Eric and Dave-- I agree with David’s assessment. In addition, since angular momentum must be conserved, the effective circulation of electrons in a loop wants to stay that way. Magnetic fields are much like electric fields—if established and left alone, they remain unchanged. The charge does not “evaporate” with time nor does it move because of the mass inertia associated with it. The magnetic field does not change, because of the angular momentum associated with it. Angular momentum and linear momentum associated with inertia are very similar animals. They do not change without cause--an expenditure or assumption of energy.
Furthermore, from observation the angular momentum it only changes by a certain discrete quanta. And charge only changes by discrete quanta—the charge on an electron which goes from 0 to +l or –1 electron charge units. Linear momentum of a particle seems to be uncontrolled and able to change in any increment, no matter how small. However, it may eventually be found to also be controlled at very small time increments and dimensions—those associated with the Planck scale. That being said, a lot of people think that quarks exist with fractional unit charges. I do not. Specifically I do not classify a quark as a real division of charge, since they do not seem to exist by themselves. I think that the suggestion fractional charges—quarks—are real is associated with the necessary geometry of associated real charges in a group of close electrons and positrons as occur in a nucleus. P. Hatt’s theory of the proton and and neutron as being constructed from electrons and positrons seems a better fit to experimental reality than the quark theory of the makeup of these large constituent particles. Bob Cook From: David Roberson Sent: Friday, November 13, 2015 10:25 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [Vo]: How many atoms to make condensed matter? Eric, replace the lossy magnet by a superconducting magnet and you get the same result without requiring any additional work to be done. The loss in the current carrying magnet is due to series resistance and if that resistance is eliminated it would not require any additional power once the current is set up. I consider electrons in orbits as being equivalent to a superconductor current since the orbits do not collapse with time. No power is radiated by an electron orbital and hence no work is required to keep it in the proper location. Dave -----Original Message----- From: Eric Walker <eric.wal...@gmail.com> To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com> Sent: Fri, Nov 13, 2015 9:21 pm Subject: Re: [Vo]: How many atoms to make condensed matter? Some of this thread has gotten to some of the basics relating to magnetism, which is a bit of a mystery to me. There's the dynamic magnetism that arises through a moving current. And there's the static magnetism that is created through the formation of magnetic domains in a ferromagnetic material, in which the spins of the atoms are aligned in one or another direction. At a high level, these concepts make sense to me. What I don't fully understand is how conservation of energy applies in the case of the system in this photo: http://i.imgur.com/YzC8KlI.jpg Here we have a strong permanent magnet and a keyring. They are configured in an arrangement that, without the influence of the permanent magnetism, would be unstable against the force of gravity. But the magnetism of the magnet keeps the two components together in the assembly against gravity. A common explanation for this kind of thing will be something to the effect that no work is being done in this system because there is no movement. But I think that oversimplifies the mystery of it. We can suspect that work is in fact being done at the atomic level if in our minds we replace the permanent magnet with a magnet formed from a current carrying wire wrapped around a piece of metal. We can set up a magnetic field in this system by keeping current flowing through the wire, and we must keep the current flowing in order to continue to have the field. We could do that by turning a crank on a small hand generator or burning petroleum to power an electrical generator. With the permanent magnet, one suspects that there must be something comparable going on as well. My question is -- what is it that seems to be adding energy to the system in order to keep the permanent magnetic field in place, analogous to the motor with the crank or the electrical generator? What is the fuel in this system that does the work? Eric
