Jump to content

Leaderboard

Popular Content

Showing content with the highest reputation since 04/16/24 in all areas

  1. This is sad news. He was one of the great philosophers of our time. He belongs to one of the most science oriented philosophers and one of the most honest thinkers I have known during my philosophy study. He didn't spare anybody with too naive ideas, be it materialistic or dualistic, but he always was kind, never attacking people personally, but critical reflecting on their ideas. He was able to show that it is possible to have a theory of consciousness, without leaving a physicalist ontological stance. Many people thought that his book 'Consciousness Explained', should have been titled 'Consciousness Explained Away', but I certainly do not agree with that. Consciousness exists, but it can be explained. Same for free will. He could explain how a personal and societal relevant concept of free will can go perfectly together with determinism, where others keep sticking to either 'magical free will', or denying free will altogether. In his broader ideas, he was an atheist and humanist. I do not know much about his personal life, but at least I know he also knew how to enjoy the pleasant sides of life. Enjoyer of (red?) wine, making his own cidre, harvesting the apples himself. I remember I once saw a video, where he was sitting on his tractor. I think he lived a very fulfilled life. We should all be glad that he lived his life as he did. I will miss the many new ideas he could still have found, even in his higher age. A loss for the philosophical world and many other people who are, and might still be, inspired by his thinking.
    4 points
  2. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2024/04/19/daniel-dennett-philosopher-atheist-darwinist/ Daniel Dennett, the American philosopher, who has died aged 82, was, with Richard Dawkins, a leading proponent of Darwinism and one of the most virulent controversialists on the academic circuit. Dennett argued that everything has to be understood in terms of natural processes, and that terms such as “intelligence”, “free will”, “consciousness” “justice”, the “soul” or the “self” describe phenomena which can be explained in terms of physical processes and not the exercise of some disembodied or metaphysical power. How such processes operate he regarded as an empirical question, to be answered by looking at neuroanatomy – the engineering involved in brains. Darwinism, to Dennett, was the grand unifying principle that explains how the simplest of organisms developed into human beings who can theorise about the sorts of creatures we are. In Consciousness Explained (1991), he argued that the term “consciousness” merely describes “dispositions to behave” and the idea of the “self” was nothing more than a “narrative centre of gravity”. In Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (1995) he went further than any other philosopher or biologist in arguing that the whole of nature, including all individual human and social behaviour, is underpinned by a Darwinian “algorithm” – a single arithmetical, computational procedure. Borrowing Richard Dawkins’s notion of “memes” (“bytes” of transferable cultural ideas encompassing anything from a belief in God to an individual’s fashion tastes), Dennett argued that the Darwinian algorithm also explained, for example, the musical genius of JS Bach, whose brain “was exquisitely designed as a programme for composing music”. Dennett’s philosophy undercut any idea of teleology or “purposive” creation....
    3 points
  3. @externo A solid piece of advise. You really need to stop trying to tell us how SR and GR works or describes. We have gone numerous pages with posters correcting your misunderstandings. Which you continue to repeat. I highly suggest that instead of trying to tell us what SR states that instead you start asking questions concerning SR. Use the math and the knowledge of the posters here and try to properly understand SR. This is article was written by a Ph.D that regularly uses forums. He developed this article to provide corrections to all the numerous misconceptions posters regularly have with regards to SR. http://www.lightandmatter.com/sr/ This article describes the basics of SR in a very easy to understand format and explains the reasons behind its mathematics. Relativity: The Special and General Theory" by Albert Einstein http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30155/30155-pdf.pdf It is an archive reprint.
    2 points
  4. Except one (or two?) episodes of 'Tales from the Loop' playing with time, it is not the essence of the series, as it is in 'Dark'. The episodes of 'Tales' are relatively independent, but there are a few running threads through the episodes. But maybe this is not the place to discuss that. Maybe the admins could open a new forum for discussing movies and series? Ups, I did not say that!
    2 points
  5. I think you are mistaking pop-science journalism with science. I can’t reconcile either of these statements Science is performed by the scientific community. Any shifting is from them. Not all surprising results pan out, so it’s not prudent to chase after them until they are confirmed, and one result might not be nearly enough to formulate a new model. If a model is not wrong - it accurately predicts/matches results - then what constitutes a better model? There has to be some discrepancy between model and experiment for there to be improvement in the model. i.e. there has to be something that it gets wrong.
    2 points
  6. Egg, the egg came first. Every time I hear this problem it never specifies chicken egg, it just says egg. Which leads to a very simple solution; do chickens predate dinosaurs? No. Did dinosaurs come from eggs? Yes. Therefore the egg not only came first but came countless times before the chicken. Hopefully my answer eggceeds eggspectations.
    2 points
  7. Accelerated objects can be described perfectly well in special relativity. But accelerated frames of reference are outside the scope of standard special relativity. That's because accelerated frames of reference involve some of the mathematics of general relativity (though not the mathematics of spacetime curvature). Standard special relativity limits itself to the Minkowskian metric. The Minkowskian metric is invariant to Lorentz transformations, and inertial trajectories in spacetime transform to inertial trajectories under Lorentz transformations. Thus, all inertial trajectories in Minkowskian spacetime are on equal footing in that they all observe the same spacetime metric. The invariance of the Minkowskian metric to Lorentz transformations implies that it is not possible to measure one's velocity relative to Minkowskian spacetime, and that only velocities relative to other objects can be measured, which is made possible because symmetry to Lorentz transformations is broken. In the case of an accelerated frame of reference, the transformation from an inertial frame of reference to the accelerated frame of reference is not a Lorentz transformation, it is a transformation under which the Minkowskian metric is not invariant. That is, the metric of an accelerated frame of reference is not a Minkowskian metric. Thus, an observer in an accelerated frame of reference can distinguish between being in an accelerated frame of reference and being in an inertial frame of reference. Even though velocity is only relative, acceleration is absolute because one can measure one's current velocity relative to one's past velocity. Thus, absolute acceleration does not imply absolute velocity.
    2 points
  8. This is only true on a field that is of characteristic > 2. In discrete arithmetics it's not true that 1+1=2. In binary arithmetics 1+1=0 or 2=0 (mod2). The moral of my silly little story: Don't take anything for granted. Not even aether theory. Yes, I know what acceleration is. I wonder whether you do. As to your last statement, it went badly wrong the moment you wrote 'so if'. Because nothing you said after that follows from the antecedent. But don't mind me. Carry on with your enthralling conversation.
    2 points
  9. This is a misconception which is as common as it false. SR is a model of Minkowski spacetime - it describes the relationship between any set of frames within this paradigm, irrespective of what their states of relative motion and acceleration are. In the special case of inertial motion, this relationship is simply a hyperbolic rotation in spacetime (=Lorentz transformation); if acceleration is involved, the relationship is a little more complicated, but nonetheless well defined: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceleration_(special_relativity) There’s no “paradox” in the twins scenario that somehow needs resolution, it’s simply a straightforward consequence of the geometry of Minkowski spacetime, which has to do with the lengths of world-lines.
    2 points
  10. Hence why I stopped adding to the mix. Once I saw you were progressing from their comments I didn't want to add any potential confusion. Threads can get too easily derailed.
    2 points
  11. Pretty sure there's a x-post here with @exchemist so briefly: If we're starting from your declared position of maximum attraction, we're moving against an attraction force for 900; then with a weakened repulsive force (poles wide apart); then against the same repulsive force; then finally with the mirror image of the attraction of the initial power stroke. In the absence of a proper mathematical analysis, by symmetry we have a nett zero sum. And then there's cam friction and the hysteresis braking mentioned earlier. Granted I've ignored secondary effects of the movement of the magnets themselves but frankly, that's beyond my pay scale. Suffice to say, if there was anything to see here, Faraday would have found it back in the day I think. Looks right enough, so you've got the 1800 phase shift covered. Shall we leave the +/-900 phase shifts to the OP?
    2 points
  12. OK. As I understand it, the idea is inserting the tab, or finger, causes the magnets to be attracted to it, instead of repelled from one another as they are in the previous phase of the motion. If we describe the operation in terms of an engine cycle, there are 4 phases:- 1) magnets close together no tab inserted, high energy of the field 2) magnets have moved apart due to mutual repulsion, reduction in field energy. Work imparted to output shaft 3) tab or finger inserted into the gap, causing magnets to be now attracted towards it, with further lowering of field energy. More work output to the output shaft (and some work output to the input shaft as well, due to the attraction) 4) tab removed from the gap between the magnets, which are now close together. This replaces the force of attraction to the tab or finger by mutual repulsion of the magnets, which are now at close separation, i.e. back to (1). It is this step that requires the substantial work input which returns the stored energy in the field to its stating value. Failure to realise the work need to do this is what can lead the incautious designer to think he has an over-unity machine, as the other steps all involve extracting work from the magnetic field. At least, that is my energy-based analysis of this machine.
    2 points
  13. Logically incorrect, even if the premise is true. Equivalent to “All dogs are mammals. I am a mammal, therefore I am a dog.”
    2 points
  14. He sought the advice of a mathematician who told him to work it out with a pencil.
    2 points
  15. One recent YouTube video about Trump’s ‘God Bless The USA’ bible that has gone viral in the last week or so is a factual review of the product by a man called Tim Wildsmith, a devout christian who actually reviews bibles for a living on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_6TVa7scKM Tim Wildsmith makes the following points: - This bible is advertised at $59.99, but actually costs $75 with tax and shipping. - In his opinion a Walmart style bible like this should probably cost around $20. - The website implies this bible is bound in real leather - but it’s actually bound in fake synthetic leather. - The text used is the copyright free King James Version, but without any notes or cross-references. - There is no copyright page or printer info - which usually means the bible was printed in China. - The page stock is too thin, so you get substantial bleed-through of text from the other side. - The gilt edge pages tend to stick together and tear easily. Another well known political satirist called Tea Pain USA cites Tim Wildsmith’s review, and calls attention to a remarkable omission in the MAGA material found at the back of this Trump bible. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB32CR7Zc9s Although the Trump bible contains a copy of The Constitution, The Bill of Rights, and The Pledge of Allegiance, it *doesn’t* include any of the amendments from the 11th through to the 27th. Tea Pain suggests that these conspicuously missing amendments provide a damning vade-mecum as to which parts of the US Constitution Trump and his fellow Christo-Nationalist Fascists would dearly like to expunge - or at least pretend never to have existed - most especially: 12th Amendment - “Electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for the President…” 13th Amendment - “Neither Slavery nor involuntary servitude .. shall exist within the United States..” 14th Amendment - “ No person shall… hold any office .... have engaged in insurrection or rebellion..” 15th Amendment - “The right of citizens to vote shall not be denied … on account of race, color…” 19th Amendment - The right of citizens to vote shall not be denied… on account of sex…” 22nd Amendment - “ No person shall be elected to the office of President more than twice..”
    2 points
  16. No I know the paper your referring to that proposed that. It was published well over a decade ago. I even recall numerous discussions on its merit on other forums. The claimed that supposed one way speed of light tests were two way tests All that did was motivate the physics community to develop new tests. This paper mentions some of those tests and regularly updated. https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.02029 Though this is the 2021 update. It's not even close to a complete list but it covers some of the major ones.
    1 point
  17. ! Moderator Note The topic here is a light clock.
    1 point
  18. If all spatial dimensions loop back on themselves seamlessly, so that whichever direction you travel in, after n light years you are back where you started, then what does 'centre' even mean? It's definitely finite with a volume oto (n light years)3. But there is no point more remote from the boundary than any other because there is no boundary. All points within the space are geometrically exactly equivalent.
    1 point
  19. That's an interesting philosophical question, do you have scientific evidence you do believe in God? Aww bless, you seem awfully confused, are you saying that a belief in god is necessary to not rape women? Is that why some priest's choose to rape little boys?
    1 point
  20. I am sorry to report a brief period of backsliding. A canister of honey coated almonds. Our eyes met across a crowded room, at the home of Sam and Janet Evening, and I felt a sick rush of almond lust that I had assumed was long ago consigned to my distant youth. I stumbled across the room, my mouth filled with saliva, and began to pack my cheeks like a squirrel at the peak of acorn season. Fermentable oligosaccharides! I moaned. Not the easiest phrase to moan with a full and avidly chewing mouth. California aquifers be damned! (also a challenging word string to enunciate while masticating) A beautiful woman who bore an eerie resemblance to the Santitas Corn Chip lady walked past, and I took advantage of the distraction, the substitution of one sensual delight for another, handed her the canister and said please keep these away from me! Pobrecita! she said, with a silken yet husky voice only a corn chip lady could possibly manage. Later I walked home, my feet pounding the hard macadam, back to the macadamia nuts to whom I had pledged my life and my sacred honor. One of the hardest journeys of my life.
    1 point
  21. Conflating cultural and biological aspects generally makes poor arguments as it pre-supposes some natural order that folks should adhere to. While I am not (yet) saying that this is the case here, it is often a tactic used to push a narrative under the guise of "just asking questions", as we have seen in the past. So far OP seems to continue to ignore clarifications and counter arguments, though.
    1 point
  22. Excellent analysis, both of you. Sorry, I have no more reaction points available today or you'd both get a +1. This is exactly what I came here to explore. All I have to do now is re-read both comments carefully to make sure I understand. Thanks.
    1 point
  23. But you are not only asking questions. You are making contentious assertions - or at least advancing contentious opinions - too. You say it seems that the male of the human species is becoming less relevant. You cannot expect us all to go along with this without challenging it, because it is patently ridiculous. The human male has dominated human societies for millennia and a quick glance at the sex of those occupying positions of power and influence in modern societies will show you they are still predominantly male. We can't just answer your questions, if your questions start from a false premise. Surely you must understand that?
    1 point
  24. Over unity is the same thing as what is traditionally known as a “perpetual motion machine of the first kind”, i.e. one that claims to break the 1st law of thermodynamics. So it’s not a slur. There have also been ideas for perpetual motion machines of the 2nd kind, which claim to break the 2nd law of TD instead. As I have mentioned, it can be good sport to spot the flaw in the logic of the designer. A rule of some patent offices, e.g. the US one, is patent applications for perpetual motion machines will only be accepted if accompanied by a working model. Which they never are, of course. So recognising perpetual motion machines is something patent office examiners (as Einstein once was,incidentally) and patent agents have to be able to do.
    1 point
  25. Monopoles is an interesting study for example it's potential would fall off at 1/r as opposed to 1/r^2 for dipolar, 1/r^3 for quadrupolar ie the combination of two dipolar fields. As opposed to quadrupolar in gravity waves. Boit-Savant law can be uses to solve for the above if I recall.
    1 point
  26. Both: we’ve solved the conundrum presented by your machine, I’ve revised some magnetism I haven’t looked at since school, and you’ve become motivated to learn more about it. And for me, another perpetual motion machine bites the dust, which I can add to my tally.
    1 point
  27. In return, perhaps you could clarify something for me. What is the phase relationship between magnet pole separation and finger position? If we define zero degrees for the disk when a finger is directly between the poles, and zero degrees for the poles as minimum pole separation, then what phase difference between the two should we consider for optimum performance? And how is that optimal phase difference maintained?
    1 point
  28. One important difference, though, is that in the OP's machine the poles of the two magnets are opposed so that they repel. The region in which the fingers on the input disc move is in principle an area in which the field lines will be squashed outwards in the plane of the fingers of the disc.
    1 point
  29. Perhaps one way of looking at this contraption is to compare it with a Faraday disk (aka homopolar generator). In the latter, both motion and induced current are in the plane of the disk with the magnetic field perpendicular. The OP is rotating this so that motion and magnetic field lines are in the disk plane therefore forcing induced current into the perpendicular. However, different portions of the disk will see different current polarities depending on whether they are moving towards or away from the magnetic poles. In particular, the portion of the disk passing directly between the poles will see a sharp switch in polarity and consequent current flow component appearing in the disk plane. This will in turn deflect the magnetic field lines somewhat out of the disk plane as if attracted by a temporary opposite pole. I don't know whether it's a good picture, but in my mind's eye, I'm seeing this induced temporary pole falling into a potential well only to climb back out as it departs with no nett overall energy change in and of itself. However these circulating currents are a different matter as they will add a time lag to the ideal case making ascent harder than descent, acting as a brake in exchange for simply heating up the disk.
    1 point
  30. OK, in that case, what I think you will find is it takes significant effort to pull the finger out of the gap, as the force of attraction is stronger once the magnets have moved inward, than the force that pulls it into the gap when you insert it. So you do net work on the system that way and this provides the energy that restores the stored energy in the fields to the status quo ante.
    1 point
  31. OK, now we get to it. In your proposed machine, the magnets first repel one another, doing work and lowering the stored energy in their respective magnetic fields. You believe that when you insert the steel finger between them, they will then be attracted towards it, doing more work and further lowering the stored energy in their fields. And then, when you move the finger out of the way, they move apart again due to repulsion, extracting yet more energy from their magnetic fields. This obviously cannot be the case. So there is something wrong with your assumption. Either you will find the magnets are not attracted together when the steel finger is interposed, or you will find the finger resists being inserted or removed, such that the operator has to do work against the field, thus supplying the required energy. At the moment (being a chemist rather than a physicist) I am not sure which of the two it is, but logically it must be one or the other, it seems to me. My suspicion is that the magnets will not be attracted to the finger. If you consider the path of the flux lines when the finger is in between, they have to turn sharply horizontal within the finger and pass outward to each side. This I think means the dipoles within the finger will not be able to align themselves with either field in the way that you (implicitly) suppose, as they will be perpendicular to the fields, and so no attractive force will result. If that's right, you would be able to twiddle the finger wheel as fast you like and bugger-all will happen! But perhaps you should build it to confirm exactly how it fails to work.
    1 point
  32. The most basic electrical devices consist of the following elements: a resistor, a capacitor and an coil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductor The most basic electronic devices have the above elements plus a diode (or equivalent vacuum tube), a transistor (or equivalent vacuum tube), integrated circuits, microcontrollers, and processors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_tube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_circuit Integrated circuits, microcontrollers and processors are programmable, that is, they execute a program that someone wrote and upload to them or to RAM and/or ROM. Where stands your "steel wool" with the above?
    1 point
  33. Indeed. However, But when a magnet and something attracted by it move closer together, under the influence of the force of attraction between them, work is done. I am saying this comes from a reduction in the stored energy in the magnetic field.
    1 point
  34. Interesting about Chatham. I was surprised to see from the castle battlements an old (decommissioned?) submarine moored in the river, just downstream of the bridges carrying the railway and road. I might pop down the line from Victoria again some time and take a look. I think it's the next stop after Rochester. Back on the topic, yes there will be work done when the magnet and steel object move relative to one another under the influence of the force from the field. W= Fd, remember. But when the magnet is static, held to the beam by its magnetism, no work is being done. I think that is what @swansont meant by saying magnets don't do work, i.e. they don't do work when they are just sitting there, simply by virtue of being magnets, as it were! And there is no inexhaustible store of energy in a permanent magnet that you can draw on by incorporating it in a perpetual motion machine. There is finite (fairly small) energy imparted to it when it is magnetised and you can get a bit of that back, once only, by allowing an object to be drawn towards it. But if you separate them again as part of an operating cycle of some machine, you have to put the same energy back each time. So as I say, no free lunch.
    1 point
  35. Either of the two main smallpox vaccines can control it, so if it were perceived as important (eg by killing white people instead), it would be easy enough to deal with. We get the odd case here from time to time. Nature's way of telling us not to mess around with rope squirrels (suspected wild reservoir).
    1 point
  36. The musician finally gave up and began to erase all the lines of notes. His wife walked into the room and asked, "what is that smell?" "I'm decomposing," he replied.
    1 point
  37. This is a much more reasonable response, @exchemist, thank you. At least you understand what I'm talking about. So what is happening is that there is a movement of energy into and out of the magnetic field, much like storing energy in an inductor, I guess. That's what I was referring to as 'work', perhaps inaccurately. We might consider that the steel sheet is 'falling upwards' towards the magnet in its magnetic field, that when the steel sheet is on the table and the magnet is fixed 30mm above it there is a potential energy imposed by the magnetic field and when the steel is attracted up to the magnet then that magnetically induced potential energy is converted to kinetic energy until the steel sticks to the magnet. Now the magnetic potential energy has been converted to gravitational potential energy. Then if the magnet is an electromagnet and we cut the current to it the steel falls to the table, a conversion of gravitational potential energy to kinetic energy until the steel rests on the table again. Have I understood correctly? As an aside, I used to live in Chatham, Chattenden and Maidstone when I was at RSME and serving in the Royal Engineers. I spent a good deal of time at the Historic Dockyard in Chatham, where I drove steam cranes on the docks at the weekends. So I'm quite familiar with the area. That place is very interesting too. If you get a chance to visit the Officer's Mess at the dockyard you can see the vaulted ceiling that was built by ship's carpenters and is really the upside-down hull of a ship.
    1 point
  38. That wasn't my intention, I was trying to get you to learn before you leap. What do you actually mean by a transducer? Because, as I've previously mentioned, tree's don't think before they open their mouths. Indeed, in the brain as I previously stated, we just don't know which bit does the thinking. Indeed, I'm pretty sure I mentioned dog's and computer's in relation to consciousness, in this thread (if memory serves). But again, it does nothing to bolster your case. What's all this "we" business Tonto, do you have a relevant doctorate?
    1 point
  39. I was out yesterday (visiting Rochester, on the Medway, a very interesting town with a Norman castle, a c.12th cathedral and a rather fine old high street with a lot of history) so have only just seen this. A permanent magnet has energy in its magnetic field. This energy was imparted when the magnet was first magnetised, aligning the magnetic dipoles of the atoms. A permanent magnet is thus in a metastable, higher energy, state, compared to one that has become demagnetised. What happens when a piece of paramagnetic or ferromagnetic material comes under the influence of this field is a bit complicated but I think in energy terms it is something like the following:- The magnetic dipoles in that material are induced by the field to align with it. This costs energy, relative to the previous field-free, non-aligned state and the energy required comes from the field of the permanent magnet. So there has been a potential energy transfer from the permanent magnet to the material that is being attracted to it. The potential energy of the system can be further lowered by allowing the two objects to move together. It is the stored energy in the field of the permanent magnet that is responsible. (This is made clear when you consider the work you have to do to pull the two objects apart.) But any repeated process involving separating and moving together permanent magnets simply moves energy into and out of the field. Energy can only be extracted from it once, in the phase in which they move together. After this there is no free lunch. Yes I suppose that makes sense. Does it make sense, I wonder, to speak of the radiation distribution having an entropy? What you seem to suggest is that the black body distribution has the maximum entropy of any radiation distribution.
    1 point
  40. I once tried building a "perpetual motion" machine not too dissimilar - not because I thought it would work but to work out what I was missing, to understand why it wouldn't. Needless to say it didn't work and I saw the push of magnets equaled the pull, with friction as well.
    1 point
  41. Just like with any other product. Trump markup. That’s the point of this grift. Or there is no copyright attached, which would be the case for the Bible. I’m shocked, shocked, that deceit is going on here. A scam? Involving Trump? The deuce, you say! </s>
    1 point
  42. Perhaps a short digression into the philosophy of science is appropriate. Science develops models of nature that enable correct predictions of the behaviour of nature to be made. Very often these models are recognised as approximate or incomplete and thus to have a certain scope of application which should not be exceeded. Newtonian mechanics is a good example. Nobody says Newtonian mechanics is "wrong" but it doesn't work at the atomic scale, nor when relative speeds are a significant fraction of c. We all know this and use Newtonian mechanics with those limits in mind. The magnetic circuit model is evidently quite successful for many engineering purposes, provided one doesn't stretch the analogy of its fictitious magnetic "current" too far. It is a scientific model insofar as it makes correct predictions for how nature will behave. If your model tells you a static magnet continually does work, though, you have a major problem, because you need to explain where this energy appears, what its source is and why this source never runs out. So at that point your model fails.
    1 point
  43. OK I understand what you mean and I'm aware there is a "magnetic circuit" model used in engineering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_circuit However this has drawbacks if used incautiously, as is in fact mentioned in the article. There is in truth no magnetic "current", as nothing flows. Whilst we habitually draw flux lines with arrows on, these do not indicate a flow of anything. The magnetic field is a vector field, i.e. it has both a magnitude and a direction at any point in space. The density of flux lines is used to denote magnitude and the arrows denote direction. That is all the arrows mean. A field is not a current. (This is explicitly stated in the section of the Wiki article subtitled "limitations".) As for whether this way of thinking of magnetism is a better description, we have just seen how it has given you the wrong answer, in the example of the magnet stuck to a beam. So clearly it has severe limitations. The circuit model may be fine for analysing the shape of the field in electrical machines and so forth but, as with many models in science, it has limits and if these are not borne in mind it can make you look a bit of a berk! 😀 I had not heard of Ed Leedskalnin (not Leedskillin), but I see he was a Latvian immigrant to the USA who was active in magnetism between the wars. I also see that indeed he was on the right track in interpreting magnetism as arising from circulation of charges within the substance, just as I described to you in my previous post. His understanding was thus a foreshadowing of what we understand today about magnetism from atomic theory, quantum physics and quantum chemistry. (Quantum theory was developed in the late 1920s and 1930s, possibly a little later than when he was writing about magnetism.) P.S. Curious fact: magnetism can in fact be shown to arise as a consequence of applying the theory of special relativity to electric charges in relative motion. I think that is rather cool.
    1 point
  44. I'm so sorry for your loss. Just a couple of years of formal, mainstream study and you wouldn't have to make things up to fit the gaps in your knowledge. We can help if you're willing to listen. Not sure what to do with the "Creator" issue, but I would ask that you leave it out of this discussion if possible. Much like infinities, all-powerful entities tend to remove our ability to measure accurately.
    1 point
  45. Philosophy that ignores science is a Lewis Carroll 'rabbit hole'. And you know what they say of people who assume ...
    1 point
  46. 1 point
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.