[Physics] Do longitudinal FTL "Tesla" waves exist and, if yes, how should they be modelled?

[Ilja Schmelzer]

2020-05-03 3:50 GMT+06:30, Arend Lammertink <lamare at gmail.com>:
> On Sat, May 2, 2020 at 9:04 AM Ilja Schmelzer <ilja.schmelzer at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Yes. If your intuition is not guided by hard data, you have no chance.
>
> Yep, agree to that.
>
> In that sense, it is rather interesting how one considers David
> LaPoint's video, which I like a lot:
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siMFfNhn6dk
>
> What I see is that people tend to reject the experiments that are
> being shown, because they don't like LaPoint's theory and claims he
> makes besides showing his experiments. To me, the experiments
> themselves are hard data, because I have no reason to believe he faked
> things.

Look at it from the other side: The costs of evaluating this, vs. the
probability that this gives something. I'm a theoretician. Starting
experimental physics would require a completely new education. It
would require joining a completely different community because one
cannot do experiments alone today. The exception are extreme outsiders
who hope to reach something with $1000 investments in hardware for
experiments. No, sorry.

Of course, I have to make bets here, and my bet is to believe that the
mainstream experimenters do their job, and outsiders with $1000
equipment fail.

> I consider it actual recordings from actual experiments until
> someone comes up with a good argument explaining why they are likely
> to be fake.

Fake it a harsh word. It requires bad intentions. The most probably
problem is honest failure. Many things can go wrong in experiments.
You have cheap devices, no team which does a lot of cross-checks,
thus, expect a lot of unrecognized systematic errors.

> So, I've got my hands on one of these a while ago and want to
> experiment with it, kind of like repeating what Wheatstone did, in
> order to see what I can find out. Is there something there that has
> been overlooked by main stream science?

Maybe. But not very probable. It would require extreme luck to make
the correct guess where the mainstream failed, and, moreover, extreme
luck that the failure is so large that you can see it even with $1000
equipment, but they fail to see it with $billion equipment. Not
impossible - they may simply look at the wrong places. But very
improbable.

>> Today, Einstein would probably accept a hidden preferred frame, simply
>> because the alternative, to give up realism and causality, would be
>> completely unacceptable to him.
>
> Could be. Would he also accept and perhaps even prefer an aether
> theory based on fundamental ideas and a correction of Maxwell's
> equations?

Certainly not. Don't forget, Einstein has never rejected neither the
equations of quantum theory nor the experimental predictions based on
it.

>> You have, first, to learn elementary electrodynamics. On the
>> elementary school level. Starting with what is observable - the fields
>> E and B - and what can be used to measure them.
>
> Are you aware I hold a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering from
> the University of Twente?

Given what you have written in the past, I have got a quite different
impression, sorry.  But given the content of this post, it looks
already more plausible.

> Actually, the only 10 (perfect) I ever achieved at University was for
> the course "Electromagetic Field I", the course for the "static"
> electromagnetic field aka Maxwell's equations along with Coulomb and
> Biot-Savart.

Then, the point should be clear and obvious for you. The E and B
fields can be measured, and this is something you can do at home with
your $1000 equipment. You can create magnetic fields using magnets and
electric fields with simple batteries. The Maxwell equations are
equations for E and B. Go and test them, and see if there is any
freedom modifying them in the way you suggest.

>> Once you have accepted that one can simply measure E and B, then you
>> should understand that to distinguish the theory without the dB/dt
>> term from the Maxwell theory can be done in a quite elementary way, by
>> creating some variable magnetic field (simply a rotating magnet) and
>> measuring the E field. And that the result of such measurements was
>> quite clear, and in favor of the Maxwell equations.

> As I stated before, at high frequencies things become a bit harder to
> measure, because then one has to deal with waves and the analogy that
> works well at low frequencies, essentially considering electricity
> similar as water/oil flowing trough pipes, no longer holds.

So what?  I suggest you to test the Maxwell equations for low
frequencies. Because if you simply remove the dB/dt term, you will
fail at low frequencies too.

> So, perhaps one of the most important things one learns is that there
> is no such thing as a "simple measurement" in Electrical Engineering.
> Sure, there are accurate meters for all kinds of parameters these
> days, but they all have their limits and one has to be aware of those
> limits in order to use them properly.

Fine. This is the part you have to know much better than me if the
university of Twente is worth to be named a university.

My point is that simply removing the dB/dt term is completely off, and
this will be obvious even at a very rough level for low frequencies.
So, you can easily falsify the theory without the dB/dt term.   (Which
is the part I thought should be obvious for somebody with Master
degree in Electrical Engineering, but this may be, indeed, a fallacy,
what is obvious for me with a completely different education may be
far from obvious for you.)

> However, at the end of the day, there is no argument that Maxwell's
> equations predict the behavior of the fields very well insofar as
> applicable(!!).

> However, note the "insofar as applicable", which is an important detail.

But once we have a domain where the Maxwell equations are applicable,
then some more general equations should have the Maxwell equations as
their limit in the case when they are applicable.

Roughly, you are free to add something, but only if you can show that
what you add becomes irrelevant in the limit where the Maxwell
equations are applicable.

> So, what does this experiment really tell us?

> It tells us that at low frequencies, a changing magnetic field induces
> a current in a closed loop electric circuit.

And a current through a loop is nothing you can create with a \nabla
\times \mathbf {E} = 0 field. So, \nabla \times \mathbf {E} = 0 is
empirically falsified if there is a changing magnetic field.

> So, the question is: is this really the only possible relationship
> between the electric field and the magnetic field?

There will be, of course, a lot of other imaginable equations. But
\nabla \times \mathbf {E} = 0  is not among them.  Because it cannot
create a current through a loop.

> When you remove the term dB/dt from Maxwell's equations, you are left
> with nothing but fluid dynamics and one obtains a more fundamental
> relationship between the [E] and [B] fields that includes a transverse
> surface wave as predicted by Maxwell, but also a longitudinal "sound"
> wave as well as vortices.

By simply removing the dB/dt term you kill the transverse waves too,
but that's not the point, because we can restrict ourselves to the
much simpler Faraday experiment to get my point.  \nabla \times
\mathbf {E} = 0  is dead because a force which has a potential cannot
give a current in a loop.

>> Physicists simply rely on the facts which can be easily measured.
>
> In the measurements of electromagnetic phenomena, the devil is in the
> details.

Once you have not questioned the low frequency experiments, these
details become irrelevant.

> Yes, it is a fact that Maxwell's equations predict the results of what
> we are currently able to measure within the electromagnetic domain
> well, even very well.
>
> But it is also a fact that other possibilities are conceivable and
> that a number of anomalies exist whereby it is observed that even
> Maxwell's equations have their limits.

We can agree that there are other possibilities. But once we have a
domain where the Maxwell equations work well, these other
possibilities are already quite restricted, namely, the modified
equation has to predict, within the accuracy which was tested, the
predictions of Maxwell theory.

The same as Einstein had to do with GR - to show that the GR equations
have a Newtonian limit.

> As Einstein suggested, the way forward begins by "showing the
> circumstances on which their justification and usefulness depend".  In
> Maxwell's case, that is the principle of the circulating current and
> the two-wire transmission line. As long as one remains within that
> fundamental view on electromagnetics, it matches and works well.

> But Tesla's one-wire transmission line system with the principle of a
> non-circulating vibrating current is not covered by the current
> Maxwell equations and therefore Maxwell's equations are not very
> useful for the analysis of systems and phenomena that depend on this
> principle.

Which remains to be shown. But what is easy to see is that
\nabla \times \mathbf {E} = 0
does not have Maxwell equation limit for low frequencies and Faraday's
experiment.

>> Then
>> I accept that the potentials are the things which describe reality,
>> even if I can measure only E and B but not A and Phi.
>
> Agree so far, but bear in mind that measuring E and B is a lot more
> complicated than you may think,

As long as there is a domain where the Maxwell equations hold, so that
a theory which replaces Maxwell has to recover the Maxwell equations
in some limit, fine.

>> But I can make
>> a reasonable guess about their equations, and this reasonable guess is
>> they all move with the same c, which is the Lorenz gauge.
>
> All right, now let's consider carefully what we are dealing with. What
> we have is a bunch of differential equations and one wave equation. In
> differential equations, you work with distances that are taken to the
> limit of zero. That is why the propagation speed of the fields
> themselves can be assumed to be infinite or any value one would like,
> because the progation speed of the phenomenon you are describing
> follows from the solution of the differential equation.  In other
> words: the propagation speed of the wave is an output from the
> differential equation and not an input.
>
> Since we only have one wave equation which describes an otherwise
> unspecified "transverse" wave, we obviously do not have enough wave
> equations to be able to predict the propagation speed of the "static"
> fields [E] and [B].

We have some domain of applicability of the Maxwell equations which
includes some non-static fields.

> So, yes, one can take a guess and guess it's all c, which is indeed
> the Lorentz gauge.

The gauge should be spelled Lorenz gauge.

> So, when you remove that dB/dt term from the equations and use the
> Laplace / Helmholtz versions instead within the FD domain, from the
> single hypothesis that the aether behaves like a fluid and we know
> it's characteristics, you look at something completely different.

Yes. One looks at an equation which cannot explain the Faraday
experiment. So that this would be dead from the start.

>> No
>> fundamental role for gauge symmetry.  The Lorenz gauge is simply a
>> nice guess which gives nice and simple equations for A and Phi which
>> are compatible with the Maxwell equations.
>
> Let me see if I get this straight:
>
> If you wanted to connect your model to what I'm suggesting, all you'd
> really need to do would be to exchange the Lorentz gauge with the
> correct equations for [A] and Phi?

I would not care much if you would like to change the Maxwell
equations in a way where the Maxwell equations will be recovered in
some limit. If you simply remove that dB/dt term there will be no such
limit, and your theory fails quite obviously already for Faraday's
experiment.

>> You can simply ask "what's wrong with that theory" questions.
>>
>> I do similar things myself. Say, I have not liked many aspects of the
>> Bohmian interpretation of QT. But I support it whenever there is a
>> discussion between Bohm theory defenders and Copenhagen or many world
>> defenders.
>
> So far, I haven't engage much in discussions, but it seems a good
> strategy to do so more often in order to get to know people and
> exchange ideas, like we're doing now.

Ok.
>
>>
>> If we cooperate, you can tell me which parts of my pages you can
>> understand and which not, I could try to improve them. Then, if you
>> have, as a result of this, some pages which you understand well
>> enough, then you can try to some scientists in forums or so and ask
>> them those "what's wrong" questions pointing to these pages.

> I've taken a quick look at some of your papers and started reading this
> one:
>
> https://arxiv.org/abs/0908.0591
>
> Honestly, this is way above my head.

Try the websites.

https://ilja-schmelzer.de/matter/ is about the SM,
https://ilja-schmelzer.de/gravity/ is about the theory of gravity, with
https://ilja-schmelzer.de/gravity/FAQ.php intended for laymen, and I
think there is a lot of place for improvements.

>> I have not yet given up, you acknowledge a lot of different points, so
>> the discussion seems not hopeless.

> Copy that, you acknowledge some things too, so perhaps there's still a
> way out. Would be wonderful.

Yes, there is some progress this time too.

> I agree with the principle, but in practice measuring E and B is a lot
> more difficult and limited than in theory.

Ok, you have in fact already acknowledged that there is a domain where
the Maxwell equations are fine (low frequency).  My point this time is
would be to clarify that this includes all the terms, and in
particular the dB/dt too. And given that you have introduced here the
Faraday experiment, I think it is already sufficient to make this
point.

Faraday says if there is some  dB/dt then this gives some electric
current through a loop. A current through a loop is something which
cannot be created by an electric field with \nabla \times \mathbf {E}
= 0.

The empirical falsification of \nabla \times \mathbf {E} = 0 would be
my first point, and the acknowledgement that the full equations have
to have some natural limit (say low frequency or whatever) where they
give the Maxwell equations would be even better.

>> > “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
>> > ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
>>
>> Which is what I have tried many years now. But without fighting, the
>> method chosen by the mainstream - complete ignorance - will win
>> without a fight.
>
> Well, if we could cooperate, things may change for the better.

Yes, this would be my hope.

>> The fields A and Phi obviously have observable consequence, they
>> define the E and B completely, and those are observable directly.
>
> In theory, yes. In practice, this is a lot more problematic.

I'm happy to be a theoretician, so I don't have to care. But,
whatever, once you have acknowledged that there is a domain where the
Maxwell equations are fine, we can restrict this part of the
discussion to this domain restricted domain of applicability of
Maxwell.

>> So,
>> the only question is if they are better or worse than using E and B
>> directly. There are two strong arguments in favor of the potentials,
>> namely the Aharonov-Bohm effect as well as the straightforward,
>> simplest way to introduce a charge into the Dirac equation.
>
> In principle, they contain the same information, so it doesn't make
> any difference which ones one prefers.
>
> However, the way it's done in Maxwell is problematic. Not only do we
> have that extra dB/dt term, we also have units of measurement that do
> not match to one another, which is problematic because when one wishes
> to adhere to LaPlace / Helmholtz, they need to have the same units of
> measurement.

The dB/dt term we have in the equations for E and B too. So it is anyway there.
{\nabla \times \mathbf {E} = - {\frac {\partial \mathbf {B} }{\partial t}}
is one of the equations for E and B, and this is the part which you
seem to have acknowledged if you admit that Maxwell equations for E
and B work fine in some domain.

The way Maxwell has written the equations for the A \Phi, which is
described today as the Coulomb gauge, is indeed not nice. The Lorenz
gauge is much better.

The wishes to interpret both E and B as velocity fields I will ignore.
Because these are things which may not work, and if they don't work,
this does not justify any criticism of the original equations, because
it will be the fault of your hopes for an ether theory.

> You can measure a scalar impression of the fields on a number of
> "points", yes, and one can relate those to the theory and as long as
> one stays within the "transverse" world, those impressions match with
> what the theory predicts. The only way I know of to get 3D plots of
> the fields themselves is by using simulators, which do work really
> well.  Did quite a lot of simulations with CST Microwave studio and so
> far, the simulator predicted the radiation patterns of the antenna
> designs I actually built correctly.

But so what?  Such simulations are a nice way to obtain the empirical
predictions. And you can test them even if you can measure in a single
experiment only the E field at a single point. Once the simulation
predicts something well-defined for this point, this is already an
empirical test of the equations.

To see that \nabla \times \mathbf {E} = 0 fails it is sufficient to
find some loop so that the E field points, say, in clockwise direction
along the whole loop. Then you can either repeat Faraday who has found
a current created along the loop, or do several experiments measuring
the E field only at one point but checking that the direction is
always the same clockwise direction.

Of course, if you follow this prescription, you have to be able to
repeat the experiment sufficiently accurate, so it has to be low
frequency with your accessible devices and so on. On the other hand,
you need not much, because to falsify  \nabla \times \mathbf {E} = 0
you don't need much current flowing around the loop, any current is
sufficient, because a force with a potential cannot create a current
in a loop.

If you want to avoid the use of any closed loop of wires, no problem,
a good very old light charged cork ball can measure at least the
direction of the electric force at a given point. And to establish
that the E fields points in clockwise direction around the whole loop
you don't need more than the direction of the E force. As you see,
these are not realistic recommendations what to do actually, but
simply qualitative, pure theoretical considerations about what would
be possible in principle. All I need is a simple enough way to test
and falsify \nabla \times \mathbf {E} = 0 when B changes.

>> This intentionally avoids all references to your ether model or any
>> fluid dynamics. That's important, given that you should understand
>> that E and B are well-known to exist and their equations are
>> well-established without even thinking about such models.

> Yep, they are well-known to exist and insofar as the "closed loop"
> principle can be applied, the equations describe the observations very
> well. BUT the devil is in the details and even something as simple as
> measuring a voltage is not as simple and straightforward as it seems.

These are questions which are not very interesting for me, given that
I'm a pure theoretician. I digest experimental papers caring only
about understanding what has been done in principle, and extract the
information about what can be observed in principle. Whatever, I think
to falsify \nabla \times \mathbf {E} = 0 the good old Faraday
experiment should be sufficient. Because even if you think that the
restriction to closed wires is not sufficient, a  \nabla \times
\mathbf {E} = 0 cannot create a current in a closed loop because it
has a potential, and such a current in a loop would have to go
somewhere upstream and somewhere downstream.