General > General Technical Chat
If the electrical energy is outside the wires, how is insulation protecting us?
<< < (12/17) > >>
aetherist:

--- Quote from: TimFox on April 04, 2022, 08:42:18 pm ---When human skin touches a metal object, much of the electrical contact is through water (saline solution in sweat).
At the "atomic scale" (0.1 nm) the electrons move about in the environment.
--- End quote ---
What i reckon happens is that elektons jump from the surface of the metal & into the water where they then become orbiting photons orbiting the water nuclei (the orbiting photons are wrongly called electrons), ie creating ions (negatively charged water molecules), & these ions drift slowly along through the water (at say 1 mm/s). However, the drifting ions create an electric current, & this current has a wavefront propagating very fast through the water (at say c/100).

Hence the electricity found flowing through water is similar to the old (electron) electricity which supposedly flows along a wire. But in the case of water the drifting ions idea (of electricity) is correct. Whereas in a wire the drifting electrons idea (of electricity) is wrong.

Electrons do not orbit nuclei, photons (elektrons) orbit nuclei. 
Electrons are photons that have formed a loop by biting their own tail. 
Electrons are photons that orbit nothing, they go round & round, but don’t orbit anything physical. In that sense an electron is free to move, albeit as directed by its own negative charge.
An orbiting photon is not free to move. Except that a conduction elektron is free-ish i suppose.
We all call it a conduction elektron, praps a conduction photon duz take the form of an electron when it breaks free of the nucleus , in which case they are indeed conduction electrons.
Free surface electrons are almost certainly electrons. Still thinking.
TimFox:
This reads more like mythology than physics, especially the tail-biting.
Remember that ionic solutions have substantial conductivity.
The relationship between electric field E and current density J in a conductor is J = (sigma)xE, where E and J are vectors (Ohm's Law).
In an isotropic medium, "sigma" is a scalar, but in an anisotropic conductor (e.g., graphite), it is a tensor.

Drifting electrons in a metal or semiconductor (rather important for electronic engineering):
At normal field values within the metal, the charge carriers do not accelerate in the same manner that they accelerate between cathode and anode of a cathode-ray tube, but they reach a terminal velocity (due to scattering from impurities and other solid-state physics phenomena) that is proportional to the E field.  (At very high fields, the proportionality breaks down.)
The Hall effect is useful here:  it can differentiate between electrons moving one way and holes (positive charge carriers) moving the other way, even though the electrical current is in the same direction, and shows that charge carriers within a conducting metal wire are, in fact, electrons.  (Both types of charge carriers occur in semiconductor devices.)
aetherist:

--- Quote from: TimFox on April 04, 2022, 10:27:46 pm ---This reads more like mythology than physics, especially the tail-biting.
Remember that ionic solutions have substantial conductivity.
The relationship between electric field E and current density J in a conductor is J = (sigma)xE, where E and J are vectors (Ohm's Law).
In an isotropic medium, "sigma" is a scalar, but in an anisotropic conductor (e.g., graphite), it is a tensor.

Drifting electrons in a metal or semiconductor (rather important for electronic engineering):
At normal field values within the metal, the charge carriers do not accelerate in the same manner that they accelerate between cathode and anode of a cathode-ray tube, but they reach a terminal velocity (due to scattering from impurities and other solid-state physics phenomena) that is proportional to the E field.  (At very high fields, the proportionality breaks down.)
The Hall effect is useful here:  it can differentiate between electrons moving one way and holes (positive charge carriers) moving the other way, even though the electrical current is in the same direction, and shows that charge carriers within a conducting metal wire are, in fact, electrons.  (Both types of charge carriers occur in semiconductor devices.)

--- End quote ---
Yes. I wasn’t sure how to break it to u. That electrons don’t orbit nuclei. The orbiting is done by photons.
However, u will be pleased to know that free electrons do exist.

Orbiting photons solves a deep mystery that used to keep me awake at night. How can an orbital electron absorb the energy of a photon, & then re-emit that photon. The simplest solution is that the photon is absorbed by an orbiting photon. Or is not absorbed at all but merely joins its mates.  First the elekton. Now the orbiting photon. U can't stop genius.

I think that drifting elektrons might exist in a metal. Here the orbiting conduction photons might have to break free & form free electrons by biting their own tails, at least briefly. I think that that could happen on the surface of the metal, but praps inside also. I can go along with that. But, electrons do not orbit nuclei.

Ok everybody sit down & stay calm & listen. There is no need to panic. Electricity is safe. Here is a summary.
Photons can exist in many ways.
(1) Free photons (zero charge in the far field).
(2) Elektons (photons hugging the surface of a metal)(negative charge).
(3) Orbiting photons (elektrons hugging a nuclei instead of the surface of a metal)(negative charge).
(4) Electrons (photons that have formed a loop)(the photon orbits around nothing)(negative charge).
(5) Positrons (positive charge)(electrons that are twisted inside out).
(6) Neutrinos (pairs of photons sharing the same helical axis)(zero charge in the near field & in the far field)
(7) Positons (positive charge)(elektrons that are twisted inside out).
(8 ) The photon is the building block for all elementary particles (quarks, muons etc)
TimFox:
The straw horse of "orbiting electrons", such as seen in graphics for atomic energy organizations, is not to be taken literally in the sense of the Moon orbiting the Earth.  The first quantum explanation of atomic structure by Neils Bohr gave some reasonable results, but there has been a lot of work done in the last century.
Have you ever studied quantum mechanics?  The proper discussion of atomic structure is not easily found in comic-book illustrations, but the modern theory predicts spectroscopic results to incredible accuracy.
For example, the "Lamb shift", the energy difference between the two states 2S1/2 and 2P1/2, which would be equal by simple quantum mechanics, was explained by later QED (quantum electrodynamics) and the predicted value of only 1057.864 MHz agrees with measurement to 1 ppm or so.
This article gives more than you want to know about this phenomenon:  https://quantummechanics.ucsd.edu/ph130a/130_notes/node476.html
aetherist:

--- Quote from: TimFox on April 04, 2022, 10:53:24 pm ---The straw horse of "orbiting electrons", such as seen in graphics for atomic energy organizations, is not to be taken literally in the sense of the Moon orbiting the Earth.  The first quantum explanation of atomic structure by Neils Bohr gave some reasonable results, but there has been a lot of work done in the last century.
Have you ever studied quantum mechanics?  The proper discussion of atomic structure is not easily found in comic-book illustrations, but the modern theory predicts spectroscopic results to incredible accuracy.
For example, the "Lamb shift", the energy difference between the two states 2S1/2 and 2P1/2, which would be equal by simple quantum mechanics, was explained by later QED (quantum electrodynamics) and the predicted value of only 1057.864 MHz agrees with measurement to 1 ppm or so.
This article gives more than you want to know about this phenomenon:  https://quantummechanics.ucsd.edu/ph130a/130_notes/node476.html
--- End quote ---
I don’t know enough (math etc) to be able to study Quantum stuff, so i don’t understand any of it.
But i know that some scientists don’t like the idea of an atom having a nucleus, & some don’t like the idea of electrons orbiting a nucleus.
I think that atomic energy is a safer term than nuclear energy.
Some scientists don’t like the idea of electrons. They might concede that there is a kind of electron effect, but that it is due to rolled up em radiation or somesuch (which aint far from my "biting its own tail")
Jeans said that matter was bottled light.
I don’t like all of the theoretical particles & virtual particles demanded by Quantum stuff.
Navigation
Message Index
Next page
Previous page
There was an error while thanking
Thanking...

Go to full version
Powered by SMFPacks Advanced Attachments Uploader Mod