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You do know you're insane, right?

I fell asleep part way through trying to read the thread. I will try again when I am rested and have much more time.

Although there is nothing wrong in your attempt to honor Andre M. Ampere, there is plenty wrong with your approach!

I'll put it as kindly as possible, you are ignoring the simple and straightforward and choking on the ridiculous. In your attempt to provide and describe complexity you have fabricated nonsense.

For those of us whose experiments with iron filings and magnets are several decades in the past could one or more real physicists identify a couple of things in Fairfield's thinking that are seriously flawed, and explain the nature of the flaw. Thank you.

Thanks Ophiolite. I could have said that, but the previous posters would just think I was being grouchy. Coming from a person with 1,596 posts here, I think it will have much more impact. I feel very complimented too.

For those of us whose experiments with iron filings and magnets are several decades in the past could one or more real physicists identify a couple of things in Fairfield's thinking that are seriously flawed, and explain the nature of the flaw. Thank you.

I'm sure I could, Ophiolite, but I just don't have time to give a good explanation every time something like this comes up. Frankly Fairfield, your post is hardly concise and I just don't have the time or the inclination to read it. Please understand my position as a physicist: these questions about the nature of magnetism have been understood long ago. The answers are in the textbooks, and the theory that has been built upon these answers is wildly successful. If you were to summarize your main points in something a little more readable then maybe I could comment.

Here are a few observations/questions:
"Ampereism" is magnetism, you seem to draw a distinction between the two when none exists.
You also seem to have trouble with the field concept.
Does your reformulation predict any new experimental results?

Farfield:

Plz shrink thread down to 25,000 words or less, whichever comes first.

Thank you for some thoughtful, if hasty, input Physics Monkey.

Physics Monkey said:

"I'm sure I could, Ophiolite, but I just don't have time to give a good explanation every time something like this comes up. Frankly Fairfield, your post is hardly concise (and I just don't have the time or the inclination to read it.)."

Then why do you respond at all? Thorough expositions on physics topics are seldom, if ever, concise.

"Please understand my position as a physicist: these questions about the nature of magnetism have been understood long ago."

I'm claiming the semantics is wrong. Bad semantics has no place in physics or any other science.

"The answers are in the textbooks, and the theory that has been built upon these answers is wildly successful. If you were to summarize your main points in something a little more readable, then maybe I could comment."

My main arguement is really about semantics, but it could (and should) lead to a different view of the nature of the concept of the magnetic field. Here is a little more "concise" exposition of my view for hasty readers.

Magnetism is only a resultant force arising from the attraction, or repulsion, between two or more parallel looped currents only because they are parallel currents. If there were no such things as physical magnets in existence, we would be stuck with calling the attraction or repulsion between DC wired looped currents just the simple attraction or repulsion between parallel DC current circuits.

"Here are a few observations/questions:"

"Ampereism" is magnetism, you seem to draw a distinction between the two when none exists".

I only claim the name is misleading. The word "magnetism" hides the fact that only the attraction or reoulsion between parallel DC currents is at work.

"You also seem to have trouble with the field concept."

No trouble whatsoever.

"Does your reformulation predict any new experimental results?"

Probably not, but it should make teaching about "magnetism" a lot easier.

Fairfield

Fairfield,

Magnetism is, in the classical framework, a relativistic effect of moving charges. It's the same for a current as it is in a semiclassical picture of magnetism in ferromagnetic materials, for example. You are attempting to draw a distinction between permanent magnets and the magnetic field generated by a current-carrying wire. There is no difference between the two, except on source may be turned on and off and the other cannot.

I commented because I wanted to let you know that you were barking up the wrong tree. I certainly have time to do that, and if you were to clarify your position then perhaps I could do more.

Since your post is a step in the right direction and I have more time now, I can comment further. Let me focus on your attempt to describe "Ampereism" as fundamental. Classical electromagnetism cannot explain paramagnetism, diamagnetism, and ferromagnetism. These are inherently quantum mechanical effects associated most directly (though not exclusively) with the fundamental spin of the electron. Thus your assertion that "magnetism and electromagnetism" can be reduced to complex systems described by "Ampereism" is clearly false. Permanent magnets, wires, and electromagnets are all aspects of the electromagnetic field. In particular, the effects you choose to distinguish in one frame can become mixed in another. Terminology that is different for every observer can hardly be good terminology. The electromagnetic field is only properly described in a framework that incorporates both relativity and quantum theory. The current teaching of classical electromagnetism reflects this basic understanding. To summarize: why separate what you can unify?

Cangas said: "Please shrink thread down to 25,000 words or less."

I count only about 2,050.


Physics Monkey:

I'm only saying that if you measure the mutual resultant force, either relativistic or otherwise, between four parallel currents (as supplied by two magnetic, or electromagnet, entities) you're only going to get a RESULTANT FORCE. To give this resultant force an independent name, such as "magnetic", without clarifying the fact that it is only a resultant force of the effect of four parallel currents, is as misleading as a lie.

Fairfield

It is all electromagnetism, and it is not misleading to call it that. Everything you have described is all neatly contained in a single description governed by simple laws. The great beauty of the theory is that no distinction is necessary. In fact, such a distinction inhibits understanding since it hids the unified character of the electromagnetic field. Surely you can't think that the best way to teach or understand electromagnetism is by emphasizing trivial differences of application while hiding the underlying unity? Regardless, you won't convince me of it and since your formulation predicts nothing new, I shall end the way I began: you do know you're insane, right?

You know how they say that time flies when you are having fun?

Trying to read your thread must have just SEEMED like 25,001.

Effective Communication:

FIRST.
Tell them CONCISELY what you are GOING to tell them.
( Get them hooked before they get bored. ).

SECOND.
Tell them what you are telling them.

THIRD.
Tell them what you TOLD them.

Physics Monkey:

You remind me of my mother when she saw me, as a boy, eyeing a large clock we had, with concentrated interested. She said, quite emphatically, "DON'T TAKE IT APART !" Didn't you take things apart to see how they worked when you were a boy? If not, I think you are in the wrong profession. Taking things, and ideas, apart, to see how they work, is the very essence of what physicists do.

In the cases of magnetism and electromagnetism, I am only advocating name
changes, to Ampereism and electroAmperism, so as to make the names more
semantically correct. It doesn't change the metrics of the theory at all until we get down to analyzing the nature of the motion of half of the electro"magnetic" wave component. If it's longitudinal instead of crosswise to the net direction of the wave travel, I don't see that it will affect relativistic principles at all. Of course, it might make it easier to explain how the aether works, which aether Einstein acknowledged, and supported the idea of the existence of.

Fairfield

And hence the other reason why physicists don't get involved with crackpots: no matter what you say to them, they are going to eventually accuse you of being some combination of stupid, arrogant, uncreative, an "in the box" thinker, unphysical, like their mother, etc. I love also how non-physicists like to tell physicists exactly what it is that physicists do (or better, what they are supposed to do).

The reason why you don't see any flaws is because you haven't listened to what I've told you and you don't know what you're talking about. Fortunately, that doesn't change the fact that you're wrong.

P.S. The "ether" Einstein was talking about isn't the ether you're talking about. Try again next week.

Physics Monkey

Do I have to have a graduate degree in physics in order to be allowed to maintain that a DC loop current contains at least 2 opposing parallel currents? And do I have to have such a degree in order to maintain that, therefore, two DC loop currents contain, altogether, at least 4 opposing parallel currents? And do I have to have a graduate degree in physics in order say that if two wired DC loop currents are mounted near each other on pivots, the orientation the two wired DC loop currents will take will be such as to reduce, altogether between them, the number of opposing parallel currents, and increase the number of same direction parallel currents?

If I am correct in my assertions so far, is there any reason why I can't call those reactive motions, only the reactions of wired DC parallel currents, without ever mentioning the word magnetism, or magnetic lines of force.

The fact that one of the DC loops, powered alone, could point to the earth's north "magnetic" pole, which pole is itself only a secondary, illusory, consequence of an earth size DC loop current reacting with the DC loop current mounted on the pivot, seems to me to be irrelevant. It is only the parallel components of the loop currents which are relevant, in my estimation. I see no reason to keep track of the "north-south" axis of a loop current (except as a nickname) unless one is building a navigation device which will depend on that world size DC loop current.

We are talking only junior high-school electricity here, not any of the higher, esoteric, concepts of physics.

Fairfield

Physics Monkey

Do I have to have a graduate degree in physics in order to be allowed to maintain that a DC loop current contains at least 2 opposing parallel currents? And do I have to have such a degree in order to maintain that, therefore, two DC loop currents contain, altogether, at least 4 opposing parallel currents? And do I have to have a graduate degree in physics in order say that if two wired DC loop currents are mounted near each other on pivots, the orientation the two wired DC loop currents will take will be such as to reduce, altogether between them, the number of opposing parallel currents, and increase the number of same direction parallel currents?

No degree is required but a better understanding of the basics would be quite helpful to you since the above statement is completely incorrect.

While it's certainly true that the currents flowing as you have describe them will establish opposing and attractive fields, your conclusion is wrong. If it were as you described, cabled telephone circuits (some containing hundreds of DC loops) could not function. At the very least there would be severe distortion (which there is not) and at the worst, no intelligence could be passed through them (which does).

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