ajb Posted April 17, 2015 Posted April 17, 2015 It looks like we are about to reintroduce old topics again. The original question was 'is electrical potential difference limited?'. What is the consensus on this? Classically I see no reason why it is limited, just look at the potential of point charges, that is divergent okay, but it seems that I can get arbitrarily close to the point charge and probe any potential difference I want. When we add quantum theory this picture is obscured.
swansont Posted April 17, 2015 Posted April 17, 2015 It looks like we are about to reintroduce old topics again. The original question was 'is electrical potential difference limited?'. What is the consensus on this? Classically I see no reason why it is limited, just look at the potential of point charges, that is divergent okay, but it seems that I can get arbitrarily close to the point charge and probe any potential difference I want. When we add quantum theory this picture is obscured. Right. Classically, the potential when two protons collide in the LHC probably exceeds 1 GeV by a significant amount.
ajb Posted April 17, 2015 Posted April 17, 2015 Right. Classically, the potential when two protons collide in the LHC probably exceeds 1 GeV by a significant amount. Electric potential differences are not the usual thing people use to characterise proton-proton scatterings or electron-proton scatterings etc. Classical electrical potential differences don't seem to be the right language here. That said, one could imagine trying to calculate something using a heavy target's effective size and saying that some of the electrons you throw at it must come that close. Like my earlier calculation, I am not sure it would really mean much.
Phi for All Posted April 17, 2015 Posted April 17, 2015 With the moderators permission I would like to reintroduce this single topic, because I believe the question was not fully answered in the previously closed thread. ! Moderator Note You didn't ask for permission to re-open this topic. You haven't so far introduced anything new that would make this discussion productive. And now we're getting back to the exact same arguments that were unsupported last time. We need to see some substance here or I'll have to shut this down as well.
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