The Simplest Hypothesis Possible

exchemist said:
It was interesting. I'd never heard of the phenomenon and there is no doubt that the patterns are very pretty
Click to expand...
Yes it is, and as you add, it is very dangerous: many have died trying to do it. I love your personal anecdote 'We are apes, after all. FfffFFFZZZZT...BANG!! Urgh' Explains a lot.
 
Pinball1970 said:
I've read through most of the posts. I think it may be beneficial to outline where QT/QFT and the standard model of particle physics fail currently.
The examples you have given do not illustrate that.
Click to expand...
You can start with the point definition of the electron and go from there. Lots of parameters and fiddle factors to make the equations fit the experimental data: curve (and sometimes surface) fitting to data without relevance outside of their specific area of specialization. As our old friend Albert put it, “As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”

And rather than just reading the posts herein, try reading the referenced paper and associated links. Here it is again: 'Atomic Physics Complexity and the Simplest Hypothesis Possible’,
 
Last edited:
InnerSpace said:
Your point being??
Click to expand...
We have seen this before many times and it implies that all science then was wrong so we have to consider new ideas, be a free thinker, do not be held back the main stream, orthodoxy, the establishment, think outside the box.

The fact is we still teach and use Newton, Germ theory, Natural selection, Hardy Weinberg, Mendeleev, atomic theory, Lorentz, Maxwell, Einstein, Dirac, Heisenberg, Pauli, Born and Feynman.

The majority of those scientists were born 100 years ago.
 
InnerSpace said:
Yes, electrolyte is an essential component because, as for dopants in semiconductors, it provides a source of electrons that support current flow. Without an electrolyte, wood acts as an electrical insulator and nothing happens: certainly no current flow. But with current flow possible, under the influence of a high voltage, huge numbers of charge carriers (CC) jostle and fight to join the current flow, causing heating which in turn causes the wood to start burning. It is the CC trying to move as an electric current rather than the ions moving (there would possibly slight ionic drift towards the terminal points at the outer surface of the wood but very little net movement).

This is why I do not believe your statement that ‘the charge carriers are not electrons but ions’. The CC are electrons, with the wood burning working outwards simultaneously from the terminals strongly suggesting that these are aptron (positive) and cetron (negative) electron CC.
Click to expand...
Electrolytes do not provide a source of electrons. There are no free electrons in an electrolyte.

They provide a source of ions, cations and anions (e.g. the Na+ and Cl- ions in a salt solution).

In semiconductors my understanding is that the dopant introduces new energy levels that electrons can occupy. They need to be close enough to the valence band to allow some electrons to escape thermally from it and become free to move as conductors, leaving holes behind that allow the rest of the elecrons in the valence band also to start moving. The dopant is thus not a source of electrons, but a means of relieving the "traffic jam" that otherwise prevents the electrons becoming delocalised and moving freely.
 
Last edited:
InnerSpace said:
Width and angular momentum.
Click to expand...
Yes as Pinball1970 states, the treatment of angular momentum is well described in Quantum Mechanics, both orbital and intrinsic (the latter often being called "spin"). There is no problem here.

Angular momentum and its conservation play a key role in accounting for a number of observations about electrons and nuclei. I had an MRI scan a few months ago. That technology relies on observation of angular momentum of protons and electrons. I was interested to note that they put a chelated gadolinium compound in your veins for contrast because Gd has 7 unpaired f orbital electrons, each of which has 2 units of orbital angular momentum, plus its own spin, so it is highly paramagnetic. This was all standard undergraduate quantum chemistry half a century ago when I studied it at university. There is no unsolved problem here.

As for "width", there is no evidence that the electron has a finite diameter or width. If you think there is, perhaps you can explain why you think this. (There is something known as the "classical electron radius", but that is just an artificial back-calculation, attributing the mass of the electron to the energy of an electrostatic field with the charge of the electron and seeing what the diameter of a classical charged sphere with that energy would have to be. It has no physical reality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_electron_radius )
 
InnerSpace said:
Your statement that ‘electrons do indeed travel from the work piece to the welding electrode’ is an assumption rather than a conclusion. Considering the case that this assumption to be correct, then the electron density within the workpiece, which is essentially a flat thick hunk of metal in the DCEP setup, would be significantly lower than that in the electrode of the DCEN setup electrode. I don’t think that a flat surface (as opposed to the narrow probe-like cross-section of an electrode) would be able to generate an arc from the workpiece, let alone result in the increased weld depth of DCEP.

On the other hand, the STEM explanation is that, because aptron electrons (positrons) have a higher work function, they require far more energy to eject them from the positively charged electrode in a DCEP setup than for cetron electrons (CS electrons) in a DCEN setup. This is in keeping with 2/3 of the heat energy being dissipated in the DCEP welding electrode (the 2/3 is your claim; I don’t know where you found this estimate) and 1/3 at the workpiece. The higher temperature of the melted electrode material, combined with the high energy of the arc, gauge a deeper hole in the work piece to produce a deeper weld than for a DCEN setup.

It should not be difficult to set up an experiment involving the location of a strong magnet with its magnetic field 90 degrees to the direction of the arcing to deflect some of the charge carriers (CC) so as to determine their charge (positive or negative), movement direction and kinetic energy levels. For the CS electron-only approach, the CC would spiral in opposite directions and have opposite spin; for the STEM approach the CC would spiral in the same direction away from the electrode and also have opposite spin. Sounds as if Blackett’s automatic expansion chamber might be needed once again.

To make the experiment easier to set up, no welding (which would most likely obscure observation and measurement) is required as long as there was sufficient voltage to produce arcing. The results for such an experiment I would like to see. Any takers?
Click to expand...
No, the work piece being the source of electrons does not reduce the density of electrons in it. If it did there that would imply a huge +ve charge on the work piece, due to the deficit of electrons compared to the +ve cations in the metal structure. Whereas the work piece it is in fact the cathode, i.e with a -ve charge.

Where you have a point is that there will be thermionic emission, i.e the high temperature will cause some electrons to escape from the surface thermally, absorbing energy as they do so. However the EMF of the electricity supply pushes more electrons into the work piece to replace those that escape, so it retains a net -ve charge. This -ve charge is evidence that the electron density is not reduced.
 
exchemist said:
Electrolytes do not provide a source of electrons. There are no free electrons in an electrolyte
Click to expand...
Oh come off it. Water only readily conducts electricity when it contains ionic compounds dissolved in it (i.e. it is an electrolyte). This is because anions have a surplus of electrons that can be mobilized to form an electric current. No way am I suggesting that an electrolyte is a sea of electrons.
 
exchemist said:
As for "width", there is no evidence that the electron has a finite diameter or width
Click to expand...
Should a spherical electron model for the wave equations the wave equations become unstable (multiple unwanted singularities). Thus a sphere of zero radius is used (i.e. the point-form definition). With no radius, there can be no angular momentum, so when angular momentum is identified experimentally, it is termed 'intrinsic', which sounds a lot better than 'inexplicable'. If a torus model is used (and there are several well documented ones) then the electron has a radius, which means it can have real angular momentum, but can be represented by a point (its centre of mass) and thus satisfy the wave equations without the dreaded singularities.
 
InnerSpace said:
Oh come off it. Water only readily conducts electricity when it contains ionic compounds dissolved in it (i.e. it is an electrolyte). This is because anions have a surplus of electrons that can be mobilized to form an electric current. No way am I suggesting that an electrolyte is a sea of electrons.
Click to expand...
No it conducts because cations move towards the cathode and are discharged there, while anions move towards the anode and are discharged there. Nothing to do with any surplus of electrons. That would cause a net -ve charge, which we do not see. Both cations and anions contribute to the current equally. They must, in order for the electrolyte not to acquire a net charge.
 
Onlooker here, trying to understand how electrons "flow," given my understanding that it is forces that flow (propagate, that is) and electrons mostly stay put.

I mean, sure, in vacuum tubes there will be an actual flow of electrons. But in solid components you are flowing forces, not electrons. Like the balls all in a line in a Newton's Swingset toy. The balls in the middle don’t move even though they transmit the force from the first one to the end one. In conductors and semiconductors the electrons stay put but the forces do get transmitted at near c. (but in liquids...seems like that's ions, not individual electrons, and said ions are flowing towards their respective electrodes, yes? the electrons still stay put)

(X-post)
 
InnerSpace said:
Should a spherical electron model for the wave equations the wave equations become unstable (multiple unwanted singularities). Thus a sphere of zero radius is used (i.e. the point-form definition). With no radius, there can be no angular momentum, so when angular momentum is identified experimentally, it is termed 'intrinsic', which sounds a lot better than 'inexplicable'. If a torus model is used (and there are several well documented ones) then the electron has a radius, which means it can have real angular momentum, but can be represented by a point (its centre of mass) and thus satisfy the wave equations without the dreaded singularities.
Click to expand...
There is no meaning to width for a wave particle entity. There is a cross section for interactions, but that is a probabilistic measure. There are no hard edges.
 
TheVat said:
Onlooker here, trying to understand how electrons "flow," given my understanding that it is forces that flow (propagate, that is) and electrons mostly stay put.

I mean, sure, in vacuum tubes there will be an actual flow of electrons. But in solid components you are flowing forces, not electrons. Like the balls all in a line in a Newton's Swingset toy. The balls in the middle l don’t move even though they transmit the force from the first one to the end one. In semiconductors the electrons stay put but the forces do get transmitted at near c. (but in liquids...seems like that's ions, not individual electrons, and said ions are flowing towards their respective electrodes, yes? the electrons still stay put)
Click to expand...
They flow, but slowly in a solid conductor. It is called the “drift velocity”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drift_velocity

My understanding is that in insulators it is the extra kinetic energy they need to acquire in order to move that prevents conductivity, due to presence of a full valence band. The band is full to the top and even the tiny extra energy needed for flow would require them to move higher. They have therefore to jump across the band gap into the empty conduction band in order to conduct. This easier in a semiconductor because the band gap is small and it can be further helped by introducing intermediate levels due to impurities. The conduction band is formed by a merging of antibonding orbitals so it is normally empty in insulators. However in conductors like metals, the conduction band overlaps with the valence band so electrons can gain any energy they like without constraint and are free to move.

(This is all my rather simple picture as I’m not a solid state specialist. I’m applying general chemical terminology to the situation. A solid state physicist may want to correct some of this.)
 
exchemist said:
Where you have a point is that there will be thermionic emission, i.e the high temperature will cause some electrons to escape from the surface thermally, absorbing energy as they do so. However the EMF of the electricity supply pushes more electrons into the work piece to replace those that escape, so it retains a net -ve charge. This -ve charge is evidence that the electron density is not reduced.
Click to expand...
So heat provides enough KE to overcome the work function, electrons actually fly off (hence vacuum tubes, CRTs, electron microscopes), and a supply line is actually ferrying in more electrons and maintaining electron density. So electrons can actually flow in such a circuit, and it's not just them jiggling (or having a small net flow or drift) while emf propagates through? I retain some cognitive dissonance over this. But your later post does clarify somewhat.
 
Last edited:
TheVat said:
So heat provides enough KE to overcome the work function, electrons actually fly off (hence vacuum tubes, CRTs, electron microscopes), and a supply line is actually ferrying in more electrons and maintaining electron density. So electrons can actually flow in such a circuit, and it's not just them jiggling while emf propagates through? I retain some cognitive dissonance over this.
Click to expand...
No indeed, drift velocity is real. But slow, whereas in a vacuum tube electrons fly at high speed.

Your Newton’s cradle analogy is not way off for a solid, though, because the electrons are all lined up in a dense line, as it were, so you push one in one end and another quite different one pops out at the other. A big current can thus flow without the electrons inside the conductor moving rapidly. Though I should add they are in fact wave-particle entities and are formally indistinguishable from each other ( I have to say that or the founders of Stat TD would turn in their graves.:))
 
exchemist said:
No it conducts because cations move towards the cathode and are discharged there, while anions move towards the anode and are discharged there. Nothing to do with any surplus of electrons. That would cause a net -ve charge, which we do not see. Both cations and anions contribute to the current equally. They must, in order for the electrolyte not to acquire a net charge.
Click to expand...
You are so confused. What you are describing is the generation of low voltage DC current via galvanic (or voltaic) and electrolytic cells, and they involve Redox reactions at the plates depositing or removing metal from the plates. As I mentioned earlier, which you failed to comprehend, the role of the ions is analogous to that of dopants within semiconductors (and yes, I read your if-ish overview on semiconductors): that is to provide electrons to support current flow. Don't get into the habit of projecting one piece of Physics practice (here chemical batteries) into another context.
 
TheVat said:
a supply line is actually ferrying in more electrons and maintaining electron density
Click to expand...
According to the conventional Science (CS) view this is not the case. Take a pair of probes attached to a DC power source. CS considers that negative probe has a surplus (to the electrons normally there in the conduction band of the atoms in the probe) of free electrons provided by the power source: this represents an increase in electron density. The other probe is positively charged because CS considers from protons in the nucleus of atoms in the probe due to the removal of conduction band electrons by the power source: this is a reduction of electron density. So negative charge is due to an electron surplus-to-needs, and the positive charge of protons due to electron removal.

Replace the probes with plates and you can create a capacitor that can store charge. Add an inductor and a resistor and you can create an oscillating current (the type of AC circuit used to generate radio waves).

Do the electrons travel far? No. It is the combined field energy of the free electrons that travels fast to activate an electric circuit as soon as you turn it on. But electrons continually move either within orbits or as free electrons under the influence of an applied emf.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top