Talk:Weber electrodynamics

Maxwell expression is dubious

$U_{Max}={\frac {q_{1}q_{2}}{4\pi \epsilon _{0}r}}(1-{\frac {\mathbf {v_{1}} \cdot \mathbf {v_{2}} +(\mathbf {v_{1}} \cdot \mathbf {\hat {r}} )(\mathbf {v_{2}} \cdot \mathbf {\hat {r}} )}{2c^{2}}})$

This expression cannot be right, because Maxwell's equations predict that the force on Particle A at time T is totally independent of the position and velocity of Particle B at time T. There is no "action at a distance"; Maxwell's equations respect special relativity. The force on Particle A at time T is purely a function of Particle B at earlier times, because the information has to propagate at a finite speed c.

I'm not sure exactly where this expression comes from. Perhaps it is an approximation, but can we specify the circumstance in which the approximation is reasonable? And give a source? Thanks! --Steve (talk) 03:17, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Check the first reference cited here. It's discussed in it. --Lazcisco — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.117.109.20 (talk) 15:56, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

OK great, I edited it, thanks. --Steve (talk) 16:50, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Newton's third law is not a "benefit"

I put in a discussion of how Newton's third law works and doesn't work in Maxwell's equations, for comparison with how it works in Weber electrodynamics. (This is classic stuff discussed in every EM textbook.)

I can't imagine how a knowledgeable person would see it as a "benefit" to have a theory where Newton's third law holds exactly for particles, and therefore a theory where momentum cannot transfer from particles to EM fields nor vice-versa. Unless you believe that radiation pressure doesn't exist, nor any of its consequences like optical tweezers, laser cooling, solar sails, etc. etc. Really, the fact that Newton's third law holds exactly for particles is an obvious disadvantage of Weber electrodynamics! ("Disadvantage" is an understatement, "disproof" seems more accurate IMO!) But I didn't want to inject original research into the article, so I diplomatically explained how Newton's third law works in Maxwell's equations and then how Newton's third law works in Weber electrodynamics. Then readers can judge for themselves which kind of picture is in better accord with reality. :-P This is certainly a more neutral and appropriate approach than listing Newton's third law as a "benefit" of Weber electrodynamics, which presupposes that this is a problem that needs addressing in Maxwell electrodynamics. --Steve (talk) 03:36, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Relation to quantum electrodynamics

First, thanks to Sbyrnes for catching my misreading. In my defense I can only say that my passing familiarity Carver Mead's work on "Collective Electrodynamics" led me to be prejudiced against the paragraph about "the classical limit". The definition of that phrase is far from trivial as can be seen from a reading of Mead's introduction to that book detailing his work with Feynman to derive an electrodynamics from QED more suitable than Maxwell's laws as normally formulated. This work was hampered precisely because of the need to better define "the classical limit", entailing macroscopic quantum phenomena such as superconductivity. Depending on where one defines these limits, Maxwell's laws may, or may not, be seen as "the classical limit." Jim Bowery (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:31, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

I haven't read that book, though I did just skim a negative review of it. A few points:

• The claim that Maxwell's equations are the classical limit of QED (along with the math supporting it) is in many mainstream QFT textbooks and lecture notes, whereas the claim that multiple different "classical theories of electromagnetism" can all be derived as different classical limits of QED is not a claim I have ever seen. I suspect it's a fringe opinion. Is there any reliable source that makes this claim? Carver Mead is a primary source, describing his own work (AFAIK), not even a secondary source, let alone a mainstream textbook.
• The only way to derive a classical limit is to start with the math of a quantum field theory, make certain assumptions (this parameter is much smaller than that parameter, etc. etc.), and work through the math until you wind up with a set of classical physics equations. The review I linked above said that Carver Mead's book does not do that.
• If the QED --> Maxwell simplification gets rid of something essential to explaining superconductivity, it's awfully hard for me to believe that a different classical theory of electromagnetism would be better. It would probably require a quantum theory of electromagnetism right? (I haven't read the book, and I'm not a superconductivity specialist, I could be wrong.)
• "His work with Feynman" is a misleading description unless Feynman actually endorsed the finished product, which AFAICT he did not. --Steve (talk) 14:40, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Regarding each of your points:

• Rather than contesting the notion of "classical limit" I should have brought up Mead's distinction of incoherent vs coherent systems given in the first paragraph of the introduction to "Collective Electrodynamics": "It is my firm belief that the last seven decades of the twentieth century will be characterized in history as the dark ages of theoretical physics. Early in this period, a line was drawn between Classical Physics, containing mechanics, electricity, and magnetism, and Modern Physics, containing relativity and quantum theory. The connection between the two domains was supposed to be Bohr’s Correspondence Principle: The behavior of a quantum system must approach that of a classical mechanical system in the limit of large quantum numbers. It is the purpose of this monograph to redefine that boundary, and to state a more-correct correspondence principle. As a quantum system contains more and more elements, it exhibits Collective behaviors that differ more and more widely from the behaviors of a mechanical system. In the limit of a large number of elements, these behaviors correspond to electromagnetic phenomena. Thus, physics can indeed be divided into two disciplines: the first preoccupied with the behavior of incoherent systems, and the second concerned with coherent quantum phenomena. In what follows, I show that electromagnetism falls squarely in the second category." (my emphasis) I have not looked for a reliable source that makes the incoherent vs coherent system distinction as presented by Mead, so I can't answer your question.
• Mead did not set out to derive Maxwell's equations from QED. Mead understood all-too-well the limitations of Maxwell's equations in relation to QED. To say that "Maxwell's equations are correct assuming they are derivable from QED if QED is correct." is to miss the point. Any theory has a domain. The domain of QED is a superset of Maxwell's laws and "the classical limit" is simply another term for "the domain of Maxwell's laws". It is, indeed, the case that Weber Electrodynamics is also derivable from QED because the domain of Weber Electrodynamics does not encompass rapidly changing systems. I should say here that one of the things that got me interested in revisiting Weber Electrodynamics was the fact that Carver Mead's "G4v" theory of gravity waves is derived directly from his Collective Electrodyamics and bears a degree of similarity Weber's own gravitational theory. The relevance of this to this talk page is that it may be comparing apples and oranges to compare Maxwell's laws and Weber's laws depending on how one defines their applicable domains.
• Feynman died some 10 years before Mead was able to restart work on his reformulation of quantum electrodynamics in terms of potentials. So, of course, it is impossible for Feynman to have had much to say. However, as Feynman's first PhD student, it is fair to say that there are few in a better position to claim to have "worked with Feynman" on this reformulation. Again, quoting "Collective Electrodynamics": "As I walked away from Feynman’s wake, I felt intensely alone. He was the man who had taught me not only what physics is, but also what science is all about, what it means to really understand. He was the only person with whom I could have talked about doing electromagnetism without Maxwell’s equations—using the quantum nature of matter as the sole basis. He was the only one who would have understood why it was important. He was the only one who could have related to this dream that I had carried for 25 years. This dream came directly from Feynman, from what he said and from what he scrupulously avoided saying, from the crystal-clear insights he had, and from the topics that had made him mad when I brought them up. But now he was gone. I would have to go it alone. I sobbed myself to sleep that night, but I never shared those feelings with anyone. I learned that from him, too. In 1994, I was invited to give the keynote talk at the Physics of Computation conference. That invitation gave me the kickstart I needed to get going. By the next year, I had made enough progress to ask Caltech for a year relief from teaching so I could concentrate on the new research. In June 1997, the six graduate students working in my lab all received their doctoral degrees, and, for the first time since I joined the faculty, I was a free man. I finished the basic paper on Collective Electrodynamics (12), an expanded version of which appears in the present monograph as Part 1 (p. 9). The memorial volume, Feynman and Computation (13), contains reprints of this paper and the scaling paper mentioned previously, along with an earlier version of this preface entitled Feynman as a Colleague." Jim Bowery (talk) 19:38, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm familiar with the domain of applicability of Maxwell's equations, indeed I first wrote the article section Maxwell's equations#Limitations of the Maxwell equations as a theory of electromagnetism.

If I understand you, you're saying that in a certain situation (certain parameters are small or whatever), QED simplifies to Maxwell's equations, whereas in a different situation (a different set of parameters is small or whatever), QED simplifies to Weber electrodynamics. That would be perfectly fine, if it were true, but I don't believe that the second part is true. I have never seen anyone start with the equations of QED, make certain assumptions, and wind up with Weber electrodynamics. Have you? If so, where? And what are those assumptions? I have read a few papers advocating Weber electrodynamics, and I don't recall any of them saying "the theory should only apply in (XYZ) situation", where XYZ is one of the situations in that article section e.g. entangled photon pairs. --Steve (talk) 21:11, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

When I asserted "Weber Electrodynamics is also derivable from QED because the domain of Weber Electrodynamics does not encompass rapidly changing systems." I meant to imply that just about any area where Weber Electrodynamics does not predict the same outcomes as QED may be defined to be outside the applicable domain of Weber Electrodynamics -- so its more a matter of definition than derivation. This may seem like mere epistemological hand-waving, and I suppose it would be if Weber Electrodynamics didn't have applicability outside the domain of QED (ie: gravitation). Anyway, having said that, there are apocryphal claims like: "Assis showed that the Weber energy can describe all electromagnetic phenomena. Schrodinger and Assis used the same Weber-type potential energy to derive gravitational forces including frame dragging effects. As we could show here, the extended Weber potential can not only describe electromagnetic and gravitational forces, but that it also includes the Planck constant or a minimum action. This may open up an alternative approach to study links between quantum theory and gravitation. Of course we used a classical approach and a simple model that will need further refinements in the future, however, the mass model as a one-dimensional oscillating electric dipole-string could be an interesting alternative or complementary to present Higgs- and string theory approaches" that imply Weber Electrodynamics has a domain similar to Maxwell. I cannot as yet cite any reliable such claims. Jim Bowery (talk) 15:43, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Acceleration Dependent Tests

I'm not sure the assertion that "no significant deviations from the Maxwell theory have been observed" is justified given the fact that this experimental test of Weber's theory was predicated on conditions not obtained in the cited experiment and other experiments did obtain those conditions -- some observing the effect. Specifically: "Junginger and Popovich20 repeated the neon glow lamp experiment and implemented an optical counter instead of electrically measuring the frequency of the lamp – and observed a null result. Also Little et al21 performed a similar replication and observed a null result with optical counters and observed that the electric measurement of the lamp’s frequency may be influenced by the Faraday’s shield potential depending on the coupling capacitor used (however the signature of the effect was a parabola instead of the linear relationship as obtained by Mikhailov). However, both replication teams used only a metallic Faraday cage to surround the neon lamp and the RC-oscillator and not a dielectric (glass) shell covered with a metallic layer. As outlined by Assis already in his original derivation of the effect, it is crucial to use a dielectric charged shell as mirror charges or eddy currents may completely shield the effect. A new replication attempt using a metal-covered dielectric glass shell similar to Mikhailov’s approach and using both electric and optical counters is currently underway at TU Dresden in order to finally prove or disprove the effect." This seems to be an unsettled empirical issue. Jim Bowery (talk) 16:29, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Revert

I always feel bad reverting extensive edits which clearly took a lot of effort. However, we can't have content from a self-published source ("Advances In Weber And Maxwell Electrodynamics") because that's not a "reliable source" based on WP:RSSELF. Even if it were not self-published, we have to read WP:FRINGE and decide that the weight of hundreds of mainstream physics textbook, hundreds of thousands of published papers, thousands of professors explaining the material to millions of students year after year, all of these accept Maxwell's equations and the Lorentz force as the uncontroversial foundation of classical electromagnetism... the weight of all these things have to outweigh a handful of books and journal articles mainly by one person (André Assis) plus maybe a few others, for the purpose of writing wikipedia articles. I'm happy for people to disagree with mainstream consensus, as indeed I do on a number of topics, but not to present that view as a fact on wikipedia specifically. That's what books, journal articles, blog posts, physicsforums, etc. are for. --Steve (talk) 13:10, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Stave, thanks for explaining the revert. (I hope I am doing this correctly.... First time user and responding via "talk". If not correct, please let me know.) However, can we discuss the content part by part? Maybe there are parts of what I wrote that are agreeable to you and could remain. For example, the Weber force equation, as I wrote it. I wrote it in several different forms. Nothing controversial with that is there? I don't know, so I am asking. I wrote my contributions to the wiki page based on the statement "Encyclopedic content must be verifiable." criteria. Since what I wrote is math, and staying away from the physical interpretation, it is "verifiable" by doing the math. But I didn't think the wiki page was the place for the mathematical derivations. Hence the reference. Should I include the mathematical derivations? In part? I don't happen to agree with your "...all these things have to outweigh a handful of books and journal articles mainly by one person...". The part I don't agree with is if it is math (not interpretations), and therefore demonstrable by math, then it doesn't matter how many people disagree, particularly from people who have not actually performed the calculations. 1+1=2, not =3, regardless of how many people say that 1+1=3. (Perhaps a bad analogy.) This is close to an "appeal to authority" which should be avoid in the sciences (and math).

So, I ask you, please, can we take one part of what I wrote (your choice) and discuss it to determine if it is "verifiable" (math is correct) or not. If it is not verifiable, by math or formal logic, then, yes, I would withdraw inclusion of that part from the overall content of the wiki article I wrote. Thank you. Researcher720 (talk) 15:32, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

I agree that "appeal to authority" is not a perfect guide to finding the truth (though it is important evidence to weigh!). But "finding the truth" is a different goal than "writing a wikipedia article". The point of WP:NOR is that, if the consensus on a topic is wrong, wikipedia articles are supposed to parrot the wrong consensus, not fix it. Should you fix it? Yes, of course you should fix it, but not by editing wikipedia. You should keep writing textbooks and articles and websites and going to conferences and talking to experts and all those other things that you would be doing anyway if this article didn't exist. Again, I feel strongly that mainstream medical science is horribly wrong on topic A, and mainstream physics is horribly wrong on topic B, etc., I really do believe these things, and I write websites and blog about it and discuss it with experts when I can and so on, these are lifetime projects that probably won't succeed, but anyway one thing I don't do is edit those wikipedia articles according to my opinions.

Yes there is a WP:CALC guideline allowing our own calculations where it's extremely trivially straightforward, and where there's consensus among editors, like the classic examples of calculating someone's age based on their birthday, or converting a temperature from Fahrenheit to C.

On to your specific edits. I don't particularly mind your "Mathematical description (Discrete source case)" section. We could put that back, as far as I'm concerned. Then the following few sections seemed like they might be mathematically correct, as far as I know, but I would want to see those equations in multiple sources by multiple different authors (at a minimum) before including them. After all, there are infinitely many true things you can say about any topic, and infinitely many ways to rewrite an equation, but readers' time and attention spans are a very limited resource, particularly for hard-to-parse content like strings of equations. So even if I were to check myself that the mathematical manipulations not only correct but also extremely trivially straightforward, I still would oppose including it in the article until (over the years) we accumulate more evidence that people in the field think those manipulations and expressions are very important. For example, Maxwell's equations article has probably 10 different ways to write Maxwell's equations, but you can find every one of those 10 versions in hundreds of textbooks and thousands of journal articles. If some editor invented a new nice way to write Maxwell's equations, I would oppose including it in the article (even if I checked myself that it was true) until it built up similar acclaim. Finally, your sections about problems with Maxwell's equations, well I strongly disagree with those, as you might imagine. --Steve (talk) 19:48, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, Steve, for your clarifications. I appreciate the feedback. I don't agree with some of what you say, but I do agree with other parts. When you write "I really do believe these things", I think that "believe" has nothing to do with it. It being a mathematical derivation, in my case. As I mentioned, I seem to take a simpler, not me, point of view that if the math is correct, then it is "true" (not the interpretation of the math, but just the math) and should be in Encyclopedic work. I will, as you suggest, seek other physics related sites, journals, etc. (as I have already done) to disseminate the new Weber related results. Thanks. 66.162.64.162 (talk) 13:55, 13 June 2018 (UTC)