What Medium is Propagating Electromagnetic Waves?

a reply to: More1ThanAny1

You need to learn about massless particles you do not truly understand how they work.

Light or photons and also gluons are force-carrying particles, also known as gauge bosons.Photons are associated with the electromagnetic force, and gluons are associated with the strong force. These massless particles have some unique properties. They are completely stable, so unlike some particles, they do not lose their energy decaying into pairs of less massive particles.


Now what is a particle well in particle physics it's an energy level much like plucking a string on a guitar. This is what we see when we slam particles together we see the energy as vibrations.A quantum field has vibration modes like the harmonics on a guitar string. Pluck it with the right frequency and you get a particle. A better way to think of particles is as ripples on a quantum field. Though keep in mind even this is not entirely accurate. Which leads to the biggest problem we have in science we understand the math involved but when we try to explain things without math we become imprecise and analogies always have their flaws. Particles for example can mean different things to different branches of science.

Hi. Thought that this vid about the 'Akasha', would fit well in this thread.




There are also 3 or 4 follow-up vids, that move into other domains.
Available in a few different languages: seek them on the vid-poster's channel.

originally posted by: neutronflux
You mean like a crystal radio that needs a high impedance speaker?

Yes, correct. What is your point? I think you missed my point entirely.

originally posted by: neutronflux
What type of “vibrations” are you talking about?

The vibration of electrons.

originally posted by: neutronflux
To flow electrons you have to have electrical potential. Not vibration potential.

Don't you know? You can induce/create a potential in a conductor to cause electrons to flow. That is how generators work...

Here is an example with a radio antenna:


The vibrating electric wave of light will vibrate the electrons in the wire from one side to the other. This forms a potential difference across the resistor, which will allow electrons to flow.

originally posted by: neutronflux
The crystal earpiece works by converting electrical potential to mechanical stress in the crystal.

I know exactly how the piezoelectric effect works. I am the one that mentioned it. What is your point? The earpiece goes where the resistor is on the image above...

originally posted by: neutronflux
It’s a flow of electrons by changes in electrical potential.

Yes, correct. I am talking about the flow itself, once a potential exists, what and how is it flowing? It is vibrating.

Just like when you create sound... sounds waves are vibrating air molecules.
When you create electricity... electricity is just waves through a wire which are vibrating electrons.

Lets get on the same page. Pay attention at 2:07. Its the wave...

originally posted by: neutronflux
Electrons don’t flow because of “vibration”. They flow because of electrical potential. Or they are pushed / pulled by Magnetic Flux Lines.

I see where you are confused. I was talking about how electrons flow, not why they flow. Electricity is just vibration of electrons. How those vibrations are induced is usually through changing electric or magnetic fields. Light is a good example, light is a changing electric and magnetic field which vibrates electrons...

originally posted by: neutronflux
If ac current was from just vibrations, then everything should be “piezoelectric”.

I said AC current is just vibration of electrons. I didn't say AC current was from just vibrations. Something must induce those vibrations, such as light or a magnet. Electrons do vibrate on their own, but they all need to be vibrating in unison with other electrons in the material to amount to anything useful.

Vibration of electrons is basically the definition of alternating current... Oscillating electrons is alternating current... lol...

I don't quite understand your comment about everything being piezoelectric. Please do explain what you mean.

originally posted by: dragonridr
You need to learn about massless particles you do not truly understand how they work.

What made you think I don't understand massless particles?

originally posted by: dragonridr
Light or photons and also gluons are force-carrying particles, also known as gauge bosons.Photons are associated with the electromagnetic force, and gluons are associated with the strong force. These massless particles have some unique properties. They are completely stable, so unlike some particles, they do not lose their energy decaying into pairs of less massive particles.

Why are you telling me this?

originally posted by: dragonridr
Now what is a particle well in particle physics it's an energy level much like plucking a string on a guitar. This is what we see when we slam particles together we see the energy as vibrations.A quantum field has vibration modes like the harmonics on a guitar string. Pluck it with the right frequency and you get a particle. A better way to think of particles is as ripples on a quantum field. Though keep in mind even this is not entirely accurate. Which leads to the biggest problem we have in science we understand the math involved but when we try to explain things without math we become imprecise and analogies always have their flaws. Particles for example can mean different things to different branches of science.

Have you read any of my posts in this topic? I agree with you. I have been explaining everything in terms of frequency and vibration. The only part I don't agree with is the concept of particles. There are no particles, there are only waves.

a reply to: More1ThanAny1

The only part I don't agree with is the concept of particles. There are no particles, there are only waves.

I'm sure you have previously said that a particle is a wave in it's smallest form.

Which i would agree.

Wouldn't a wave therefore be a propagating particle?

Another thought for you.

A wave had to propagate from a position. Which is a point.

a reply to: More1ThanAny1

Yes, correct. I am talking about the flow itself, once a potential exists, what and how is it flowing? It is vibrating.

No, they are flowing.
Electrons are always vibrating. How does introducing electrical potential make a electron vibrate different where the vibration of the electron makes it flow?

The ampere

www.dictionary.com...

the basic unit of electrical current in the International System of Units(SI), equivalent to one coulomb per second, formally defined to be the constant current which if maintained in two straight parallel conductors of infinite length, of negligible circular cross section, and placed one meter apart in vacuum, would produce between these conductors a force equal to 2 × 10−7 newton per meter of length. Abbreviation: A, amp.

coulomb
www.dictionary.com...

the standard unit of quanitity of electricity in the International System of Units (SI), equal to the quantity of charge transferred in one second across a conductor in which there is a constant current of one ampere. Abbreviation: C

Coulomb's Law

www.softschools.com...

Electric charges attract and repel by exerting forces on each other. Coulomb's law describes this force. It is the basic law of interaction between electric charges. Specifically, Coulomb's law deals with point charges. Point charges can be protons, electrons, or other basic particles of matter. Additionally, any objects can be treated as point charges, as long as the objects are very small in comparison to the distance between them. In words, Coulomb's law is: The magnitude of the electric force between to point charges is proportional to the magnitude of the charges, and inversely proportional to the distance between them.

Snip

Electric Fields

Every charged object emits an electric field. This electric field is the origin of the electric force that other charged particles experience. The electric field of a charge exists everywhere, but its strength decreases with distance squared. In SI units, the electric field unit is Newtons per Coulomb, .

Electrons produce current because they flow because of electrical potential, and electrical fields. Circuits can do work because of electrical potential, and produced electrical fiends. Not vibration potential.

a reply to: More1ThanAny1

Current flow is not an electron vibrating at a specific point to produce a measurable result in amperes.

Current flow is electrons flowing past a specific point to produce a measurable current in amperes.

originally posted by: neutronflux
No, they are flowing.
Electrons are always vibrating. How does introducing electrical potential make a electron vibrate different where the vibration of the electron makes it flow?

No they are vibrating. Electrical potential just makes them vibrate towards a certain direction.

Did you watch the last video I posted? It explains it quite well. Did you see how one electron pushes another electron, which pushes another electron, which pushes another electron, etc.? That is called a wave. That wave of electrons is called electric force. The electrons only flow a very tiny amount in that wave, and that movement is called electric current.

Just like we call the vibration of air a sound is a wave, you can call vibration of electrons an electric wave or electric force. Understood?

msu.edu...

Waves are a wiggle in space cause by a vibration or disturbance. They have the ability to carry energy from one location to another. There are two different types of waves; transverse and longitudinal. A transverse wave is when the wave is vibrating perpendicular to the direction the wave is traveling. A longitudinal wave, also called a compression wave, is a wave in which the vibration is in the same direction as that in which the wave is traveling.

Electrical potential is just pressure. It is very much like air pressure. High pressure always moves to low pressure.

When molecules of air vibrate and move around inside a balloon, the air molecules collide with each other, and the balloon walls, and apply a force to the walls which keeps the balloon inflated. That is called pressure. You can also squeeze the balloon and increase the pressure in some parts of it, and decrease the pressure in other parts without adding air or removing air. That creates a situation where high pressure wants to move to low pressure when you let go of the balloon. You can also pop the balloon and let the vibrating air molecules flow out.

You can think of a radio antenna as a balloon, and the electrons in the antenna as air molecules. However, by default the balloon has air in it, but not pressurized, its equalized. Using electromagnetic radiation and or a magnet, you can squeeze the balloon and cause the air to move to one side, increasing the pressure on one side, and decreasing on the other side. That creates a situation where high pressure wants to move to low pressure when you let go. That is a way of saying move the electrons to one side of the antenna to make it negatively charged and induce a potential (pressure) difference with the other side being positive. When you let go, the electrons want to flow to the other side and equalize. However, since the balloon is tied, so there is nowhere for the air molecules to go. They can only move to one side or the other. You have to pop the balloon to let the high pressure (electrical potential) out into an area of lower pressure (potential difference).

A battery is also like a balloon squeezed right in the middle, with one side having much higher pressure than the other. Imagine a tube instantly connecting the high pressure side to the low pressure side while you are still squeezing it. The air would from high to low until it equalized. Through the entire thing, air is vibrating with in it, even while its flowing. In fact, it is the vibration and collision of the air molecules that caused it to flow. The pressure gradient just allowed it to vibrate in a specific direction.

Does any of this make sense to you?

a reply to: More1ThanAny1

No they are vibrating. Electrical potential just makes them vibrate towards a certain direction.

Then quote where any of the definitions of electrical current flow uses the word vibrate.

a reply to: More1ThanAny1

If current flow is dependent on “vibration”, then why is there DC current? Current in one direction? What is the “frequency” of DC current flow?

I also think you don’t understand the nuances between vibration, oscillation, amperes, and coulomb.

a reply to: More1ThanAny1

Then why is there a stated speed at which electrons move through a wire while current is flowing?

The lights turn on very quickly when I flip the switch. Just how fast does electricity flow in a wire?

www.uu.edu...

Electric current (electricity) is a flow or movement of electrical charge. The electricity that is conducted through copper wires in your home consists of moving electrons. The protons and neutrons of the copper atoms do not move. The actual progression of the individual electrons in a given direction through the wire is quite slow. The electrons have to work their way through the billions of atoms in the wire and this takes considerable time. In the case of a 12 gauge copper wire carrying 10 amperes of current (typical of home wiring), the individual electrons only move about 0.02 cm per sec or 1.2 inches per minute (in science this is called the drift velocity of the electrons.). If this is the situation in nature, why do the lights come on so quickly? At this speed it would take the electrons hours to get to the lights.

a reply to: More1ThanAny1

Capacitors also prove electrons flow in a circuit.

How a Capacitor Works

learn.sparkfun.com...

Electric current is the flow of electric charge, which is what electrical components harness to light up, or spin, or do whatever they do. When current flows into a capacitor, the charges get "stuck" on the plates because they can't get past the insulating dielectric. Electrons -- negatively charged particles -- are sucked into one of the plates, and it becomes overall negatively charged. The large mass of negative charges on one plate pushes away like charges on the other plate, making it positively charged.

The positive and negative charges on each of these plates attract each other, because that's what opposite charges do. But, with the dielectric sitting between them, as much as they want to come together, the charges will forever be stuck on the plate (until they have somewhere else to go). The stationary charges on these plates create an electric field, which influence electric potential energy and voltage. When charges group together on a capacitor like this, the cap is storing electric energy just as a battery might store chemical energy.

Charging and Discharging

When positive and negative charges coalesce on the capacitor plates, the capacitor becomes charged. A capacitor can retain its electric field -- hold its charge -- because the positive and negative charges on each of the plates attract each other but never reach each other.

At some point the capacitor plates will be so full of charges that they just can't accept any more. There are enough negative charges on one plate that they can repel any others that try to join. This is where the capacitance (farads) of a capacitor comes into play, which tells you the maximum amount of charge the cap can store.

If a path in the circuit is created, which allows the charges to find another path to each other, they'll leave the capacitor, and it will discharge.

Since capacitors work in ac circuits, the ac current flows electrons into the capacitor to be stored as the potential increases. When the electrical potential decreases, the capacitor starts to discharge electrons.

Thus,

Capacitance in AC Circuits

www.electronics-tutorials.ws...

Then we can say that in a purely capacitive circuit the alternating voltage lags the current by 90o.

a reply to: More1ThanAny1

So? How would a capacitor store electrons if “Electricity is simply a vibration of electrons..”

With all respect More1ThanAny1, I don't think you understand electrons actually flow in a circuit.

Or you do, and you want to see who jumps on the false narrative train conducted by you.

a reply to: More1ThanAny1

We also know electrons flow because of...

How Do Batteries Work?

www.livescience.com...

The series of chemical reactions that occurs in the electrodes are collectively known as oxidation-reduction (redox) reactions. In a battery, the cathode is known as the oxidizing agent because it accepts electrons from the anode. The anode is known as the reducing agent, because it loses electrons.

www.livescience.com...

Amps: An amp, or ampere, is a measure of electrical current, or the number of electrons that are flowing through a circuit within a particular time frame.

Battery chargers

www.explainthatstuff.com...

That's easy to understand if you remember that charging a battery essentially involves reversing the chemical reactions that take place when it discharges. In a laptop battery, for example, charging and discharging involve shunting lithium ions (atoms missing electrons) back and forth, from one electrode (where there are many of them) to another electrode (where there are few). Since the ions all carry a positive charge, it's easier to move them to the "empty" electrode at the start. As they start to build up there, it gets harder to pack more of them in, making the later stages of charging harder work than the earlier ones.

a reply to: More1ThanAny1

Your usually so wordy? What happened? Don’t want to post about AC current and capacitors? How does a capacitor store a wave if electrons don’t actually flow?

Uhm.. what are you guys talking about?

- Moving electrons? Yes, they do, very slowly.

- Current is "moving electrons"? Yes, but they get "pushed out" of the socket by their neighbors. If you want to simplify it so much.

- AC and DC's frequencies? The "power" (P and Q or S in case of AC) of electricity has little to do with any kind of frequency. Frequencies do mostly matter in cases of generation and motors, scin effects or such.

These are real physical phenomena, and they have little to do with each other.

originally posted by: More1ThanAny1
You can consider that video disproved now.

You claiming you have disproved Don Lincoln's video about light going through glass does not make it so. Here is a video from another physicist saying essentially the same thing as Don Lincoln but he also adds a quantum mechanics description in addition to the classical approximation, and this video also confirms what ErosA433 was saying about the time delays involved when photons are absorbed and re-emitted. So it is actually your assumption that absorption and re-emission of a photon by an atom can be instantaneous that is wrong (among other things), not the videos by Don Lincoln, Professor Merrifield, Professor Moriarty, or textbooks by Richard Feynman or any number of other physicists which all say very similar things about how light travels through glass, which are consistent with experiment and observation.

Why is light slower in glass? - Sixty Symbols


Professor Merrifield explains why light is measured to travel about 40% more slowly in glass.
He presents the same two "wrong hypotheses" as Don Lincoln from Fermilab. Here are Merrifield's comments about the wrong hypothesis #2 of light getting absorbed and re-emitted.

5:23
"It could be that the light is absorbed by one of the atoms

We know that atoms do absorb light and then they'll re-emit it some time later".

So contrary to your ill informed claims such process is instantaneous, we know that it's not, more on this later in the video.

On whether such absorption and re-emission delays could explain why light travels more slowly in glass, Merrifield explains:

"There's a couple of problems with that. We know that atoms on their own absorb light, so this picture sort of works, that atoms do absorb light and re-emit it some time later.

There's two problems with that.

Firstly, atoms tend to absorb light at very specific frequencies. So you would then expect your refractive index to affect those particular frequencies a lot because the atoms are absorbing light at those particular frequencies, and other frequencies not very much at all. So that means the refractive index should vary dramatically depending on exactly what wavelength of light we're looking at.

It doesn't happen that way. The refractive index does depend on the wavelength of light, but generally rather smoothly rather than this very discrete way.

The second problem with that, is that is fundamentally a stochastic process, a random process. How many atoms did you happen to bump into on your way through? How long did each atom happen to delay the light for? When an atom absorbs a photon of light, how long it takes to re-emit it is a random process. That means that how long it takes a photon to get through should very somewhat randomly".

So Merrifield explains the same thing as ErosA433, that light absorbed by atoms and then re-emitted takes varying amounts of time for a photon to be re-emitted. He then explains how observations contradict the idea that this is the cause of light traveling more slowly in glass:

6:51
"When you first turn on a light through a block of glass and measure when the first light comes out the other side, it's always the same amount of time. So again you can't have any kind of stochastic process like that (absorption and re-emission) going on"

He then provides the correct explanation according to two models, the quantum mechanics model which considers what photons do, and the classical approximation model. Both models have already been explained in my posts, the written explanation in quantum mechanics and the video by Don Lincoln which used a classical approximation. The interviewer asks Merrifield which model is correct, and of course both models work to some extent in this case, but the quantum mechanics explanation is thought to be more correct.

Actually it's impressive how often the classical approximation works with electromagnetic fields, which is a lot of the time, but there are cases too extreme for a classical approximation where the only way to explain things is to abandon the classical approximation and use quantum mechanics or QED.

So Merrifield gives an explanation of what's wrong and what's right very similar to Don Lincoln, and also includes a more complex quantum mechanics description in addition to the classical approximation. That video links to another professor (Moriarty) explaining basically the same thing, and he refers to another professor, Richard Feynman, one of three people to win the Nobel prize for QED theory. Moriarty points to Feynman's lectures (free online), and Feynman explains the same thing as Lincoln, Merrifield, Moriarty, and the two physics professors who contributed to the QED explanation I linked to from physicsforums. Plus I have a large quantity of written and electronic physics textbooks and any one of them which covers refraction gives very similar explanations, often referring to experimental and observational evidence for how we know what is or what is not happening.

As I said earlier, physicists tend to be more sure about what is wrong when a hypothesis or theory contradicts experiment or observation, such as the idea of glass absorbing and re-emitting photons as the cause of the slower speed of light. As for what's right, Professor Merrifield makes the point that moebius, myself and others pointed out that we have these models and we can say that observation and experiment are consistent with our models. Whether the models are completely right is not proven by experiments matching them, because we can never prove anything right in physics, we can only prove something wrong, and your idea that the photons are being absorbed and re-emitted by the atoms is something which all physics professors and textbook authors I've encountered so far will tell you is wrong because it doesn't match observation.

What's really odd about this whole tangent in whether the photons being absorbed and re-emitted glass atoms as you claim is that you brought this up to try to discredit the Michelson Morely experiment by saying maybe the photons are "new" photons that were re-emitted and that's why the experiment didn't succeed in proving a ponderable ether.

You say this:
(continued in next post)

You say this:
(continued from last post)

originally posted by: More1ThanAny1
Don't you see we are talking about the same thing? The medium is space and its properties. All you are doing is arguing the name of it, semantics. This is somewhat silly. Therefore the medium does have proof of existence, its everything you call "properties of space".

I referred to what Einstein called "the ether of general relativity" which is that space has the properties predicted by general relativity, properties which have been confirmed by experiments such as gravity probe B and others, but Einstein says clearly this "ether of general relativity" is not a medium the way physicists think of a medium.

So if you really think we are saying the same thing, that Einstein's "ether of general relativity" is what describes the properties of space with no medium (yet you choose to call it a medium in contradiction to most physicists), then it doesn't make any sense why you would be trying to point out how the Michelson Morley and related experiments were flawed, because they are not designed to detect the properties of space described by Einstein. So I find your entire train of thought and line of reasoning somewhat perplexing and seemingly incoherent. More problematic is your doing the one thing that no theoretical physicist should do, which is to propose things which contradict observation and experiment.

originally posted by: More1ThanAny1
Oh trust me, I am familiar with all of them, and they all are flawed for very similar reasons. I only mention Michelson-Morley in discussion because its easy for others to understand, and that experiment changed the course of history. I can explain all the flaws if you wish.

I can't really trust anything you say about physics when you continue to make claims that contradict observation and experiment, like saying photon absorption and re-emission is instantaneous when it's well understood that's not the case.

You can come up with new ideas "outside the box" if you want as Delbert Larson has done, but he demonstrates that he is aware of what is "inside the box" so when he discusses alternatives to relativity, he does so in a manner which recognizes all the observations supporting relativity, which gives him some credibility at least to the extent that he is not making claims that disagree with known observation. If you want any physicist to trust what you say, you also need to stop making claims that contradict known observations and experiments, and then if you have some outside the box ideas maybe they will not be so quickly dismissed as just ignorance of experiment and observation on your part.

While as Professor Merrifield says, atoms can and sometimes do absorb and re-emit photons, this source explains why that is generally not what happens with visible light in glass:

scienceline.ucsb.edu...

In a solid like glass, these energy states form a set of energy bands and between these energy bands there may be an energy gap where no electrons are allowed to transition. For glass, this energy gap is large. What this means is that any wavelength of visible light is not sufficient to excite electrons from the ground state, and thus transmits. However, UV light is high enough energy and you would find that glass is opaque to it.

originally posted by: IrisMoonie
But is radiation light, or is radiation what powers light?

For example, the battery powering a flashlight might get hot, and the filament of the light bulb will get hot, but are these elements radiating actually light? In the example of a flashlight, the light shines much further than radiation heats. Similarly, you can block harmful UV radiation with glass. But if you look at the sun through a glass window, it's going to be just about as bright as looking at it without a glass window in front of you.

That last source I posted sort of explains why glass is transparent to visible light but opaque to UV light. The reason I say "sort of" is it assumes you know some physics, like the observations that electrons have only certain energy states allowed in atoms and so on.