetism Catastrophe – might do.

Einstein's MC can be added to Einstein's TC (Twins Catastrophe)(which i see that Steinmetz ignored in his 4 lectures).

I see that Steinmetz too called the MMX null, when in fact the MMX showed a 6 km/s aetherwind, corrected to 8 km/s by Munera (using the proper averages), corrected to about 380 km/s by Cahill (using the proper calibration).

In 1925-33 approx Miller & Morley repeated the Michelson & Morley MMX & found an aetherwind of about 240 km/s, later corrected to 400 km/s by Cahill using the proper calibration. But Steinmetz died in 1923 (either from shame re the Einsteinian Twins Catastrophe, or from anxiety re the Einsteinian Magnetic Catastrophe), hence he did not have the benefit of Miller's improved MMX.

Einstein's STR, a theory so wrong that it was proven wrong (in 1887)(when Einstein was 8YO) before STR was invented (in 1905).

Re Einstein's Magnetism Catastrophe. Einsteinist's always invoke an infinitely long wire. Did u ever wonder why it was infinitely long? Allow me to tell u. It was infinitely long koz a finitely long wire duznt work.

The attraction (or repulsion) tween 2 finite parallel wires can't increase with relative speed, koz STR length contraction (supposedly) lessens the spacings tween electrons or protons, but it can't add or subtract electrons or protons from the wire(s).
What to call this? Einstein's Catastrophe For Wires With Finite Length.
It means that finite lengths of wire can't have magnetism.
« Last Edit: March 23, 2022, 03:53:16 am by aetherist »
 

Offline HuronKing

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Re: "Veritasium" (YT) - "The Big Misconception About Electricity" ?
« Reply #1640 on: March 23, 2022, 04:41:18 am »
Purcell ch5 is no better. He in effect confirms that STR infers that there is no limit to the hi-strength of a magnetic field around a current carrying wire if u make the wire thinner & thinner. And, no limit to the lo-strength if u make the wire thicker & thicker. All wires carrying the same say one Amp.
What to call it?  Einstein's Magnetism Catastrophe – might do.

Uhh, no? 

Is this it? Is this the culmination? That at the end of all this... you don't understand Ohm's Law or Ampere's Law or even the meaning of uniform current density?

Changing the thickness of the wire but maintaining the same current (meaning you had to change the strength of the E-field that created the current in order to keep it constant) won't change the magnetic field strength at some distance r away from the surface of the conductor. Not in relativity and not in Ampere's Law either.
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/magnetic/magin.html#c1

You'll notice that Ampere's Law makes no statement about the thickness of wires versus magnetic field strength - just how far you are FROM THE CENTER of a Gaussian loop and how much current is enclosed by the Gaussian loop that the current penetrates through. Ampere's Law and Relativity are true whether wires are there or not! They're laws of nature. Magnetic fields exist in space even when wires aren't around....
It's unfortunate that Ampere's Law is always taught in the context of current-carrying wires. I can make currents in empty space with an electron gun and exactly define the magnetic field strengths around them depending on the density of the electron stream and their velocities - BTW this is how cathode-ray tube TV works. If special relativity were wrong, the images on old TVs could never be in focus:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/tv-radar-guns-and-other-technology-linked-to-einsteins-theories-of-relativity

Refer to example 5.4:
https://openstax.org/books/university-physics-volume-3/pages/5-3-time-dilation

Anyways, I've digressed because there are just so many ways you're wrong about everything.
In Chapter 5 and later into Chapter 6 of Purcell, they used relativity to derive an identical expression of Ampere's Law starting with Gauss' Law and Coulomb's Law because they are already Lorentz invariant (which Purcell takes pains to explain). Consistent with experiment and consistent with mathematics. The only catastrophe here is you.

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Einstein's MC can be added to Einstein's TC (Twins Catastrophe)(which i see that Steinmetz ignored in his 4 lectures).

LOL calm down. He was introducing relativity to people who had never heard of it before and didn't have a strong mathematical background. And there is nothing catastrophic about the twin paradox - it ain't even a paradox, really.

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I see that Steinmetz too called the MMX null, when in fact the MMX showed a 6 km/s aetherwind, corrected to 8 km/s by Munera (using the proper averages), corrected to about 380 km/s by Cahill (using the proper calibration).

Yea, cause Michelson couldn't report etherwind within his own margin of error. We've been over this.  :blah: :blah: :blah:

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In 1925-33 approx Miller & Morley repeated the Michelson & Morley MMX & found an aetherwind of about 240 km/s, later corrected to 400 km/s by Cahill using the proper calibration. But Steinmetz died in 1923 (either from shame re the Einsteinian Twins Catastrophe, or from anxiety re the Einsteinian Magnetic Catastrophe), hence he did not have the benefit of Miller's improved MMX.

And now you're being a tool - this isn't funny. Steinmetz had health problems his whole life and he died far too young. I wish he had lived through the quantum revolution. He might've even lived to see the invention of the transistor under different circumstances.

But I am glad to see you've completely reversed course on co-opting Steinmetz for your lunacy while just hours earlier you were tentatively hoping he might back up your crankery. Steinmetz was no crank. In fact, he was a true scientist. He lived through the Ether Dark Ages, learned about relativity, realized what a brilliant and coherent theory it is, and said this about people who cling to ether,
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Thus the conception of the ether; is one of those untenable hypotheses which have been made in the attempt to explain some difficulty. The more it is studied and conclusions drawn from it, the more contradictions we get, and the more unreasonable and untenable it becomes. It has been merely conservatism or lack of courage which has kept us from openly abandoning the ether; hypothesis. The belief in an ether; is in contradiction to the relativity theory, since this theory shows that there is no absolute position nor motion, but that all positions and motions are relative and equivalent.
Charles P. Steinmetz p.16

Ya hear that? Steinmetz thinks you're a coward.  >:D

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Re Einstein's Magnetism Catastrophe. Einsteinist's always invoke an infinitely long wire. Did u ever wonder why it was infinitely long? Allow me to tell u. It was infinitely long koz a finitely long wire duznt work.

You're a civil engineer (apparently I guess from what you said pages ago) so I'll forgive this particular idiocy due to lack of electrical physics/mathematics education on your part.
But Ampere's Law as conventionally written doesn't work directly with finite length wires either because there is no longer charge conservation. You have to account for the boundary conditions where discontinuity exists - this breaks the symmetry of the problem and makes the integrations harder. Not impossible - just harder:
http://www.phys.uri.edu/gerhard/PHY204/tsl216.pdf
https://scholarworks.merrimack.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1016&context=phy_facpub
https://opentextbc.ca/universityphysicsv2openstax/chapter/amperes-law/

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Consider using Ampère’s law to calculate the magnetic fields of a finite straight wire and of a circular loop of wire. Why is it not useful for these calculations? In these cases the integrals around the Ampèrian loop are very difficult because there is no symmetry, so this method would not be useful.
OpenText BC

This works the same way in relativity but the mathematics are, again, more complicated and mostly outside the purview of Purcell's introductory text (too hard for you, I'm sorry).

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The attraction (or repulsion) tween 2 finite parallel wires can't increase with relative speed, koz STR length contraction lessens the spacings tween electrons or protons, but it can't add or subtract electrons or protons from the wire(s).
What to call this? Einstein's Catastrophe For Wires With Finite Length.
It means that finite lengths of wire can't have magnetism.

They do - you just don't know how to calculate them.

How do I know you can't? Try solving the homework problems in Purcell Chapter 5 or Chapter 6 (exercise 6.5 is particularly good as is 6.28). Go ahead - try. I won't wait.

In the meantime, I have my own homework to do (and to grade).
« Last Edit: March 23, 2022, 05:10:44 am by HuronKing »
 

Offline aetherist

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Re: "Veritasium" (YT) - "The Big Misconception About Electricity" ?
« Reply #1641 on: March 23, 2022, 06:23:18 am »
Purcell ch5 is no better. He in effect confirms that STR infers that there is no limit to the hi-strength of a magnetic field around a current carrying wire if u make the wire thinner & thinner. And, no limit to the lo-strength if u make the wire thicker & thicker. All wires carrying the same say one Amp.
What to call it?  Einstein's Magnetism Catastrophe – might do.
Uhh, no? 

Is this it? Is this the culmination? That at the end of all this... you don't understand Ohm's Law or Ampere's Law or even the meaning of uniform current density?

Changing the thickness of the wire but maintaining the same current (meaning you had to change the strength of the E-field that created the current in order to keep it constant) won't change the magnetic field strength at some distance r away from the surface of the conductor. Not in relativity and not in Ampere's Law either.
[url]http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/magnetic/magin.html#c1[/url]

You'll notice that Ampere's Law makes no statement about the thickness of wires versus magnetic field strength - just how far you are FROM THE CENTER of a Gaussian loop and how much current is enclosed by the Gaussian loop that the current penetrates through. Ampere's Law and Relativity are true whether wires are there or not! They're laws of nature. Magnetic fields exist in space even when wires aren't around....
It's unfortunate that Ampere's Law is always taught in the context of current-carrying wires. I can make currents in empty space with an electron gun and exactly define the magnetic field strengths around them depending on the density of the electron stream and their velocities - BTW this is how cathode-ray tube TV works. If special relativity were wrong, the images on old TVs could never be in focus:
[url]https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/tv-radar-guns-and-other-technology-linked-to-einsteins-theories-of-relativity[/url]

Refer to example 5.4:
[url]https://openstax.org/books/university-physics-volume-3/pages/5-3-time-dilation[/url]

Anyways, I've digressed because there are just so many ways you're wrong about everything.
In Chapter 5 and later into Chapter 6 of Purcell, they used relativity to derive an identical expression of Ampere's Law starting with Gauss' Law and Coulomb's Law because they are already Lorentz invariant (which Purcell takes pains to explain). Consistent with experiment and consistent with mathematics. The only catastrophe here is you.
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Einstein's MC can be added to Einstein's TC (Twins Catastrophe)(which i see that Steinmetz ignored in his 4 lectures).
LOL calm down. He was introducing relativity to people who had never heard of it before and didn't have a strong mathematical background. And there is nothing catastrophic about the twin paradox - it ain't even a paradox, really.
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I see that Steinmetz too called the MMX null, when in fact the MMX showed a 6 km/s aetherwind, corrected to 8 km/s by Munera (using the proper averages), corrected to about 380 km/s by Cahill (using the proper calibration).
Yea, cause Michelson couldn't report etherwind within his own margin of error. We've been over this.  :blah: :blah: :blah:
Quote
In 1925-33 approx Miller & Morley repeated the Michelson & Morley MMX & found an aetherwind of about 240 km/s, later corrected to 400 km/s by Cahill using the proper calibration. But Steinmetz died in 1923 (either from shame re the Einsteinian Twins Catastrophe, or from anxiety re the Einsteinian Magnetic Catastrophe), hence he did not have the benefit of Miller's improved MMX.


And now you're being a tool - this isn't funny. Steinmetz had health problems his whole life and he died far too young. I wish he had lived through the quantum revolution. He might've even lived to see the invention of the transistor under different circumstances.

But I am glad to see you've completely reversed course on co-opting Steinmetz for your lunacy while just hours earlier you were tentatively hoping he might back up your crankery. Steinmetz was no crank. In fact, he was a true scientist. He lived through the Ether Dark Ages, learned about relativity, realized what a brilliant and coherent theory it is, and said this about people who cling to ether,
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Thus the conception of the ether; is one of those untenable hypotheses which have been made in the attempt to explain some difficulty. The more it is studied and conclusions drawn from it, the more contradictions we get, and the more unreasonable and untenable it becomes. It has been merely conservatism or lack of courage which has kept us from openly abandoning the ether; hypothesis. The belief in an ether; is in contradiction to the relativity theory, since this theory shows that there is no absolute position nor motion, but that all positions and motions are relative and equivalent.
Charles P. Steinmetz p.16

Ya hear that? Steinmetz thinks you're a coward.  >:D 
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Re Einstein's Magnetism Catastrophe. Einsteinist's always invoke an infinitely long wire. Did u ever wonder why it was infinitely long? Allow me to tell u. It was infinitely long koz a finitely long wire duznt work.
You're a civil engineer (apparently I guess from what you said pages ago) so I'll forgive this particular idiocy due to lack of physics/mathematics education on your part.
But Ampere's Law as conventionally written doesn't work directly with finite length wires either because there is no longer charge conservation. You have to account for the boundary conditions where discontinuity exists - this breaks the symmetry of the problem and makes the integrations harder. Not impossible - just harder:
[url]http://www.phys.uri.edu/gerhard/PHY204/tsl216.pdf[/url]
[url]https://scholarworks.merrimack.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1016&context=phy_facpub[/url]
[url]https://opentextbc.ca/universityphysicsv2openstax/chapter/amperes-law/[/url]
Quote
Consider using Ampère’s law to calculate the magnetic fields of a finite straight wire and of a circular loop of wire. Why is it not useful for these calculations? In these cases the integrals around the Ampèrian loop are very difficult because there is no symmetry, so this method would not be useful.
This works the same way in relativity but the mathematics are, again, more complicated and outside the purview of Purcell's introductory text (too hard for you, I'm sorry).
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The attraction (or repulsion) tween 2 finite parallel wires can't increase with relative speed, koz STR length contraction lessens the spacings tween electrons or protons, but it can't add or subtract electrons or protons from the wire(s).
What to call this? Einstein's Catastrophe For Wires With Finite Length.
It means that finite lengths of wire can't have magnetism.
They do - you just don't know how to calculate them.

How do I know you can't? Try solving the homework problems in Purcell Chapter 5 or Chapter 6. Go ahead - try. I won't wait.

In the meantime, I have my own homework to do (and to grade).

Michelson found a signal. Miller used Michelson's gizmo & found a signal. Their margin for error was acceptable. The argument re margin for error boils down to how to treat the apparent noise. I have explained that the supposed noise identified by Roberts was in fact non-wanted signal, which Demjanov & me myself have explained. It was not error, it was signal, albeit non-wanted signal(s) (ie without a known calibration), & was quite correctly simply deducted by averaging out. Altho Michelson's method of averaging was too simple, as pointed out by Munera, who corrected Michelson's 6 km/s to 8 km/s. Michelson & Morley were looking for 30 km/s (ie Earth's orbital speed), & for some reason they called their result null, when it clearly wasn’t null. And Cahill in 2001 derived the correct calibration which corrected the 8 km/s to 340 km/s (i can't remember the exact number), whereas we now know that the aetherwind is today almost 500 km/s.

The STR magnetic field & the Ampere magnetic field can't have an identical expression. And, the attempted invoking of STR is an attempt to use Lorentz variance, it is not based on Lorentz invariance.
I agree that an electron beam has an Amperage & a magnetic field. And it duznt need a dia for the wire.
But STR needs a dia koz the dia determines the ave drift velocity V, to insert into the standard equation for gamma for the supposed length contraction of the ave electron spacing.
If Einsteinist's find some way of invoking some kind of time dilation or somesuch to wave away the need for a dia due to some perverted form of Lorentz invariance then that would not surprise me.

I feel sorry re Steinmetz's poor health & early death at 58 in 1923. Had he lived i feel sure that he would have joined lots of other geniuses (eg Dingle & Silberstein)(& Einstein hizself) in realizing that STR & GTR were krapp, ie after earlier being possibly the No1 & No2 apostles of Einstein.
Einstein divorced STR, & i wonder whether he ever recanted re the STR cause of the magnetic field. He certainly recanted re relativistic mass (but in 1921 Steinmetz was in love with relativistic mass).

The Twins Catastrophe is not a paradox. Einstein couldn’t ever satisfactorily wave away the Twins Catastrophe. I think that the best that he could come up with is to invoke acceleration, & to invoke some kind of time dilation memory caused by an earlier acceleration (believe it or knot). In the modern era i see that there has been a fresh attempt to raise the catastrophe to the status of a paradox (lots of this stuff on youtube)(ugh).

I agree that it is difficult to come up with sensible simple practical models & gedankens of circuits of finite wires etc that can help in an argument re the pros & cons of STR & Ampere & magnetic fields.

Aether comes to the rescue in solving the Faraday Disc Paradox (Faraday, 1831). It is a paradox for aetherists, but is a catastrophe for non-aetherists. I wonder whether Steinmetz ever spent time on this.  Steinmetz died in 1923. Did Heaviside spend time on it? Heaviside died in 1925. Faraday died in 1867.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_paradox#:~:text=The%20Faraday%20paradox%20or%20Faraday's,is%20a%20non%2Dzero%20EMF.
« Last Edit: March 23, 2022, 06:31:24 am by aetherist »
 

Offline HuronKing

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Re: "Veritasium" (YT) - "The Big Misconception About Electricity" ?
« Reply #1642 on: March 23, 2022, 06:57:03 am »

Michelson found a signal. Miller used Michelson's gizmo & found a signal. Their margin for error was acceptable. The argument re margin for error boils down to how to treat the apparent noise. I have explained that the supposed noise identified by Roberts was in fact non-wanted signal, which Demjanov & me myself have explained. It was not error, it was signal, albeit non-wanted signal(s) (ie without a known calibration), & was quite correctly simply deducted by averaging out. Altho Michelson's method of averaging was too simple, as pointed out by Munera, who corrected Michelson's 6 km/s to 8 km/s. Michelson & Morley were looking for 30 km/s (ie Earth's orbital speed), & for some reason they called their result null, when it clearly wasn’t null. And Cahill in 2001 derived the correct calibration which corrected the 8 km/s to 340 km/s (i can't remember the exact number), whereas we now know that the aetherwind is today almost 500 km/s.

You haven't actually explained anything - all you can do is cling, desperately, to a handful of a cranks whose experiments have never been independently verified and have been summarily dismissed by I and others in this thread. It's boring now. Give up.

8 km/s from Michelson's supposedly "correct" experiment to 500 km/s is a pretty enormous margin of error. Michelson was both wrong... and right to you. His measurements are valid to you... but also off by a factor of 50 in the wrong direction! And you may wonder why Steinmetz had utter contempt for the contradictions of aetherists and called them cowards for refusing to accept the truth.

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The STR magnetic field & the Ampere magnetic field can't have an identical expression.

But they do. Purcell showed it. Panofsky & Philips show it. Feynman showed it to but you called him a moron. LOL. Whatever.

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And, the attempted invoking of STR is an attempt to use Lorentz variance, it is not based on Lorentz invariance.
I agree that an electron beam has an Amperage & a magnetic field. And it duznt need a dia for the wire.
But STR needs a dia koz the dia determines the ave drift velocity V, to insert into the standard equation for gamma for the supposed length contraction of the ave electron spacing.
If Einsteinist's find some way of invoking some kind of time dilation or somesuch to wave away the need for a dia due to some perverted form of Lorentz invariance then that would not surprise me.

The fact that you agree about cathode-rays and then turnaround to disagree means this is all floundering hogwash because you can't admit the truth.
Purcell's derivation of the magnetic force as a relativistic transformation of an electric charge in motion is independent of diameters of wires. All he needs is the charge density and the distance to the test charge - wires or no wires. This is why the explanation works for the magnetism of CRT electrons and for electrons drifting in a wire. They're both manifestations of the same phenomena - relativity.

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I feel sorry re Steinmetz's poor health & early death at 58 in 1923. Had he lived i feel sure that he would have joined lots of other geniuses (eg Dingle & Silberstein)(& Einstein hizself) in realizing that STR & GTR were krapp, ie after earlier being possibly the No1 & No2 apostles of Einstein.
Einstein divorced STR, & i wonder whether he ever recanted re the STR cause of the magnetic field. He certainly recanted re relativistic mass (but in 1921 Steinmetz was in love with relativistic mass).

More lies.

Quote
The Twins Catastrophe is not a paradox. Einstein couldn’t ever satisfactorily wave away the Twins Catastrophe. I think that the best that he could come up with is to invoke acceleration, & to invoke some kind of time dilation memory caused by an earlier acceleration (believe it or knot). In the modern era i see that there has been a fresh attempt to raise the catastrophe to the status of a paradox (lots of this stuff on youtube)(ugh).

More and more lies.

Quote
Aether comes to the rescue in solving the Faraday Disc Paradox (Faraday, 1831). It is a paradox for aetherists, but is a catastrophe for non-aetherists. I wonder whether Steinmetz ever spent time on this.  Steinmetz died in 1923.
Did Heaviside spend time on it? Heaviside died in 1923. Faraday died in 1867.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_paradox#:~:text=The%20Faraday%20paradox%20or%20Faraday's,is%20a%20non%2Dzero%20EMF.

OMG. Do you have memory issues? Like, seriously, do you? We've already been through the Faraday Disc pages and pages ago. Did you forget? Or is this like Mad-Libs where you throw random stuff around in here hoping it sounds impressive?

I see you won't even attempt to solve Purcell's homework problems nor can your precious ether even hope to explain how a CRT TV works. You glossed right past those. Catastrophes indeed.

Again, Steinmetz thinks aetherists are cowards. The ether is dead. Stop parading its corpse around. Let it rest in peace. It had a good run over 100 years ago.
 
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Offline HuronKing

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Re: "Veritasium" (YT) - "The Big Misconception About Electricity" ?
« Reply #1643 on: March 23, 2022, 07:10:12 am »
Quote
It is a remarkable fact that the force on the moving test charge does not depend separately on the velocity or density of the charge carriers but only on the product, β0λ0 in our example, that determines the charge transport. If we have a certain current I, say 1 milliamp, it does not matter whether this current is composed of high-energy electrons moving with 99 percent of the speed of light, or of electrons in a metal executing nearly random thermal motions with a slight drift in one direction, or of charged ions in solution with positive ions moving one way, negatives the other. Or it could be any combination of these, as Exercise 5.30 will demonstrate. Furthermore, the force on the test charge is strictly proportional to the velocity of the test charge v. Finally, our derivation was in no way restricted to small velocities, either for the charge carriers in the wire or for the moving charge q. Equation (5.28) is exact, with no restrictions.

Purcell p.263
 

Offline penfold

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Re: "Veritasium" (YT) - "The Big Misconception About Electricity" ?
« Reply #1644 on: March 23, 2022, 08:11:45 am »
[...]
Steinmetz knew that by doubling the dia or by halving the dia then the magnetic field did not change.
But STR said that the magnetic field did change.
STR said that u could get a magnetic field 1000 times stronger by simply using a very thin wire.

Define "stronger". The field strength at the surface of wires of different diameters carrying the same current will be different, but the field at a common distance from the center's line of each wire will be the same. STR doesn't say anything to the contrary... I think your arithmetic is in error, at least the "reduction" to proportionalities much earlier on was in error, so I guess whatever led to it was too.
 
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Offline adx

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Re: "Veritasium" (YT) - "The Big Misconception About Electricity" ?
« Reply #1645 on: March 23, 2022, 01:10:50 pm »
...
Engineer and physicist are just job titles, there's nothing more to it, surely? ...

That might be the surprising answer. It shouldn't be any surprise if we're all trained in roughly the same stuff and could be at least considered for the same work, but the world seems so preoccupied with pigeon holes that it's hard to see beyond ours. Perhaps that's why they keep us in them!

I too wondered about power supply topologies, and all this patenting and cleverness. Whether it is fundamental enough to count. But all of the transistor team were payrolled scientists effectively, I'm wondering if there's some misdirected envy, grass is always greener styles. I wouldn't have minded being a theoretical physicist, impractical (or even impossible) as that might have been.
 

Offline TimFox

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Re: "Veritasium" (YT) - "The Big Misconception About Electricity" ?
« Reply #1646 on: March 23, 2022, 01:45:24 pm »
Forcing a fixed value of current through a wire and then reducing the diameter of the wire to zero is bad engineering.
It is also bad physics:  the lattice constant for copper is 0.36 nm (rather small, but not zero), so a cylindrical wire that small is absurd.
Engineering:  try forcing a measly Ampere down a #50 AWG wire, 0.025 mm diameter.  The tabulated fusing current for #40 AWG copper is 1.77 A.
Physics:  the fundamental variable is the (vector) current density J.  A sensible calculation for small diameter wires would keep the magnitude J constant as you reduce the diameter--nothing weird happens.
As noted above, the magnitude of the field adjacent to a zero-diameter wire is not the important result, anyway:  the laws of magnetic induction calculate the field at a finite distance.

When using limits as x goes to 0, be careful how you set up the problem to avoid mathematically absurd results that are not physical.
« Last Edit: March 23, 2022, 02:39:24 pm by TimFox »
 
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Offline adx

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Re: "Veritasium" (YT) - "The Big Misconception About Electricity" ?
« Reply #1647 on: March 23, 2022, 02:56:45 pm »
Hey,

I'm only going to respond to this tidbit below because you've written a lot, the discussion is getting kind of unwieldy, and I think we've both said what we want to say. But I don't wish to diminish the effort you put into writing your reply! I read it and consider my reply to it as "nod thoughtfully and smile."  :D

Agreed! It was getting too much :)

Have you done any work in power engineering? The concept of 'reactive power' is immensely important and is mathematically described perfectly by the usage of sqrt(-1):
...

Not work per se, the power industry paid too much, jobs too secure and too many way too good opportunities :). I just wanted to do electronics. But I did the courses, either because we all had to, or it was seen as a relatively low workload course as some sort of unwritten inducement carrot dangled in the hope of slurping more over to the (then) state-run energy sector. Software would have been another good way to go. Yet here I am ...

Yes there was a lot of j around. I don't know how much of it there would be in the industry, I suspect there are a lot of vars and little squiggle drawings on control panels to keep power industry workers irreplaceable. (Actually I lie - I had 2 student jobs in the industry.)

We also had a lot of js in machines lab, and of course circuit theory stuff. I have seen little of it since then - maybe the odd appnote for something like a mains measuring chip, or motor driver, will trundle out the j box in a range of styles including metric fine and Whitworth.

I don't know about RF, but I suspect they don't believe any of it, so won't think of j as real (bad choice of word) anyway. Similar to DSP - I close my eyes and j goes away.

My problem (and I'll bet many others will share in the confusion, if surveyed) is that the rapid and frequent appearance of j in all of this, lends someone to think that there is some deeper meaning to it: That sqrt(-1) has physical meaning. Especially with the match of "imaginary" power to its identically-named counterpart.

Lecturers just romp straight into it, as though it's a thing. A little warning could have gone a long way for me.

Thanks for the Steinmetz link - I can see where it all came from. It's a bit sad, he had it working with vectors then took it just that little bit further to complex phasors and BANG there goes the minds of countless students for generations (no pun intended) to come. We've all had those sorts of ideas, that seemed like a good idea at the time, but can't be put back in the box. No doubt it was an extremely useful idea in the day, when "expressions" were more powerful than data.
 

Offline TimFox

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Re: "Veritasium" (YT) - "The Big Misconception About Electricity" ?
« Reply #1648 on: March 23, 2022, 03:38:39 pm »
In RF, you will see Z = R + jX all the time in impedance calculations.
 
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Offline HuronKing

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Re: "Veritasium" (YT) - "The Big Misconception About Electricity" ?
« Reply #1649 on: March 23, 2022, 09:19:22 pm »
I don't know about RF, but I suspect they don't believe any of it, so won't think of j as real (bad choice of word) anyway. Similar to DSP - I close my eyes and j goes away.

Oh I assure you - RF engineers believe it. Unfortunately my RF mentor left the school and the extent of my formal education and training in the RF field stopped after a course in microwave engineering and another in antenna engineering plus the HFSS simulations I did. I haven't stopped learning and picking up what I can though (I was an intern for an RF sales company for a while).

Quote
My problem (and I'll bet many others will share in the confusion, if surveyed) is that the rapid and frequent appearance of j in all of this, lends someone to think that there is some deeper meaning to it: That sqrt(-1) has physical meaning. Especially with the match of "imaginary" power to its identically-named counterpart.

Lecturers just romp straight into it, as though it's a thing. A little warning could have gone a long way for me.

Now this I absolutely agree with. The difficulties are in the pedagogy. sqrt(-1) is called an 'imaginary' number or a 'complex' variable but these names are strictly historical. We can blame Rene Descartes for coining the term 'imaginary' as a derogatory term to imply they are not useful numbers. Those names have no bearing on what the sqrt(-1) actually represents - and it IS a physical phenomena. It's no less 'real' than negative numbers are 'real...' or how some ancient mathematicians regarded zero as a meaningless number...

Like, what if I asked you to calculate the power supplied by a voltage source? But then you did everything right and discovered the value of the wattage is negative! Is that not a 'real' answer? Of course it is. All it means is that I tricked you in the problem statement - the voltage source is absorbing power instead of delivering power.

In the world of sqrt(-1), where AC lives, all it means is that incident power is not the same as absorbed power. It can get phase-shifted by the reactance of components which means some of the incident power is reflected back up the line and not completely transmitted through. This is the meaning of the Reflection Coefficient:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflection_coefficient

This whole business about voltage reflections isn't just a problem in AC power. You have to have terminating resistors in bus network motor control equal to the characteristic impedance of the transmission cable or the digital control signals will hit a mismatched impedance, get reflected back up the line, and cause distortions in the new incoming bits which the end-user sees as 'packet losses':
https://support.maxongroup.com/hc/en-us/articles/360009241840-CAN-bus-topology-and-bus-termination
https://e2e.ti.com/blogs_/b/industrial_strength/posts/the-importance-of-termination-networks-in-can-transceivers

This is something I work hard at when teaching my students about AC power, power factor correction, and what it really means to say a circuit is 'leading or lagging.' I get seniors of EE coming through my classroom who are still fuzzy about what the j actually means.

Funnily enough, they get it better once I explain it in terms of the physics.  ;D
« Last Edit: March 23, 2022, 09:45:32 pm by HuronKing »
 
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