Faraday's cage

[dalemiller]

I have been an electronics technician for nearly 60 years and an amateur astrophysicist for 6 years. It is my hope to divulge some discoveries only after discussing the rationale that pegs my theories to mainstream science even though conclusions might be surprising to scholars.

 

My first focus is upon the Faraday cage, not for its utility against electrical interference, but for its influence upon ions developed within.

 

Any isolated host might serve as a Faraday cage whereby any excess of one polarity of charged particles would be harbored upon its most outer surfaces due to mutual repulsion. Within limits, gravity alone would sufficiently hold some charged particles to prevent their expulsion from the host. It follows that within such a charged host in space, some ionizing incident could present separated positive and negative particles within which might be sufficiently separated that the particle belonging to the majority charge of the host might travel to the outer surface instead of recombining with its recent partner of the opposite polarity. As a result, a particle of minority charge would soon have centered itself within the host. Neither action would alter the total electrical charge upon the host.

 

An important distinction for those separated particles: their extended separation after ionization would be due to an exothermic migration, differing from the charging of a capacitor that always entails an endothermic migration. Consequently, no forces would be in play to reverse the exchange of positions for the particles once their excursions were complete. For the case of hosts bearing negative charge, there would be a basis for accumulation of positive ions within its center.

 

Does anyone have a case to refute this study so far or to classify it as Against Mainstream Science? If you grant this inch, you crack open the door to an eventual case describing Milky Way's central galactic bulge to be dismantling the galaxy from the inside out until it has carved a resemblance to the Hoag object.

Edited August 30, 2009 by dalemiller

[swansont]

You can calculate the amount of mass needed for gravity to overcome the electrostatic repulsion; it's going to be large.

 

A charge inside of a conducting shell will not migrate to the center; it feels no force from the charges on the surface.

[dalemiller]

You can calculate the amount of mass needed for gravity to overcome the electrostatic repulsion; it's going to be large.

 

A charge inside of a conducting shell will not migrate to the center; it feels no force from the charges on the surface.

 

Doesn't the extra electron upon a negative ion overcome electrical repulsion by gravitational attraction?

 

The electrons upon a negatively charged Faraday cage had to travel to the outer surface in order to get there. Faraday made a point that no charge (of the majority charge) remained within the cage. Mutual repulsion explains traction for the trip each unnullified electron had to make. Introduction (by ionization) of an additional electron, if not nullified by sufficient proximity of a previously escorting proton, would invite a similar trip away from center. Faraday's partially correct point was that no (majority) charge remains within.

[swansont]

Doesn't the extra electron upon a negative ion overcome electrical repulsion by gravitational attraction?

 

No. Gravity is much too weak. The gravitational force between an electron and a proton is about 10^-39 times weaker than the electrostatic. The force between electrons will be ~1800 times weaker than that.

 

The electrons upon a negatively charged Faraday cage had to travel to the outer surface in order to get there. Faraday made a point that no charge (of the majority charge) remained within the cage. Mutual repulsion explains traction for the trip each unnullified electron had to make. Introduction (by ionization) of an additional electron, if not nullified by sufficient proximity of a previously escorting proton, would invite a similar trip away from center. Faraday's partially correct point was that no (majority) charge remains within.

 

Where are you getting this information?

 

Charge placed on a conducting shell will reside on the surface. Charges in the interior will be unaffected by these charges, since they make no net contribution to the electric field, and so will interact with each other due to whatever forces are present between them.

[dalemiller]

Thank you for persisting on a point I might still be overlooking. I know only that an extra electron can remain upon an atom without being ejected in order that a negative ion can exist and had no need to be overspecific on how this happens. It is enough to know that negative ions can exist on conductive surfaces and in the atmosphere for us to know that a large body such as Earth or Sol can retain some amount of electrical charge, thus qualifying as Faraday cages. That was the intended conclusion that my simplistic recognition of ions was meant to lead to and might remain more than a plausible reality.

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No. Gravity is much too weak. The gravitational force between an electron and a proton is about 10^-39 times weaker than the electrostatic. The force between electrons will be ~1800 times weaker than that.

 

 

 

Where are you getting this information?

 

Charge placed on a conducting shell will reside on the surface. Charges in the interior will be unaffected by these charges, since they make no net contribution to the electric field, and so will interact with each other due to whatever forces are present between them.

 

 

For an excess electron to rest upon a negatively charged body, a factor in the implied attraction is the mass of the host. The magnitude of repulsion for that electron is limited to the effects of the total number of electrons involved, which is relatively small. In fact, if one electron constituted the entire charge on the host, then it could hardly ever repel itself away.

 

I have all the information I need by knowing that particles of the same polarity repel each other and those of opposite polarity attract each other. My six decades of experience simply help me to continue learning just from those two relationships.

 

It seems that M. Faraday made a point that no charges would remain in the interior, although it nevertheless seems that he was not considering a minority polarity. He is much my senior, but he had much less experience in the field and fewer mentors. Excess deference to historical celebrities would get us nowhere in the advancement of science, hence the contemplation of an ionization within brought me to entertain the minority polarity coexisting with the majority polarity. Were there a particle of majority charge within a Faraday cage, and were it true that no external influence be in play, then that single particle could wander about under the sole influence of gravity. A second particle of like charge would bring about mutual repulsion: traction that lacking additional influence would send both particles to the outer limit of the host. Actually, were the host a perfect sphere, all particles in majority charge would be repelling each other into equidistant separation around the surface of the host due indeed to the present of repulsive fields between all charged particles so involved.

[swansont]

For an excess electron to rest upon a negatively charged body, a factor in the implied attraction is the mass of the host. The magnitude of repulsion for that electron is limited to the effects of the total number of electrons involved, which is relatively small. In fact, if one electron constituted the entire charge on the host, then it could hardly ever repel itself away.

 

The excess electron is not being put on a negatively charged body; the atom is neutral, overall, but one has to look at the charge distribution as well. Consider a linear system with two - charges separated at some distance, and a + charge placed between them. The overall charge is negative, but the attraction of the electrons to the protons is stronger than the electron repulsion. It's not difficult to form negatively charged ions with the right atoms. And, as stated before, the electrostatic force is many orders of magnitude larger than the gravitational, which can safely be ignored in these cases.

 

I have all the information I need by knowing that particles of the same polarity repel each other and those of opposite polarity attract each other. My six decades of experience simply help me to continue learning just from those two relationships.

 

It seems that M. Faraday made a point that no charges would remain in the interior, although it nevertheless seems that he was not considering a minority polarity. He is much my senior, but he had much less experience in the field and fewer mentors. Excess deference to historical celebrities would get us nowhere in the advancement of science, hence the contemplation of an ionization within brought me to entertain the minority polarity coexisting with the majority polarity. Were there a particle of majority charge within a Faraday cage, and were it true that no external influence be in play, then that single particle could wander about under the sole influence of gravity. A second particle of like charge would bring about mutual repulsion: traction that lacking additional influence would send both particles to the outer limit of the host. Actually, were the host a perfect sphere, all particles in majority charge would be repelling each other into equidistant separation around the surface of the host due indeed to the present of repulsive fields between all charged particles so involved.

 

Deference to historical celebrities seems to be very much a phenomenon restricted to nonscientists learning science. The behavior of charges in a Faraday cage and related configurations of conductors is well-established, well-tested physics, not merely a repetition of what Faraday said at some point. Even accomplished physicists get a lot of things wrong as they develop theories. What matters is what's left after it's all been tested.

[dalemiller]

Then it seems we might agree that an isolated body can bear some electric charge, hopefully the majority charge could involve multiple electrons for instance? And such a charge would occupy the outer surface of the hosting body. (That body might weigh tons: enough to gravitationally restrain more than one ion from propelling away.) If this paragraph is OK so far, we are close to describing an exothermic rearrangement of atomic charged particles into a stable macro electronic standoff extending out beyond the range of individual atomic structure. Transformation from microstructure to macrostructure! That is the kernel of my last six years of preoccupation.

 

Should you disagree, I will assume that my failure is clumsiness with the language rather than any folly in technical insight, but will pester you no further unless you encourage me to disclose my ultimate conclusions to date. If modern consensus about central galactic bulges ever seems dubious to you, then the smallest encouragement would call me back.