The journal Physics Essays has published an article in which I present a new model – the sphere model of electricity – to explain the forces between point charges moving at constant velocities without reference to magnetism or special relativity:
A new model to explain the forces between moving charges (PDF) - copyright: Physics Essays Publication
For interested readers, some additional technical details are also available (PDF).
The article should be of interest to anybody who would like to understand
- how magnetic effects between moving charges come about
- why the speed of light is independent from the speed of the source
- why moving bodies are length-contracted by the relativistic factor for any observer using Einstein-adjusted clocks
- why moving clocks run slow by the relativistic factor for any observer using Einstein-adjusted clocks
- why the two-way speed of light is constant for every observer
- why the one-way speed of light is constant for every observer using Einstein-adjusted clocks
- in which conditions Einstein's clock adjustment procedure synchronizes distant clocks
- what follows from all this for the correct interpretation of special relativity
I waited for a long time, but no answers were forthcoming. So I finally resolved to make a sustained effort to work on these questions myself. That was about eight years ago. The progress I have made is documented in this blog.
A few people's writings have helped me along the way. The best publications I have found on the kinds of issues I was interested in are books by Kevin Brown and Helmut Günther. I can thoroughly recommend them. But to my mind they do not go far enough in probing the meaning of simultaneity and the cause of length contraction and time dilation.
A couple of years ago I finally managed to put the finishing touches to what I have called the sphere model of electricity. The sphere model can serve as a key to the set of questions listed above. It answers the first one head-on: that's what the sphere model is all about! The way the model relates to the other questions is shown in the diagram below:
The article now published by Physics Essays presents my findings. Those findings satisfy my curiosity but, of course, not necessarily everybody else's. No doubt it is possible to go much further, and deeper, than I have done. For myself, however, I feel that I have finally laid to rest the intellectual ghosts raised by my encounter with the theories of special relativity and electromagnetism during my school and university years.
The article now published by Physics Essays presents my findings. Those findings satisfy my curiosity but, of course, not necessarily everybody else's. No doubt it is possible to go much further, and deeper, than I have done. For myself, however, I feel that I have finally laid to rest the intellectual ghosts raised by my encounter with the theories of special relativity and electromagnetism during my school and university years.