http://www.ivorcatt.co.uk/8a7.htm “This is why a body of knowledge will tolerate, and even encourage, argument and violent disagreement about trivial detail while at the same time blocking all questioning of fundamentals. To change the metaphor, a body of knowledge is like a large raft on which all kinds of violent games can and must be played, but no one must attack the raft on which they stand, because then everyone would drown in new ideas.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXG2F0a6I28 Go to 23 minutes. “…. The more education you have, the more brainwashed you are.”

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Re Wakefield http://www.ivorcatt.co.uk/x343.pdf

[See below]

4. It was foolish of me to introduce the photon concept which I thought
might help to answer the question about how the EM step could accelerate
immediately to the velocity of light. I should have just left this as a
consequence that this is the only velocity at which such EM waves or
steps can travel. The photon (which is just the particle manifestation
of an EM wave) consequently has zero rest mass. Instead of helping the
discussion this unfortunately provided another diversionary opportunity
fr you to parade your disbelief in wave particle duality.

“…. the question about how the EM step could accelerate immediately to the velocity of light.”

Presumably Howie meant to say;

“…. the question about how the electrical field could accelerate immediately to the velocity of light.”

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http://www.ivorcatt.co.uk/yak.htm x

Re: Misrepresentation?

Inbox

Prof. A Howie

Sat, 19 Sep, 18:21 (9 days ago)

to me, Brian, Alex, Malcolm, Anthony, Steve, michael.pepper

Dear Ivor,

In a possibly fruitless effort to remove all doubt let me summarise my
views:-

1. I agree that your picture of EM steps travelling to and fro at the
velocity of light gives an interesting picture of both the charging up
of a capacitor and of the discharging of a charged capacitor when it is
shorted by a resistor.

2. This picture seems pretty straightforward for a coaxial cable.
However, as I described before, it is not quite so simple for a parallel
plate capacitor particularly one with circular plates. Here the
cylindrical EM waves have a problem getting to the centre and some
additional contribution from simple charge flow is needed.

3. For several reasons, this travelling step picture is completely
incapable in my view of describing the static state of a charged
capacitor when it is sitting completely disconnected.

(a) Without a constant energy input, the moving EM steps will be killed
by ohmic attenuation. One of your recent messages seems to indicate
that you accept that ohmic dissipation does exist. However it acts to
reduce the amplitude of the steps not to slow them down as you seem to
suppose it might. Cancellation between the current flow associated with
oppositely propagating steps is only partial.

(b) In most cases there will be some radiation and consequent loss of
energy from from the ends of the capacitor when an EM step reflects
there leading to a reflection coefficient less than one. The coaxial
cable with its central electrode is an exception to this.

(c) The idea that the moving steps which were involved in the charging
process just able to continue when the capacitor is disconnected runs
into difficulties because in the final stages of charging their
amplitude has reduced to extremely (even infinitesimally) small values.

4. It was foolish of me to introduce the photon concept which I thought
might help to answer the question about how the EM step could accelerate
immediately to the velocity of light. I should have just left this as a
consequence that this is the only velocity at which such EM waves or
steps can travel. The photon (which is just the particle manifestation
of an EM wave) consequently has zero rest mass. Instead of helping the
discussion this unfortunately provided another diversionary opportunity
fr you to parade your disbelief in wave particle duality.

As stated above I do not believe in the travelling step picture for the
statically charged capacitor and therefore I have never thought that
photons could play any role in maintaining the static charge. I am not
so concerned about having such a crazy view erroneously attributed to me
however. When repeated it will convey immediately to anyone who
understands the physics of what is going on that either I or more likely
the person who repeats the statement has a very imperfect grasp of the
subject.

Archie.