On 05/26/2011 05:09 AM, Joshua Cude wrote:
On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 7:33 PM, Mark Iverson<zeropo...@charter.net> wrote:
Robin hits the nail on the head... Anything mathematical is the MODEL, and
is supposed to reflect physical reality. My question was about the physical
world -- what I was asking got was a rational, qualitative, cause and effect
sort of explanation.
Nothing is more rational than a mathematical description of reality, and it
provides cause and effect. I'll grant that it is not a qualitative
explanation, and doesn't give the answer to the ultimate question of life,
the universe, and everything (42), but science starts from observation, and
uses that to predict consequences. For any explanation, you can always keep
asking, as a child does, "but why?". Why gravity? Why Newton's law? Why
general relativity? The best we can do is find the most fundamental
observation, and until more fundamental ones come along, try to explain what
we see based on those. So, I took it back to Coulomb's law and special
relativity. All of the laws of electromagnetism can be derived from those
two concepts, including the reason for the perpendicular fields in an em
wave. But it is a mathematical development. The language of physics is
math.
Thanks for your detailed explanation. I suppose it's as good as it can
be, based on classical existing theory, and without using math.
Can you provide some reference for the above derivation, namely, the
derivation of Maxwell's laws from Coulomb's law and special relativity?
I was thinking last night about the radiative component that appears
when an electrostatic charge is accelerated. That radiative component
is proportional and perpendicular to the acceleration vector. Do you
think that it can be related to the perpendicular nature of the magnetic
field, or it has nothing to do at all?
...
Now, if you want to know why Coulomb's law, and why relativity, you're on
your own.
Maye "we" can attempt that later :-)
Regards,
Mauro
