http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=251# comments contains a comment from me. Dr t'Hooft won a share of the 1999 Nobel Prize and has expressed some interest in the modern physics explanation that I producedfrom Ivor's work. In 1919, Kaluza found that by putting in a metric of 5 dimensions instead of 4 into general relativity, you can get Maxwell's field(the TEM wave equations in tensor form) plus the usual metric of general relativity which describes the gravitational field including energy problemswhich are ignored in Newton's formulation. t'Hooft's new idea is based onthe holographic conjecture from string theory. The hologram is arepresentation in one fewer dimensions. Thus 4-D spacetime is a hologram ofa 5-D spacetime. It turns out, through work of Berkenstein, Motl, Susskind,others and t'Hooft, that black holes (matter) in the 5-D spacetime appear asradiation on the 4-D hologram which is encountered as space time.Therefore, says t'Hooft, the fifth dimension is the spacetime fabric(ether/dielectric of vacuum, continuum, etc.). This conveniently has properties of both virtual mass and lightspeed radiation for causing forces. Thus, the fifth dimension can be usedas the source of the gravitational field in a causal way (Proof: http://nigelcook0.tripod.com/ ). Now, Ockham's razor denies the use of additional useless dimensions,which gets rid of the mainstream 10/11 dimensional spacetime.

Ivor's major work is the 1979 Wireless World paper available atwww.ivorcatt.org . Ivor thought that because he could model the transmission line and the capacitor charging up with light-speed 'static electricity', he had disproved the idea of electrons. He also has the 'Catt anomaly' which purports to disprove electric current, leaving only thelight-speed TEM wave. As additional evidence, he and others includingWalton, Davidson and Gibson (an American programmer who invented Microsoft's scalable fonts), have also treated the inductor and transformer using theTEM wave calculations originally applied only to the capacitor andtransmission line. Ivor also argues that if an electron exists, it can'thave any size because if you touch one side of it, how can the other siderespond instantly? If it doesn't respond instantly, the electron couldbreak, and thus would not be a fundamental particle. Obviously this argument applies to a particular idea of the electron, and is not disproveall models of electron.As a final resort, Ivor's trump card is that he believes electrons arereally standing TEM waves, which is far more sensible (it is right).

(However, when you get him to admit the model of electron as a tiny negative capacitor plate, with negative electric field energy trapped into say a loopwhich gives rise to radial electric field and dipole magnetic field inaddition to spin (all the real electron properties), he chickens out ofpublishing that, and says electrons are not real. He then publishes more attacks on the electron. If you see the 1995 IEE review of Ivor's book Electromagnetism 1, the sadistic reviewer - B. Lago of a German university -takes delight in ridiculing Ivor for both using 'electric current' and forclaiming to disprove it. What you have with electricity is a case ofparticle-wave duality dating back to the 1890s (four decades before de Broglie's particle-wave duality of quantum mechanics).

In the 1890s,Heaviside championed the wave model of electricity (which carries most ofthe energy), while JJ Thomson championed Maxwell's electricity particle, the electron (Maxwell had suggested the electron idea in his Treatise on EM, the final edition of which was edited by JJ Thomson). What actually happens is that spinning electrons radiate energy continuously. This is aside from the quantum jumps that they radiate as photons of specific frequencies when they are decelerated. Any 'static'electron has light speed motion, and a continuous - not periodic -centripetal acceleration due to the spin (circular motion). The energy goes along the electric field lines. It is also receiving similar energy from surrounding electrons, all over the universe. The nearest electrons obviously have the greatest effect. This explains how electromagnetic forces arise; energy (and thus momentum p=E/c) exchanges cause attraction when opposite charges shield one another and are pushed together by energy arriving from outside. Repulsion is where similar charges exchange energy,recoiling apart. The actual mechanism is dealt with in my April 2003 Electronics World article.

The electricity TEM wave is light-speed energy exchange between electrons.The electron can pass on energy without having to physically accelerate downthe wire and knock into another electron. It is a 'pass the parcel' game. Once the field exists, with a gradient in potential difference, theelectrons are forced to drift, creating electric current and heating theconductor as the electrons are resisted. If I connect a metre wire from thepositive to the negative terminal of a 1.5 volt cell, the electric field gradient of 1.5 volts/metre is not immediately set up. After the instant ofconnecting the wire to the terminals, the electric field must flow in anincomplete circuit at light speed until it completes the circuit, whichtakes 3.3 nanoseconds if the wire is surrounded by a dielectric like airehich does not slow the speed of light too much. The whole of Ivor Catt's work focusses on the grossly oversimplified Heaviside 'slab of energy' which ignores the interactions, the mechanism, etc. This is not Ivor's fault but Heaviside's.

It doesn't matter how much political abuse is thrown at me by quacks, it will not alter the facts. It may however make those of us who are not interested in politics more forthright in speaking out against sneering. I'm personally not interested in prizes because they usually derive from a guy who earned the cash by selling dynamite to both sides of a war, or some such. However, Ivor Catt, Malcolm Davidson and D.S. Walton deserve a prize for the Wireless World Dec. 1978 paper on 'Displacement Current'. The sneer that this is 'crackpot' simply because it is suppressed, is usually made by 'quacks' - people who sell useless remedies based upon string theory - and in my opinion there is nothing wrong with being labelled a 'crackpot' by 'quacks'. If Hitler or Stalin insulted you as being a bad person, would you cry?