Solution to a problem with Maxwell's electromagnetic unification

Every time you turn on the switch, electricity proceeds towards the light bulb at light speed. The circuit is open until completed by the arrival of electricity at the bulb, because the resistance of the circuit is determined by the bulb. Hence Ohm's laws and Kirchoff's laws don't apply to any transient real system like turning on the light, they are only steady-state approximations. IN ALL REAL SITUATIONS, 'DISPLACEMENT CURRENT' (WHICH IS DUE TO RADIATION, NOT THE MECHANISM MAXWELL THOUGHT) IS VITAL. It allows these transients to flow before the pulse of electric current has completed the circuit. For example, the diagram below (which is not entirely accurate) purports to show how a capacitor charges up. (Maxwell didn't know how fast electricity goes, so he ignored the spread of electricity along the capacitor plates, which reflects back off the far end and adds to further incoming energy.)

This illustration (due to Ivor Catt, Wireless World December 1978) is false because Catt draws the steps as being vertical increments. This is because he falsely assumes zero rise-time at the front of the long pulse energy current flowing into the capacitor (which is an physics error that goes right back to Heaviside).


When electric current (or a long flat-topped logic pulse), enters a capacitor plate, Maxwell thought it continued straight on to the other plate, without any change of direction, via aethereal displacement current. Hence in Maxwell's displacement current of the vacuum, i = e.dE/dt = dD/dt, the direction of both i and dD/dt is perpendicular to the plane of the plates, so it is from one plate to the other.

But since Maxwell got the direction wrong (the current spreads along the plates), and since x-rays/radioactivity showed wires to be like an aether (nuclear atoms with enormous spacesbetween electrons, not by any means a 'solid metal), the 'displacement current' is actually a displacement of real charge in the conductor itself. Hence in the equation i = dD/dt, the direction of i and dD/dt is parallel to the conductor, and i is real current not aethereal current.

The 90 degree direction change of current is vital, see http://www.wbabin.net/physics/cook.htm:

'This "capacitor is a transmission line" conclusion directly contradicts Maxwell, Article 610:

"One of the chief peculiarities of this treatise is the doctrine which asserts, that the true electric current, I, that on whichthe electromagnetic phenomena depend, is not the same thing as i, thecurrent of conduction, but...

I = i + dD/dt (Equation of True Currents)."

'This quotation pins down the gross falsehood in today's physical science, based on (Maxwell's) electromagnetic theory; the correct equation due to Catt, Davidson, and Walton is: 'I = i = dD/dt

'In this equation, there is an "=" sign whereas in Maxwell's equation there is a "+" sign. This says it all. In other words, Maxwell treats wire electricity (i) as being different to the current flow in the vacuum dielectric of a charging or discharging capacitor (dD/dt), whereas Catt. Davidson, and Walton have proven that there is no distinction for pulses ofelectromagnetic energy in wires. Hence, Maxwell is mathematically wrong.' {However, Ivor Catt refuses to scientifically comment on this clarification of his writings, or on the diagram above.}

In Catt's logic step diagram, dD/dt is either zero or infinity, regardless of whether you are confused over the direction of the voltage variation (along the conductor or orthagonal to it). When you correct this error, you find the mechanism for what is happening inside the TEM wave, electricity. Ivor falsely says that his diagram is represents a question/anomaly with the mainstream theory. What completes the circuit is displacement current i = e.dE/dt = dD/dt, where e is permittivity. Catt draws the diagram with a Heaviside step, so dD/dt = 0 both ahead of and behind the step (zero or steady v volts), and dD/dt = v/0 = infinity at the vertical rise of the step. When you correct the 'little error' of getting only i = 0 and i = infinity, the Catt anomaly is explained, and you discover how electricity really works.

The problem that people may have is the direction of electric field E. The potential involts is varying from 0 to v over a distance x along the plate. Once a current has been induced on the other plate, there is a charge there and so there is then a field gradient between the plates (with E pointing from one plate towards the other, the E vector being perpendicular to the plane of the capactor plates or transmission line wires). The E field I'm talking about is that parallel to the plates, because the current must turn 90 degrees and must spread along the plate after entering it (not proceed as Maxwell thought straight in the direction of one plate to the other).

I've pointed out that a misunderstanding of Maxwell's 'displacement current' has led to the false (non-quantum) light wave emission picture which conflicts with Bohr's atomic transition. Briefly, Maxwell's equations predict that an atomic electron should continuously emit energy, not discrete energy levels or quanta. Maxwell used two of his major equations to describe light: Faraday's law of induction and Maxwell's 'displacement current' fiddle. An atom is really a capacitor, and quantum transitions correspond to the change in capacitance (with fixed charge of e-) when the electron jumps.

The second equation is known since 1979 to be physically wrong for a capacitor although Catt's arm-waving dismissal of the whole of modern physics as a result is even further in error: Catt should have focussed on the mathematical and interpretative consequences of his result, the stepwise (discrete) 'charging curve.'

Consider the 2 conductor transmission lines as 2 parallel radio aerials. If you feed one with a signal (of any type) and leave the other passive, the first transmits energy to the passive one which receives energy only as a result of di/dt in the first one. This is indistinguishable from Maxwell's 'displacement current' equation. Maxwell says vacuum 'displacement current' i = e.dE/dt = e.dv/(x.dt) where e is permittivity and x is the width over which the step rises (definition: x = ct, where t is the rise-time). We see that if x = 0, then i = infinity. This disproves the idea of a truly abrupt step. Moreover, the current rises over the rise-time from 0 to its peak, and since radio emission occurs in proportion to di/dt, it becomes more intense as the step rise-time is made smaller.

Now here is the proof. Taking the 2 parellel aerials or transmission line conductors. Feed one with any signal, and feed the other with the inversion of that signal. While the signal strength rises, electrons accelerate and radio emission occurs in a perpendicular direction.

I've done this experiment and proved it experimentally. During the rise-time, each conductor transmits a radio signal that is the exact opposite of that emitted from the other conductor. At a long distance (several times the distance of the gap between the two conductors) there is 'no' observable radio transmission at all, because each radio emission cancels out that of the other: 'perfect interference'. (The same concept is often used as white noise to suppress sounds, but that is less effective.)

A time-varying current results in radio emission. Neither Catt nor anyone else has measured the fields in the space between two conductors as a TEM wave passes: they have only measured induced currents in other conductors. Radio emission is occurring at the front of a logic step! Catt got the 'Catt anomaly' wrong by relying on a book published in 1893 which ignored the step effects at the front of the TEM wave. Asserting ignorance is wrong. At the front of a logic step, current rises (in accepted picture) and this results in radio emission. Since each conductor is oppositely charged and carries an opposite current, the radio emission from each conductor (acting as aerials) is exactly out of phase with the other and so completely cancels that from the other as seen at a large distance. So there is no energy radiated to large distances! The only radio emission of energy occurs from each conductor to the other.

Maxwell wrote 'displacement current' in terms of electric field strength. However, as the voltage rises at front of the logic step, current rises. Maxwell should have written the extra current (displacement current in vacuum) equation in terms of the ordinary (conductor based) current, which means 'displacement current' is radio. Maxwell: displacement current i = e.dE/dt = e(v/ct^2), where e is permittivity and v is uniform voltage rise over time t. What I'm saying is that the mutual radio emission causes the front of the logic step (the rising part) to propagate. Each conductor induces current in the other! It is fact that the inverse-square law doesn't apply: there is no net radio transmission beyond the system because of perfect interference, as the current rise in each conductor is the exact opposite of that in the other one so the radio transmissions from each conductor exactly cancels the other outside the transmission line!

The point is that the entire radio energy emitted by each conductor during the step is transmitted to, and received by, the other conductor. This is the process by which the TEM wave is allowed to propagate. Catt, ironically, gives the conventional textbook slab of drivel on this point! See http://www.ivorcatt.com/6_2.htm (that web version misses out the formulae, but they are widely known) where Catt calculates the inductance of a single wire and finds: "The self inductance of a long straight conductor is infinite. This is a recurrence of Kirchhoff's First Law, that electric current cannot be sent from A to B. It can only be sent from A to B and back to A." I think it is unhelpful for Catt, having defined E and B in fixed ratio for a TEM wave (E=cB), then goes along with the unfruitful textbook treatment of inductance which considers inductance as a B field effect! The magnetic field loops around each conductor instead of going from one conductor to the other line 'displacement current' or in fact radio energy. This is probably where the conventional theory went wrong! It is clear that the entire energy needed to propagate the TEM wave is transmitted as radio from one conductor to the other during the step. No loss occurs because the step in each is inverted with respect to the other in a TEM wave.

This is absolutely vital for correcting the classical errors in Maxwell's equations and their application, to allow a less crass (discrete/continuous jumble) understanding of what a light photon is, so that gauge bosons understood sufficiently to allow full quantum field theory unification of fundamental forces.

The Poynting-Heaviside vector is false if interpreted as saying that there is no propagation in the E and B vector directions. Forces act in the E and B field directions, and that means that energy is conveyed perpendicularly to the propagation vector c. The reality is that that the Poynting-Heaviside vector (Poynting and Heaviside discovered it independently) is holding back science. Quantum field theory of electrodynamics, which is verified for accurate predictions of (1) Lamb shift, (2) magnetic moment increase of electron due to vacuum and (3) magnetic moment increase of muon due to vacuum, says Coulomb's law is caused by the exchange of gauge bosons, which are photons. Coulomb's law is the force version of Gauss' electric field law, and so we know that photons are moving all the time along electric field lines. This is the cause of the force as specified by the quantum field theory (Feynman diagrams). So there is strong evidence the Poynting vector ignores the dynamics. (Quantum field theory is moving towards an spacetime fabric picture of the Feynman path integral, due to problems with renormalisation in the purely abstract mathematical model.

See arXiv: hep-th/0510040 [26] p85: the virtual particles in the vacuum contradict special relativity and imply a Dirac sea/aether as: 'it is not possible anymore to define a state which would be recognised as the vacuum by all observers'.

There is evidence that 'string theory' is hogwash [27] as it makes no testable predictions, but its major rival is the 'spin foam vacuum' of loop quantum gravity, which again is a Dirac sea/aether.)

'... it is thus perhaps best to view spin foam models ... as a novel way of defining a (regularised) path integral in quantum gravity. Even without a clear-cut link to the canonical spin network quantisation programme, it is conceivable that spin foam models can be constructed which possess a proper semi-classical limit in which the relation to classical gravitational physics becomes clear. For this reason, it has even been suggested that spin foam models may provide a possible ‘way out’ if the difficulties with the conventional Hamiltonian approach should really prove insurmountable.' - Page 14 of http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0601129

The reason for the technical problems of loop quantum gravity, LQG, like an infinite number of potential solutions is simply a lack of connection to reality. This is the same problem which stops string theory from succeeding after 20 years of intense funding, which LQG has not had!I don't think the aim of science is just to link GR and QFT by some kind of mathematical fiddle of the Feynman path integral, but the broader picture of understanding why gravity is so much weaker, and being able to predict it. The conventional aim of producing a theory that "predicts gravity" by merely being consistent with unobserved hypothetical spin 2 graviton conjectures is no good. Maxwell fiddled his theory to fit the facts, but at least his equations allow me to calculate electromagnetic phenomena.

With both string theory and LQG you have a mathematically far more complex and incomplete version of something like Maxwell's aether electromagnetism, but the equations are useless for practical things. You can't calculate Standard Model parameters with them, or anything. So you are left with the physical picture - 10/11 dimensional strings and 10^500 vacuua. This is why I think LQG spin foam vacuum is more realistic - it is tied to reality.

It's a pity people are so constrained to only seeing abstract mathematical approaches and technical details of speculative conjectures. Top physicists should be resolving the reasons why Maxwell's equations wrongly predict continuous and not discrete electromagnetic waves for atomic phenomena. Once this is sorted, then you will a correct model for one observable unified force (electromagnetism) which will be a foundation for getting a grasp of quantum gravity. At present, anomalies between real observed physics phenomena and the mathematical models are swept under the carpet. And some people have the cheek to speculate on SUSY and other unobservables.

"We could go on and on and on. String theory reproduces special relativity; LQG does not. String theory is consistent with the existence of other forces and fields (which moreover seem necessary not only according to the experiments but also because of internal consistency of quantum gravity) and it in fact predicts them; LQG does not." - STRING THEORIST Dr Lubos Motl, http://motls.blogspot.com/2006/01/who-is-lqg-expert.html

Special relativity not exactly a defence of string theory as general relativity is quite different, and anyway special relativity conflicts with quantum field theory: Quantum field theory is moving towards an ether picture of the Feynman path integral, due to problems with renormalisation in the purely abstract mathematical model. See arXiv, hep-th/0510040 p85, the virtual particles in the vacuum contradict special relativity and imply a Dirac sea as: 'it is not possible anymore to define a state which would be recognised as the vacuum by all observers'.

There is evidence that 'string theory' is hogwash as it makes no testable predictions, but its major rival is the 'spin foam vacuum' of loop quantum gravity, which again is a Dirac sea. General relativity is entirely different to special/restricted relativity:EINSTEIN REPUDIATED SPECIAL RELATIVITY AS FOLLOWS:

‘The special theory of relativity … does not extend to non-uniform motion … The laws of physics must be of such a nature that they apply to systems of reference in any kind of motion. Along this road we arrive at an extension of the postulate of relativity… The general laws of nature are to be expressed by equations which hold good for all systems of co-ordinates, that is, are co-variant with respect to any substitutions whatever (generally co-variant). …’ – Albert Einstein, ‘The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity’, Annalen der Physik, v49, 1916.

You can get the equations of "special relativity" from electrodynamics as Lorentz and others did before Einstein. Yes Einstein was the biggest genius of all time, but he ADMITTED SPECIAL RELATIVITY DOESN'T APPLY TO A REAL WORLD WHERE THERE ARE ACCELERATIONS (SEE QUOTATION ABOVE). Which is why general relativity is different. At best, the EQUATIONS of special relativity are the same as those of the correct theory; at worse they are completely wrong and lead to paradoxes by not including acceleration effects. You cannot rely on the framework of special framework since all real motion involves acceleration and thus force.

It is really to be expected that the same people who admire Einstein's early errors as if they were better than his major work in general relativity, are the people who also work on string theory. It is not coincidence. You are just brainwashed bigots. You can't see that physics tied to facts, such as FitzGerald and Lorentz's approach to the equations of "special relativity" a decade before Einstein are MORE BEAUTIFUL PHYSICALLY, because they are connected to reality.

Instead, Lubos and other cranks ignore the reality of general relativity and the spin foam vacuum which seems to connect the experimental facts of gravity with those of quantum field theory, and you instead try to connect 10/11 dimensional speculation with spin-2 gauge boson (graviton) speculation, using unobservable string speculation.

String 'theorists' (or should we be honest and say cranksters?) think speculation is beautiful because the level of maths, or what they call maths, is so technically involved it will not be understood or checked by outsiders. The whole approach of 'string theory' big mouthed crackpots is insulting, speculative, trivial, unconnected to any reality, and frankly insane.

String theorist Dr Lubos Motl, who knows about propaganda, has now usefully given the following enlightening viewpoint:

“An important part of all totalitarian systems is an efficient propaganda machine. … to protect the ‘official opinion’ as the only opinion that one is effectively allowed to have.” - STRING THEORIST Dr Lubos Motl, http://motls.blogspot.com/2006/01/power-of-propaganda.html

Another string theorists (mentioned in the previous post and its comments): Dr Urs Schreiber

Urs Says: January 19th, 2006 at 2:31 pm
I think that when Gen Rel was published in 1915 there WERE already detectors able to see the effects.
Sure. But in 1815 there were not.
Today, entire high energy physics is suffering from the lack of good detectors. Theory is far ahead of experiment, unfortunately.

anonymous Says: January 19th, 2006 at 4:44 pm
“Theory is far ahead of experiment, unfortunately.”
Indeed! I thought it was the other way round, with theory being unable to catch up with experiments. Perhaps I’ve missed a paper on arXiv.org that predicted the masses of quarks, coupling constants, and other Standard Model parameters. How careless of me.

STRING "THEORISTS" LIKE DR SUSSKIND ARE "SMUG": see http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=329

STRING "THEORISTS" USE PROPAGANDA TO ATTACK LQG: http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=330

MORE ABOUT LOOP QUANTUM GRAVITY (LQG): http://lqg.blogspot.com/

UPDATE (comments from Wikipedia discussion):

Getting back to the Catt Anomaly issue: there is no electric current where the voltage does not vary with distance along a conductor. So there is no electric current in the logic step behind the front (where the voltage varies from 0 to 10 volts). This is because you have to have a variation in electric field strength to get electrons to accelerate.

In the Catt anomaly diagrams, Catt shows a current flowing in the conductors where the potential along the conductor is constant 10 volts. No electric current will actually flow under this condition, because you have to have the electric field varying with distance along a conductor to cause electron drift. The electrons accelerated briefly at the front will presumably soon slow down behind the front due to resistance, so "energy current" not "electric current" is possible where the voltage is constant with distance along a conductor) Catt of course fiddles it completely by drawing displacement current as flowing where the electric field is both constant with time and constant with respect to distance along the transmission line. The Catt Anomaly is an total, complete, and utter hoax from start to finish.

This justifies the idea that the Catt Anomaly has (1) disproved the competence of conventionally trained physicists who didn't spot the mistakes (names listed in the Catt Anomaly book), and (2) proves that Theory C does hold behind the rise (front) of the logic step, in addition to Theory C applying in a steady charged capacitor, of course.

Of course you could preserve electric current in the part of the logic step where the voltage is a constant 10 volts by a mutual exchange of magnetic field energy from motion of charge in the other conductor.

So at the front of the logic step, the varying electric field due to the finite rise portion from 0 to 10 volts accelerates electrons. Once the slow-moving electrons are within the constant 10 volts part of the electric field, the electric field is unable to continue to exert a force to overcome resistance. But the magnetic field from the charge in the opposite conductor then causes the current.

"Displacement current" if it exists equals permittivity times dv/(dt.dx).
As I've said, Maxwell confused this for "radio" (electromagnetic radiation, I'm not talking of sine waves) where the transverse emission of radiation (radiated power) is directly proportional to the acceleration of the charge, i.e., to the rate of change of the current in the conductor (not displacement current).

SUMMARY: (1) Maxwell: circuit is completed by something called "displacement current" which is not radiation as such but flows when voltage varies with time and distance.

(2) TRUTH: circuit is completed by radiation which flows as the ENERGY current in the conductor varies, accelerating charges at the front of the logic step. [4] Nigel 172.213.66.114 15:14, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

... There is no electric current in the portion of the logic step where the voltage is constant with distance. You need to have a voltage gradient with distance to keep the electrons drifting. Only ''energy current'', not electric current, is possible if the voltage is constant with distance along a conductor. There is current at the front where the voltage varies from 0 to 10 volts. See the Catt Anomaly diagram. The error in the Catt Anomaly diagram is that displacement current flows from one conductor to the other in all places, allowing electric current behind the front. Theory C holds true behind the front of a logic step, as well as in the steady, charged capacitor. Unless, that is, the magnetic field from the opposite conductor causes the current in the conductor of interest, which is of course what happens. Each conductor causes the current in the other one. At the front it is due to electromagnetic radiation emission due to charge accelerated by the electric voltage varying from 0 to 10 volts, and where the voltage is steady at 10 volts, the electric current is caused by the magnetic field from the other conductor. In each case the electromagnetic radiation emission and the magnetic field from each conductor causes the current in the other conductor, a mutual induction situation. At a large distance from the transmission line, no electromagnetic radiation or magnetic field exists, because the contribution from each conductor cancels that from the other conductor exactly in perfect interference. So there is no energy lost from the system by radiation, 100% is exchanged between the two conductors, causing the currents in each of them. Nigel [[User:172.213.66.114172.213.66.114]] 14:56, 9 March 2006 (UTC)