An update on my findings

An update on my findings regarding the forces between uniformly moving charges is now available in a new article I have posted online: ‘A new formula for the forces between constantly moving charges’.

The article presents the magnitude of the force exerted by a charge q₁ moving at u on a charge q₂ moving at v in an inertial frame of reference Σ, as measured in the rest frame of q₂. The direction of that force in Σ is also provided. This is a significant update on my first article on the sphere model of electricity (published by Physics Essays) in that it presents that force just in terms of general vector quantities. The new formulation could already be found on my blog, but without much explanation.

This update presents the theory very briefly and it is relatively easy to understand. But it does so without providing an explanation of how the new formula comes about. For this, I refer readers to my first article.

The journal Foundations of Physics has declined to even review the draft of my new article. Its reasoning is simple and straightforward:

“The author(s) of this manuscript fails to make clear how their work relates to current discussions in the foundations of physics. Regrettably, this fact places the current submission outside the scope of Foundations of Physics.”

In other words, if your work is absolutely new and does not relate to “current discussions”, you need not apply for publication. Your work will not even be looked at by a reviewer. It will not even be assessed for correctness or usefulness.

This is strange. How does this journal hope to publish meaningful contributions to the foundations of physics if it only allows contributions that relate to “current discussions”? I can only conclude that Foundations of Physics is an extremely conservative publication: any suggested publication of something completely new is rejected out of hand.

A few years ago, when I submitted my first article on the sphere model of electricity to the same journal, it was at least assessed by a reviewer. However, the reviewer didn’t seem to have read the entire article, and his assessment included the suggestion that the paper was “very much too long for what it contains”. So it was rejected. But the much shorter paper submitted now hasn’t fared any better.

Foundations of Physics is not alone in its principle of staunch conservatism in its publishing policy.

For example, on the submission guidance page of the International Journal of Theoretical Physics I was forwarded, it says that the journal “will generally not consider” papers “limited to proposing new physical theories or questioning the established foundations of physics”. In other words, if you believe you can offer an improvement to those foundations, you need not apply!

I have now begun to look at the case of accelerated charges, and I’m hoping I will be able to post an introduction to my results sometime soon – on this blog.