4755 NW
120 Drive
Coral
Springs, FL 33076
20 MAR
2022
Ivor Catt
121
Westfields
St. Albans
AL3 4JR
Dear Ivor
Catt:
I have
been trying to understand your ideas about electromagnetic theory for several
months
now. Your
ideas sound promising but I need more information to make a definite conclusion
about
their validity. I believe that you label your current theory
”theory D”. According to my
understanding,
theory D hypothesizes that there are either no electrical currents (i.e, currents
of
electrons) or that any electrical currents are completely inconsequential to EM
theory. That
is, any
possible electric currents are a ”side effect” of
”energy currents”, and certainly not the
cause of
any power transfer. ”Energy currents” are the entities
which transfer power in EM sys-
tems.
If
possible, please send me a document clearly outlining the main tenets of your
theory – theory
D – as you
have constructed it. I make this request in order to make further progress in
under-
standing
your theory. ( I would appreciate it if you would
supply one and only one document
that
explains your theory, and not a collection of websites that each address a
particular issue of
your
theory. ) In particular, I request that you address
the following issues.
ivorcatt.co.uk/d.htm
1.
What
is the reference frame necessary for theory D to be true?
2. All
my work is in a fixed 3D frame, not 4D. There are no observers travelling at
different velocities.
3.
Since theory D involves speeds
(
in particular
lightspeed ), we must know the reference frame in which these speeds are being
measured.
If you say a lab frame fixed to the earth, then you are introducing fictitious
forces
like
Coriolis forces.
I ask this
for the following reason.
Newton’s
theory, i.e., his three laws of motion, are only valid in an
”inertial” reference frame. I
began to
realize 20 or 30 years ago that there is a circularity involved here. Newton’s
three laws
require an
inertial reference frame but what is an inertial reference frame? An inertial
reference
frame is a
reference frame in which Newton’s three laws hold true !!!
So there is circular rea-
soning going on here.
Actually Newton defined an inertial
reference frame as one at rest with respect to absolute space
but such a
definition is in my opinion ( IMO ) impossible to
implement. That’s when Mach
started
criticizing Newton’s mechanics. IMO it is impossible to define any type of
reference
frame
without specifying a piece of matter which can serve as the origin ( and axes ) of its coor-
dinate system.
But I’ll
accept your answer of using a reference frame fixed to the earth since the vast
majority
of
researchers in electromagnetic theory used such a reference frame without
examining the
implications
of the presence of fictitious forces in such a frame.
Of course,
if you want to bring in general relativity, you can say that any reference
frame is suf-
1
ficient for theory D as long as a suitable
metric is used.
2. What
are the basic building blocks of theory D?
It is an axiom that energy exists. It cannot be
created or destroyed. Under Theory D, it can only travel at the speed of light,
which of course is energy. Since there is no instantaneous action at a
distance, energy does not exist, only energy density, at a point.
I
understand that theory D encompasses certain fields such as
”energy current” fields. It also
seems to
include electric and magnetic fields as I have seen references to this energy
current
field as
an E~ × H~ field. I have also seen this field called a TEM wave.
In a 3D universe, energy density exists at a point, travelling
at speed c in the z direction. This energy density has two dimensions in the x
and y directions, called E and H.
What is
the source of this energy current field ? Is it true
that this energy current field is com-
posed of
both electric and magnetic fields?
Does your
theory D also include electrons and protons? No particles. If theory D does not encompass elec-
trons and protons, what causes the
energy current field ? Energy exists. It is
not caused. Its direction can be changed.
( That is, what causes the electric and
magnetic
fields There
is only one field, ExH which compose the energy current field? )
This is a
very important question that needs to be addressed since I have heard you
mention
”phlogiston” died 200 years ago in earlier phone conversations
with me. Is phlogiston a building block of your the-
ory? Electricity died
in 1967.
3.
Physicists equate in their minds a traveling ( or
oscillating ) EM field with radiation. And in
their
minds, radiation implies accelerating charges. What charges there
are no particles are
accelerating to produce
the energy
current field of theory D?
– We know
that closing and opening a switch produces self- inductance effects which lead to
sparks,
burnt out light bulbs, etc. (See article on self- inductance induced sparking.)
Wouldn’t
it be more accurate to describe the waveform seen on suddently discharging a capacitor – or
connecting
a wire to a voltage source like a battery – a ”pulse”
(surge) of current rather than a
TEM wave? No To me, the presence of a TEM wave
implies an oscillating dipole or other source
of
radiation. IMO, connecting a wire to a battery – like opening or closing a
switch – would
produce a
surge (pulse) of current electric current does not exist which might describe what
Wakefield and Malcolm Davidson
saw in
their experiments.
4. Is your
theory D a quantitative theory? If so, what are the equations that characterize
this
theory and
make it a quantitative theory? Non compris
5. Is
theory D based on historical facts and historical electromagnetic laws such as
•
Coulomb’s force law between charges No charges
• Ampere’s
force law between current elements no current
• The
Lorentz force law I ignore Lorenz – never mentioned by
anyone I ever works with.
F~ = q
E~ + ~v ×
B~
where F~
is the force on an electron with velocity ~v.
Do you
accept any of these basic laws? If not, which one(s) do you reject?
6. Is
theory D based on (or rather, consistent with) the the
Heaviside - Maxwell equations?
At what
point in time does theory D diverge from the historical development of
electromagnetic
theory?
Heaviside’s
work has been silenced. Maxwell’s work is a mess. Nobody reads him; they only
worship him. (Nobody reads the Bible.)
http://www.ivorcatt.co.uk/x892max.pdf
2
Is theory
D consistent with the ballistic emission theory of Walther Ritz
? (Walther Ritz and
Albert
Einstein had an ”agreement to disagree” about
electromagnetic theory.) No answer.
7. Theory
D seems to denigrate the existence of ”displacement
current”. Now since IMO no one
really
believes that there is an actual current flowing between the plates of a
charging capaci-
tor, it
seems to me that the idea of displacement current is really used as a
substitute ( or surro-
gate
) for the idea
that a changing electric field can induce a magnetic field. (
No one believes in
Maxwell’s
idea that a displacement current represents strains / stresses in a mechanical
ether. )
Does
theory D (with its denigration of displacement current) thus imply that a
changing electric
field does
NOT induce a magnetic field? That is, does theory D state that one should not
add the
second
term in the following equation:
∇
× H~ = − J~ −
∂D~
∂t
. (1)
where the
second term represents the displacement current ? If
so, how does one derive the
equation
for propagation of EM waves?
DIGRESSION:
I do not accept the ”modern” derivation of
displacement current using the the-
orems of vector calculus because
interrupting a cirucit with a capacitor would cause
the current
to be ”non- constant”. IMO Ampere’s cicuit
law1 only applies to constant currents. But that is
another
story for another day. Read our 1978 paper.
8. Does
theory D acknowledge or deny the basic validity of the Heaviside - Maxwell
equations? They have no content. Read my papers on Maxwell Eqns.
9. Is
theory D an instantaneous action- at- -a distance theory? Or do electromagnetic
effects
propagate
at the speed of light c? In my world, there is no instantaneous
action- at- -a distance
10. If
electromagnetic effects in theory D propagate at the speed of light c, why do
these effects
propagate
at such a speed? What equation explains the value of light speed c? They propagate at such a speed by
definition, axiomatic.
11. Please
provide a clear explanation of the Wakefield experiments and the Catt
questions.
(
Many scientists
and engineers I have corresponded with do not understand what the Wakefield
experiment
shows. Many people do not understand the three Catt questions.
)
It would
be nice to see an actual video of the Wakefield experiments. It would also be
nice to
have a
complete description of the experimental results of Malcolm Davidson.
12. Does
your theory utilize the Poynting theorem on energy flow? If so, how do you
handle
the
criticisms of the Poynting energy flow theory and the observation that it is
difficult if not
impossible
to accurately pinpoint the location of energy storage in an electromagnetic
system?
(
See the
attached article. Or rather the article sent along with this letter as I could
not get LaTex
to add the
article as an appendix to this letter, probably due to a problem with
permissions. )
13. You
claim that batteries are not surrounded by electric fields, i.e., that
batteries do not have
1From
Wikipedia: In classical electromagnetism, Ampere’s circuital law (not to be
confused with Amp
́ ere’s `
force law
that Andre-Marie Amp
́ ere discovered in 1823) relates
the integrated magnetic field around a closed loop ́
to the
electric current passing through the loop. James Clerk Maxwell (not Ampere)
derived it using hydrody- ́
namics in his 1861 published paper ”On Physical Lines of Force” In 1865 he generalized
the equation to apply to
time-varying
currents by adding the displacement current term, resulting in the modern form
of the law, sometimes
called the
Ampere–Maxwell law, which is one of Maxwell’s equations which form the basis of
classical electro-
́
magnetism.
3
surface
charge on their terminals. Is this in fact true? You state that there is an
oscillating en-
ergy current in the battery being
constantly reflected between the terminals.
14. You
claim that electric energy current fields oscillate between the end plates of a
fully ”charged”
capacitor.
If this is true, what keeps the energy current fields localized in space, i.e.,
why do
they not
eventually diverge into the free space surrounding the capacitor?
Furthermore,
what keeps the energy current field from penetrating slightly into the plates
of the
capacitor
(or coaxial cable) that confines the fields and which produces the reflections?
In my
opinion ( IMO ), such a tiny penetration would heat up the
underlying electrons and eventually
cause the
energy current field to die down to nothingness.
15. What
is the mechanism of propagation of this energy current field? Does the changing
elec-
tric field produce the magnetic field
and vice versa? Are the electric and magnetic fields of this
energy
current field in phase? (If they are out of phase, what is the phase angle
between the
two?)
16. What
is the relationship between matter and energy in theory D? Can matter be
converted to
energy and
vice versa?
(
I ask about
this because it seems that you hinted at conversion between various elementary
building
blocks of your theory early in our phone conversations. )
17. What
is the origin of the magnetic field in theory D ? In
classical Maxwellian electromag-
netic theory, magnetic fields are
produced by currents. The currents that produce the magnetic
force may
be either macroscopic or microscopic (i.e., atomic). But since theory D denies
the
presence
of currents, an alternate explanation is needed for magnetic forces.
18. It
appears that theory D is based (at least in part) on the ideas of O. Heaviside.
Now Heav-
iside was a Maxwellian who accepted J.
Clerk Maxwell’s conception of an electromagnetic
aether2
. Does
theory D postulate / rely on the presence of an electromagnetic ether to
support
the
electric energy current wave it postulates? If so, are Maxwell’s mechanical
models useful to
explain
the functioning of this aether.
19. Does
theory D incorporate any aspects of modern quantum mechanics? In particular,
does
theory D
recognize that matter exhibits both wave and particle aspects? Could the
results of
quantum
mechanics explain any of the results of the Wakefield experiments?
In
particular, could the Casimir effect explain the result of the Wakefield
experiments? ( See
article
accompanying this letter. )
Is theory
D consistent with the idea that electromagnetic radiation is composed of
particles
called
photons?
20. What
is the nature of causality in theory D? What is causing what in the theory?
Is it
possible to list the basic postulates of theory D in a logical order?
21. Is
theory D only applicable in the realm of digital electronics, i.e., in very
small scale elec-
tromagnetic systems? Furthermore, one might
wonder if theory D is only applicable when
2
I use the
terms aether and ether synonymously.
4
quantum
mechanical considerations begin to become more and more pronounced.
22. Can
theory D explain Lewin’s circuit paradox ? ( See article accompanying this letter. )
23. You
have stated that theory N is the normal theory of classical EM, i.e., what the
vast ma-
jority of most students and professors in
engineering schools believe and are taught today. What
exactly
are the propositions of theory H, i.e., how does it differ from theory N? What,
in your
opinion
led Heaviside to jump from theory N to theory H ? That
is, what experiment(s) or the-
oretical consideration led Heaviside to
make this shift? He obviously did not have access to the
results of
the Wakefield experiments ...
24. What
exactly are the propositions of theory C? What experiment(s) or theoretical considera-
tion led you to make the transition
from theory H to theory C?
25. How
does theory C differ from theory D ? What exactly are
the propositions of theory D?
What
experiment(s) or theoretical consideration led you to make the transition from
theory C to
theory D?
26. Extra
credit question. Can theory D explain the limitations of Kirchoff’s
law in plasmonic
circuits? ( See article accompanying this letter. )
Well,
these are just some of the questions I could think of. I’m sure I could think
of more ques-
tions if given more time.
Thanks for
any effort you spend in enlightening me and explaining to me more about theory
D.
Sincerely,
David M.
Bower
CC:
Malcolm Davidson