Paul wrote:
Hello Stephen,
IMHO this is an interesting topic.
I won't argue with that!
If you're ever in a room full of physicists and you want to start an
argument, ask if magnetic fields ever "do work". Then, after you've
gotten a few of them to say, loudly, "No, never!", ask what "does the
work" when an electron (with its permanent dipole) moves in a magnetic
field.
So far I've found just one real physicist who actually came right out
and said "Yes, the magnetic field does "do work"". OTOH I've run across
statements by a (different) well known physicist that made just about
zero sense in this area (I won't mention his name; he's a good guy even
if he did miss the dock by a few feet on this question), and I've run
across textbook sections and articles on this topic that were completely
off the wall. There is a lot of misinformation floating around.
Anyhow I've about shot my bolt on this. I did some very simple analysis
on the problem a while back using magnetostatics. That was enough to
convince me to keep a tight grip on my wallet when someone claims they
have an OU magnetic motor, but it was far from rigorous. I'm certainly
no expert, and I don't even pretend to understand quantum mechanics.
[ ... ]
>
>> So you need to ask yourself where that energy
>> comes from.
>
> I'm well aware of that.
Good, then you do acknowledge there is *real work*
being done while two magnetic dipole
moments rotate toward alignment.
Absolutely! The "magnetic fields do no work" mantra fails. It is false.
> But you might just as well say, where does the
> energy "come from" when something falls off a
table?
There is a big difference? In the magnet example
there's a way of replicating the
magnetic dipole moment by using an air coil. IOW, we
have technology that generates
magnetic fields. We know it requires energy to create
a magnetic field. We know it
requires energy when two coils accelerate toward each
other due to their own attraction--
essentially two magnetic fields overlapping to some
degree.
It appears that in terms of accounting for the energy, one must treat
permanent magnetic fields and fields from currents differently. The
permanent ones are just a "given" -- they may or may not contain energy
but if they do, we can't get it out. The ones associated with currents
are a different story; we pump energy in when they're formed and we get
it back out when they collapse.
As far as something falling
from a table ... I'm not aware of gravity field
generating device to measure the consumed
energy. If there was such an electro-gravity device
then we could measure the consumed
power from the source while some mass (object) is
accelerating toward the device. :-)
Perhaps it would or would not consume energy from the
source.
> In the case of a permanent dipole in a permanent B
field, the energy was
> apparently there all along, in the form of the
-mu*B potential energy
> function.
Again that's not the point! Energy may be in
different forms, but energy is energy
regardless if it is potential or kinetic energy.
Point being that energy is *indeed*
being added to kinetic and field energy, but we cannot
point to any source and say, "Yeah,
that's where it is definitely coming from." We can
assume it comes from within the
electron or whatever is attached to the electron. For
all we know there could be some
unknown higher dimensional aspect to reality-- a sea
of unknown energy that sustains
elementary particles, perhaps akin to how the ocean
may sustain a hurricane. I want to
know from where that energy comes from. Where is that
source?
:-) I have no idea.
I don't know what causes the field of a permanent dipole, either.
I can write a potential function for its behavior in the field of a
permanent magnet, and that convinces me that a permanent magnet motor
can't be OU. But I can't tell you where the energy is before the magnet
starts to move.
I also can't answer this one: If two permanent magnets accelerate
toward each other, does the gravitational field of the system increase
as a result? (Hmmm, maybe I'll post that to sci.physics.relativity --
should be good for a few confused responses, anyway...)
> If you want to ask more than that, then you're
asking why the
> electron's B field is quantized,
I wouldn't go so far as to say that, but
understandably that's a QM thing. I very much
question many QM concepts such as the so-called
photon. On one of my lists is a
relatively simple radio frequency experiment to see if
the sub-photon exists.
> and why its spin can't "slow down",
Ahh, now we talking. I've asked many QM physicists if
spin may slow down. Some don't know
how to answer such a question. Most say "No." The
more honest ones say they don't know
and encourage a test to verify.
As far as I know, according to current theory it can't slow down. It
can't speed up, either. It has just one speed. In fact it seems kind
of inaccurate to call it "spin" at all, but that's just my opinion and I
already admitted I don't understand quantum mechanics.
Another option I've tossed around is perhaps ZPE or
some unknown sea of energy.
Another option is perhaps there's a decrease in
electron velocity. The electron must
always be in motion, correct? Therefore, there's
always room for the electron to slow down.
I don't think so. The linear motion of the electron is not at issue;
its dipole, which is providing the energy here, is due entirely to its
"spin".
Regards,
Paul Lowrance
