Are we on the brink of a revolution in our understanding of electrodynamics?

Do you often lie awake late at night worrying about the origin of magnetic forces between moving charges or the reason for the constancy of the two-way speed of light for any observer?

If you do, then the sphere model of electricity, accessible in full here and explained in simplified form here, is for you.

That's because the model sheds a good deal of light on the following questions:

• 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.

If you never lie awake late at night worrying about those questions, then now may be a good time to start doing so.

For the sphere model has the potential to radically overhaul our understanding of electrodynamics and special relativity.

Let me explain why.

Turn back the clock 150 years or so when the world had not yet heard about special relativity and Maxwell was putting the finishing touches to his theory of electromagnetism.

Magnetic fields were conceived of as vortices in an all-pervasive medium caused by the movement of charged particles. The rotary motions in the medium were thought to deflect other moving charges from their path.

The magnetic forces thus produced were believed to act in a direction perpendicular to the direction of motion of the charges on which they act.

The speed of propagation of electromagnetic disturbances was thought to be a result of the electric and magnetic properties of the hypothetical all-pervasive medium, also known as the aether.

Wind forward 50 years and this picture of the origin of the forces between moving charges was crumbling fast.

It turned out that there was no aether and no rotary motion, and that in general magnetic fields do not deflect charged particles in a direction perpendicular to their direction of motion in the first place.

Special relativity came to the rescue of the faltering theory by stipulating that moving bodies respond differently to transverse and longitudinal forces, to correct for the direction error.

But essentially electromagnetism was now devoid of any physical substance. All that was left of it was a mathematical shell without any explanatory power, propped up by crutches provided by special relativity.

Since then nobody has come up with a convincing alternative, so the theory has limped on from textbook to textbook and from generation to generation.

Let's now shed all this historical baggage for a moment. Let's make a fresh start by pretending we've never heard of magnetic fields or magnetic forces.

Let's pretend that all we know is Coulomb's law of electrostatics, the fact that electric disturbances propagate at c, and the fact that the forces between moving charges (as measured by co-moving spring balances) depend on that propagation speed as well as on the states of motion of those charges (including past states of motion).

How would we then go about explaining this state of affairs?

We could start from a simple assumption that is in line with Coulomb's law and that is much weaker than the assumptions made in classical theory: in every point in space and time there is an inertial frame of reference in which the electric properties surrounding stationary charges are isotropic (the same in every direction).

We could then ask: in such a frame of reference, how are the electric properties and the flow of information between charged particles modified as a result of acceleration to give rise to the forces we observe between moving charges?

This is the question I started to work on eight years ago or so, and it has led me inevitably and inexorably to the sphere model of electricity.

The sphere model is all about the way in which past accelerations modify the sphere arrangements surrounding charged particles and the flow of information between them.

The sphere model not only revolutionizes our understanding of the forces between uniformly moving charges but also sheds new light on special relativity: it implies that, in general, events with equal time coordinates as determined by Einstein-adjusted clocks are not simultaneous.

So, are we on the brink of a revolution in our understanding of electrodynamics?

The answer has to be 'no'.

The sphere model only covers the forces between uniformly moving charges. A fully-fledged model would have to explain the forces between charges in any state of motion.

What is more, the model at best only offers some intangible and difficult-to-understand conceptual advantages over classical electromagnetism. It makes no new predictions (at least not in its current state of development) and it doesn't enable us to build any new machines.

Why would any working physicists want to devote any of their precious time to it?

As for myself, I'm not even a working physicist. I've been working on the sphere model by snatching a few minutes here and there between paid work and family life.

Extending the model to moving charges in any state of motion promises to be mathematically considerably more challenging than developing it for uniformly moving charges.

I'm sure it can be done. All the ingredients are there. But doing it, if indeed I decide to have a go, might well take me another ten years. And I need a break.

The revolution will have to wait a bit longer.