Why electricity flows

Originally posted by Tbrooks76
you know I went back read some explaintions posted by the oringal poster.
Good Job.
As a fellow sparky your explaintions were right on the money. I may have to change my opinion of electircal engineers...but of course most the ones I work with I don't know what a normal open contact on a relay is.

Geez, where do you get your EE's from?

Then again, I was a tech first.

Originally posted by Bedlam

Originally posted by ImaFungi

do/can photons interact with one another?

In odd ways, at times. But generally, not to a degree you'd notice. And by that, I mean outside of setups where you're trying to measure aspects of the stress/energy tensor of coherent streams of photons approaching each other head on and the like.

Where you have the means for observing it, streams of photons can interact with each other where they intersect, forming interference patterns through superposition. It should be noted that this does not affect either individual beam, which will propagate away as if nothing has happened.

and a single photon travels in a wave pattern? ( while contained all frequencies of em spectrum?) or do seperate photons contain separate frequencies only, and they travel as their frequency? the photon moves from point a to point b in a wave like motion,,, yet is ejected from point a as a single point of quanta,, and "stopped"/recieved at point b as a single bundle of quanta ? even though that bundle can be interpreted still as a wave ( frequency)?

Originally posted by ImaFungi a

and a single photon travels in a wave pattern? ( while contained all frequencies of em spectrum?) or do seperate photons contain separate frequencies only, and they travel as their frequency?

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking here. Does a single photon exhibit the characteristics of a wave. Yes. From one point of view, it's an electric field oscillating at right angles to a magnetic field. So in truth, you've got two transverse waves that propagate through space with each other. From another, somewhere in that wave there is a probability that a particle is present. It doesn't have all the frequencies of the em spectrum. It will have one single frequency, and that will be related to the photon's energy level by a simple equation that I can't display properly on ATS without digging out mathcad and making some jpg equations, which is a pain in the butt. But verbally, I'd tell you that nu equals e over h for any photon.

All photons travel at one speed in a vacuum, and that's the speed of light, and that's not dependent on their energy or frequency. In a medium other than vacuum, that is generally not the case, and you will get dispersion.

the photon moves from point a to point b in a wave like motion,,, yet is ejected from point a as a single point of quanta,, and "stopped"/recieved at point b as a single bundle of quanta ? even though that bundle can be interpreted still as a wave ( frequency)?

It's both wave and particle at the same time, if that's what you are asking. And getting to that is your biggest WTF in Modern Physics 101. At least it was for me. But by then I had a wad of higher math and a good grasp of Newtonian physics, so I had a better jumping-off point.

Originally posted by Bedlam


It's both wave and particle at the same time, if that's what you are asking. And getting to that is your biggest WTF in Modern Physics 101. At least it was for me. But by then I had a wad of higher math and a good grasp of Newtonian physics, so I had a better jumping-off point.

this is what you will have to describe a little more.... because you know math you can comprehend how something can be a wave and particle at the same time? can you help me understand or describe it, or tell me if i understand correctly when i say.......

if we take a snap shot of a particle,, there is nothing about it to describe its wave nature, there is no past involved in this photo,,, but if we view this particle in a video form, traveling through space-time it travels in a wave form?

now,, the particles trail is not ever present,, so at any snap shot moment it is a quanta/particle... a one,,,

tell me if this analogy is semi correct...

say i record a song with 1 guitar,.,.,. and the song is 1 minute long..... and i have the sheet music in front of me.... i pause the song halfway through,, and there is a note which the sheet music correlates too,,, although the guitar produces sound waves, in frequency, pitch, amplitude,, and through time, via melodies through crests and troughs of scales,,, and that moment i pause.. this wave function is collapsed ( this is similar to the uncertainty principle),, in that i can not know properties of the velocity or past of this musical wave, if i am just observing this paused particle portion,,.

reply to post by ImaFungi


It's in my head as one of a group of things I can visualize but not explain well, because I tend to do that. Being what you'd call a visual thinker/tactile verifier, I'm an odd duck that often can't explain something complex without drawing on white boards and bringing in props.

If you look for it as a wave, you will find a wave. If you look for a particle, you'll find a particle. I tend to see everything as waves, being a radio guy, and I scale down for light, and really don't care much about the particle unless I have to. But even a radio wave has a particle aspect, it's just big and mooshy and vaguely localized.

Originally posted by Bedlam
reply to post by ImaFungi

 

It's in my head as one of a group of things I can visualize but not explain well, because I tend to do that. Being what you'd call a visual thinker/tactile verifier, I'm an odd duck that often can't explain something complex without drawing on white boards and bringing in props.

If you look for it as a wave, you will find a wave. If you look for a particle, you'll find a particle. I tend to see everything as waves, being a radio guy, and I scale down for light, and really don't care much about the particle unless I have to. But even a radio wave has a particle aspect, it's just big and mooshy and vaguely localized.

cool,, interesting ....

what do you mean when you say you area radio guy?

Originally posted by ImaFungi
what do you mean when you say you area radio guy?

I have a masters in physics and electrical engineering, with the emphasis on communication theory.

So I often design radio/radar gear, although for some demented reason I also get stuck with all the switching power supply and analog designs, and the occasional bit of computer design. I also do a share of the low-level/assembly coding for drivers and BIOS work.

I have a knack for systems integration debugging, especially when it's related to radio gear, so I end up contracting out to do that when we're not doing a big project, like now. You see me drop off the radar here for days at a time, I'm at the customer site. Like I will be in the morning.

edit to add: if you pay attention to the stuff I comment on, it's generally related to some sort of radio gear or the bits of general physics I find interesting, or *ahem* stuff I've worked on/near/or with that fall gently into the ATS grab bag of conspiracies. If I can comment on them directly I do, if not, I avoid it. Usually.

Originally posted by Bedlam

Originally posted by ImaFungi
what do you mean when you say you area radio guy?

I have a masters in physics and electrical engineering, with the emphasis on communication theory.

So I often design radio/radar gear, although for some demented reason I also get stuck with all the switching power supply and analog designs, and the occasional bit of computer design. I also do a share of the low-level/assembly coding for drivers and BIOS work.

I have a knack for systems integration debugging, especially when it's related to radio gear, so I end up contracting out to do that when we're not doing a big project, like now. You see me drop off the radar here for days at a time, I'm at the customer site. Like I will be in the morning.

edit to add: if you pay attention to the stuff I comment on, it's generally related to some sort of radio gear or the bits of general physics I find interesting, or *ahem* stuff I've worked on/near/or with that fall gently into the ATS grab bag of conspiracies. If I can comment on them directly I do, if not, I avoid it. Usually.

edit on 15-11-2012 by Bedlam because: (no reason given)

very cool.. 2 more questions i have,, not really related......

How are complex layers of sound encoded in radio waves?

and what is it thought that the most primal, underlaying form of energy that is included in anything that exists is? ( basically, what is energy/matter at its most basic and original)

Originally posted by ImaFungi
very cool.. 2 more questions i have,, not really related......

How are complex layers of sound encoded in radio waves?

That is like asking how to get from LA to Atlanta. There are a LOT of ways to do that. It depends on how you drive the route.

and what is it thought that the most primal, underlaying form of energy that is included in anything that exists is? ( basically, what is energy/matter at its most basic and original)

Again, that's one of those questions. I'm not sure there IS a "most primal" type of energy. If you take matter apart, you end up with EM for the most part. But it's not that simple.

Originally posted by Bedlam

Originally posted by ImaFungi
very cool.. 2 more questions i have,, not really related......

How are complex layers of sound encoded in radio waves?

That is like asking how to get from LA to Atlanta. There are a LOT of ways to do that. It depends on how you drive the route.

and what is it thought that the most primal, underlaying form of energy that is included in anything that exists is? ( basically, what is energy/matter at its most basic and original)

Again, that's one of those questions. I'm not sure there IS a "most primal" type of energy. If you take matter apart, you end up with EM for the most part. But it's not that simple.

ok,, so for my 2 questions in our chat together,, your answers would be... dont ask me those questions?

here are some more....

whats the main components of a photon?
in what way, and where does a photon exist before it is emited from an atom?
what is a photon before it is released from an atom?

what is the type/classification of an energetic reaction which results in the production of EM radiation?

Originally posted by ImaFungi
ok,, so for my 2 questions in our chat together,, your answers would be... dont ask me those questions?

My answer would be - it's like asking how high is up for the first one, and who would win between Thor and the Hulk on the second one. What you ask doesn't have an answer the way you asked it.

For example, your question about how do complex sound waves end up encoded in RF - you could AM modulate it, frequency modulate it, phase modulate it, encode it as digital and transmit it by PSK etc, etc, etc. There are *dozens* of ways. I don't know where to begin and don't have time to write a book on all the things I can think of.

here are some more....

whats the main components of a photon?

Photons, AFAIK, are irreducible.

in what way, and where does a photon exist before it is emited from an atom?

In QED, the transition of the electron that causes the emission creates a field state in which the photon comes into being. My probably incorrect way of looking at it is that the energy created by the transition of the charged particle instantiates a virtual photon at that frequency. Mbkennel is better at that sort of thing than I am.

what is a photon before it is released from an atom?

A gleam in its atom's eye.

what is the type/classification of an energetic reaction

phrased that way, it's another one of those how high is up questions. There are, for example, many chemical reactions that will emit photons. My original thought a few posts upthread would be particle-antiparticle interactions, which will convert matter to EM, occasionally with some loose bits left over.

Originally posted by Bedlam

Originally posted by ImaFungi
ok,, so for my 2 questions in our chat together,, your answers would be... dont ask me those questions?

My answer would be - it's like asking how high is up for the first one, and who would win between Thor and the Hulk on the second one. What you ask doesn't have an answer the way you asked it.

For example, your question about how do complex sound waves end up encoded in RF - you could AM modulate it, frequency modulate it, phase modulate it, encode it as digital and transmit it by PSK etc, etc, etc. There are *dozens* of ways. I don't know where to begin and don't have time to write a book on all the things I can think of.

ok i understand,,, is there no common denominator, rule of thumb,, event that has to take place for information to be "put in radio wave"? I know see there are many different ways to do it but in all of them we are turning sound waves... into radio waves,, right?

Originally posted by Bedlam

Photons, AFAIK, are irreducible.

Where does the charge(?) come from then? what about a photon produces electric and magnetic field?

photons dont interact with themselves, or do they? is that why photons cant be smashed together to see what compose them? or its known that there is no component?

Originally posted by ImaFungi

ok i understand,,, is there no common denominator, rule of thumb,, event that has to take place for information to be "put in radio wave"? I know see there are many different ways to do it but in all of them we are turning sound waves... into radio waves,, right?

Not really. What you're doing is somehow encoding the sound into changes in the radio wave of some sort, and that can be a really WIDE number of changes you could make.

You're not turning sound waves into radio waves. Any more than putting sound on film involves turning sound waves into film, or recording sound onto a magnetic tape involves turning sound waves into tape. In each case, you're making small changes to the media that represent the sound wave. The sound waves themselves don't become something. That's a bad way of looking at it. It's more accurate to say the sound waves are represented by something. How indirect that representation is depends on how you want to encode it.

For example, going back to the tape analogy, I can record it analog, like a cassette player. That's at least somewhat straightforward, although there's other gotchas involved in getting that to work well. Or I could digitize the sound and record it onto helical DAT. That also involves flux changes in the tape media, but WAY different ones than you get with longitudinal analog recording.

For RF, I could amplitude modulate the sound onto the radio wave. A bad way of picturing that is that when the sound waveform peaks, the RF output is high, when the sound waveform is at a dip, the RF output is at a low. That's also one of those things that people think they understand but most really don't, because what's really happening out at the antenna is bizarrely complex - you don't end up with a varying RF output, you get a carrier and two sidebands, with the information redundantly encoded in the sidebands.

I could also encode the audio as digital data and send it that way, maybe by some really complicated thing like QAM.

That to say, there's a squad of different ways to convey sound data by RF.

Originally posted by ImaFungi

Originally posted by Bedlam

Photons, AFAIK, are irreducible.

Where does the charge(?) come from then? what about a photon produces electric and magnetic field?

photons dont interact with themselves, or do they? is that why photons cant be smashed together to see what compose them? or its known that there is no component?

They don't convey charge. They don't produce electric and magnetic fields, they ARE electric and magnetic fields. The "photon-ness" of it is that it is a self-propagating set of E and H fields. Or a particle, depending on how you look at it.

There are no internal components of a photon, Photons are about as basic as particles get. They do not, in general, interact with each other, however, if you look at a LOT of them with the best instruments there are, you can detect in certain very odd circumstances, photons interacting with each other as particles. Although it's at the edge of our ability to do so. Light waves can interact in a volume to produce interference patterns in that volume, but once they leave the volume, it's as if it didn't happen. So you can see wave-like interactions, that don't cause persistent changes in the beam. But finding photon-photon interactions as particles is harder to do.

I guess if you go to the far wacky end of photons causing macro-scale effects without, you know, whacking into something, Wheeler believed that if you get enough photons in a small enough volume, you could form a type of black hole called a kugelblitz.

Originally posted by ImaFungi
what do you mean by an electron?

The builder of the Coral Castle Ed Leedskalnin apparently posted an Advertisement in The Miami Daily News in 1945 with some very interesting statements about the electron.

This copy of it appears on labyrinthina.com - "Reprint from Ed Leedskalnin Advertisement - The Miami Daily News 1945":

Attention Researchers!

Read about magnetic current, what it is, how it is made, what makes it, and the way it runs in the wire. Then you will know what the north and south pole individual magnets can do, and then you will know what electricity is. Send a dollar by return mail and you will get an eight thousand word booklet, postpaid, and in addition you will get a folder describing what is mineral, vegetable and animal life, and a drawing of a perpetual motion holder. The reading is not intended for the general public. Only those who want to experiment should order the booklet. The other people should save their money. . . .

ELECTRONS: Millions of people all over the world are being fooled by the non-existing electrons. Here is how the electrons came into existence. Thomson invented an imaginary baby and called it an electron. Rutherford adopted it and now the men with the long hair are nursing it. The electron has a brother and its name is proton, but it is heavy and lazy. It remains stationary in the middle, but the electron has to run around it. . . .

The invention of an electron came by a tricky method in using electricity in a vacuum tube. Normally whether it be a generator or a battery, the positive terminal will have to be connected to the negative terminal, but in the vacuum tube two batteries with different strength were used, the smaller battery was connected normally, but the larger battery's negative terminal was connected to the smaller battery's negative terminal, and the positive terminal was left alone. That connection gave the negative terminal a double dose of strength, and so it became hotter and could push more. It was called cathode and the positive terminal anode, and the electricity that passed from the cathode to the anode was called electrons.

In case the inventor had used normally direct methods to find out what the electricity was he would have found out that the positive and negative electricity is in equal strength, and are running positive electricity against the negative electricity. That can be seen by connecting each of two pieces of soft iron wire with each terminal of a car battery and then by putting together and pulling away each loose end of the soft iron wire. More sparks can be seen coming out of the positive terminal than from the negative terminal. This direct method is more reliable than the tricky method in the vacuum tube. The trouble with the physicists is they use indirect and ultra- indirect methods to come to their conclusions.

If the inventor of electrons had a vacuum tube in which his electrons could run close to the top of the vacuum tube from the west side of the cathode to the east side of the anode and then would hang a vertically hanging magnet that is made from three-inch long hard steel fishing wire, and then hang one magnet pole at one time right on top in the middle of his stream of electrons, then he would have seen the north pole magnet swinging north, and the south pole magnet swinging south. The same thing will happen if the magnets are held above any wire where the electricity is running through. Those two vertically hanging magnets prove that the electricity is composed of two different and equal forces. . . . One of the forces is north pole magnets and the other is south pole magnets. They are the cosmic forces. Your electric motor is turned around on its axis by north and south pole magnets. Even you could not start your car without the north and south pole magnets.

If electricity is made with north and south pole magnets and the electric motor is turned around on its axis by the north and south pole magnets as is the fact, then this will bring up a question, where then are those Thomson electrons. They are not around the electric motor. The plain answer is they are non-existing.

Originally posted by Bedlam

Originally posted by Tbrooks76
you know I went back read some explaintions posted by the oringal poster.
Good Job.
As a fellow sparky your explaintions were right on the money. I may have to change my opinion of electircal engineers...but of course most the ones I work with I don't know what a normal open contact on a relay is.

Geez, where do you get your EE's from?

Then again, I was a tech first.

I think out of a cracker jack box.

reply to post by Bedlam


Ok thanks very much... i do not comprehend the technical significance of all of what you said, but i think i understand a little better...

Originally posted by Mary Rose

Send a dollar by return mail and you will get an eight thousand word booklet, postpaid, and in addition you will get a folder describing what is mineral, vegetable and animal life, and a drawing of a perpetual motion holder.

It includes "a drawing of a perpetual motion holder". Sounds legit.

Anyone who wants to see the drawing, scroll about halfway down this page:

www.rexresearch.com...

Don't try holding your perpetual motion without it.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Why can't I hold all these perpetual motions?