Can someone clear up some things about em fields and gravitational fields.

[laquishabonquiqui]

Hello I have heard many things about how electrons/em fields move through a circuit. Can someone give me a good mental image of what a em field is and how it moves through a wire? Iv seen many respones on how electrons moving cause em field/magnetic field (again iv heard elctonic field and magnetic field idk which one) like how electrons moving causes friction which causes heat which causes photons which are the virtual photons in magnetism. I dont know if that is right.

 

So what im asking is a correct answer covering what is the thing flowing and causing power in a circuit. If its electromagnetic field explain how electrons movement causes electro or magnetic fields. What are thos fields made of and how do they work? How is velocity made, what causes electrons/electronic fields to move through a circuit. I'v always heard or understood it as the seperation of positive(protons) and negative(electrons) which causes attraction. JUST CLEAR EVERYTHING UP FOR ME!!!

Thanks

[StringJunky]

Hello I have heard many things about how electrons/em fields move through a circuit. Can someone give me a good mental image of what a em field is and how it moves through a wire? Iv seen many respones on how electrons moving cause em field/magnetic field (again iv heard elctonic field and magnetic field idk which one) like how electrons moving causes friction which causes heat which causes photons which are the virtual photons in magnetism. I dont know if that is right.

 

So what im asking is a correct answer covering what is the thing flowing and causing power in a circuit. If its electromagnetic field explain how electrons movement causes electro or magnetic fields. What are thos fields made of and how do they work? How is velocity made, what causes electrons/electronic fields to move through a circuit. I'v always heard or understood it as the seperation of positive(protons) and negative(electrons) which causes attraction. JUST CLEAR EVERYTHING UP FOR ME!!!

Thanks

A 'field' is a set of values of amplitudes of some force distributed over a set of co-ordinates.

Edited June 23, 2017 by StringJunky

[Sensei]

The easiest way to visualize electrons moving through medium is Cloud Chamber

Long thin trace is typically electron/positron.

Short thick trace is typically alpha particle.

 

After applying external electric field and/or external magnetic field, these traces bend accordingly to charge of particle (electron -1e, positron +1e, proton +1e, alpha +2e, etc. etc.)

and momentum they had.

 

If you have particle at rest to the box (better with quite good vacuum), and you create external electric field, particle is starting moving (it's accelerated) toward one electrode or other electrode.

After hitting electrode, kinetic energy of particle is lost, and new particle is created. For small energies, it's photon, visible, UV, x-ray.

While deceleration, high velocity particle, is creating true photons, not virtual photons.

Edited June 23, 2017 by Sensei

[MigL]

Keeping things as simple as possible...

The best analogy I can come up with is that the gradient of a field is like a slope ( well, for gravity, it IS a slope ), which converts, or trades, the potential energy of a test mass/charge to kinetic energy. Potential being maximized at one extreme while kinetic is maximized at the other, i.e. a ball on top of a hill has potential, once it starts rolling down the hill, it loses potential in exchange for kinetic ( speed ) and at the bottom f the hill, it has maximum kinetic ( speed ) but no potential left.

There are, of course various types of fields, scalar, vector even tensor, and don't necessarily have higher potential at larger separations; like charges ( + and +, or - and - ) have higher potential at lower separations.

This is what provides the incentive for motion of a test particle ( electron, proton, ball, etc. ) subjected to a field.

 

With charges, it gets a little more complicated yet, as each individual charge is also a source or sink of its own field, and in semi-conductors, arrangements of excess/absence of charges is used to create potential 'steps' for a diodes and transistors.

[Mordred]

Another good analogy +1