
Visualizing Electricity - mickfaraday
https://demystifyingscience.com/blog/how-to-visualize-electricity
======
centimeter
I’m not sure how this visualization is better than the hydrodynamic
visualization, but it’s worse in one very important way - it uses “rotation”
as a metaphor when angular momentum and spin are already very important. It
would be hopelessly confusing to learn this metaphor (which has nothing to do
with spin) and then try to disentangle it from your mental model when learning
about spin later on.

~~~
floatrock
More importantly, I don't understand what this model is trying to
conceptualize.

The hydrostatic analogy helps a person understand the difference between
voltage and current. But its real power is it gives you the building blocks
that lets you understand more complicated behaviors by analogy.

Take power in the P=I*V sense. Pretending it's water, we can see how a
supersoaker nozzle (ie high voltage, low current) is kinda moving the same
amount of water in a unit of time as say a soda bottle tipped on its side (ie
low voltage, high current). With the hydrostatic analogy, I can see how high
voltage and high current are two different "things", AND I can extend those
analogies to see how they explain additional concepts like power. That's a
great mental framework! Now that I understand the basic dynamics and feel
comfortable moving into the land of mathematical expressions, we can take off
the training wheels and start talking about the really abstract stuff like
capacitance.

On the other hand, I'm not sure what is the explanatory power of this "meshing
gears" analogy. If you were to use this to explain electricity in say a high
school physics class, what concept or insight does it help me grasp?

~~~
mickfaraday
"what does this help me grasp"

That electricity can be explained with atoms! And not the kind of bohr-model
atoms that are thoroughly debunked (electron bead flying around nucleus
magically). If we treat them like gearing shells, as chemists have for
decades, we can provide a model of electricity that is consistent with quantum
mathematical descriptions of the atom's shape and motion.

~~~
floatrock
If you're the author, you should make clear who your audience is.
"Demystifying Science" and "How to Visualize Electricity" imply a general high
school audience... this sounds like it's specifically "How to Visualize
Electricity for Quantum Physicists." Perhaps start off by stating some quantum
formulas or misconceptions that aren't well served by the hydrostatic analogy
but your analogy helps explain better. If I don't understand that framing,
I'll know right away "ok, this is for a grad-level understanding, not high
school."

Not saying this is bad work, it's just very niche work where people outside
the niche won't really understand the point or appreciate it. Know your
audience, and present appropriately. It fell flat to me because I was
expecting it to be something that apparently it is not.

~~~
mickfaraday
Thanks. There is no reason why high-school or younger children can't
understand the basic modern conception of the atom. We hope to bring that down
to everyone's level.

Physics should start with objects. So we start electricity with atoms, unlike
the traditional analogies.

------
tom-thistime
" we propose the following animation: Electricity as surface-to-surface
rotational gearing between electron-shells on atoms (see movie below). "

That's not the mechanism for ordinary electrical conduction in metals. In my
opinion the resulting visualization is very misleading.

EDIT: I recommend the excellent Hyperphysics web site.
[http://hyperphysics.phy-
astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/ohmmic.h](http://hyperphysics.phy-
astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/ohmmic.h)

~~~
mickfaraday
Why? Metals are addressed at the end of the video. Metals can be thought of in
the same manner except with complex orbitals that host multi-polar contacts
with neighboring atoms.

~~~
glogla
I think the poster is referring to the "electron gas as charge carrier" but
personally I'm not exactly sure how things fit together.

~~~
mickfaraday
Charge is symbolized by directional momentum of rotation here. Transmission of
momentum indicates arc'ing of current.

------
GistNoesis
Your analogy doesn't work for me.

Imagine the following simple case : A AC generator connected to two capacitors
in series. Signal --||----||-- Ground . The voltage potential at the middle :
In your analogy there is no reason for anything to turn as the electron wave
are discontinuous inside the capacitors (there is a huge gap in the order of
micrometers between each plate of the capacitor).

The main important thing of electricity is the Electric field not the electron
field. The electric charges get pushed around by the electric field. Each of
these electric charge carry with it its Coulomb electric field. Sum
contributions of every charge and you have the local electric field.

In fact even more fundamental is the electric potential which you can take the
slope to obtain the electric field.

~~~
mickfaraday
We can do A/c with the shells rotating back and forth. The micrometer gap is
not a problem for the surface of the atom, which can extend indefinitely.

The electron is simply an excitation of the electric field in QM, so one does
not come without the other.

Physics is the study of objects that exist, and so it's important to begin
with objects in a visualization. Fields are a concepts that measure the
location of something happening. That something is the surface of the atom.

~~~
GistNoesis
>electron is simply an excitation of the electric field in QM

I am not a physicist but I think here is your mistake. The electron is an
excitation of the Electron Field. It's matter aka fermions. The electric field
are bosons. Those are two orthogonal things. You can have one without the
other (although the fields are coupled).

~~~
mickfaraday
It is well understood that the bosons are excitations of fields.

A boson is not a 'thing' it is a happening. The atom is the first object in
physics. That is a shapely thing with location.

~~~
GistNoesis
The point I'm trying to make, is that there are light fields, and matter
fields.

Those are two distinct independent things (that can eventually be coupled).

Electricity is mostly a light phenomenon.

With the fields everything happen locally.

If I recall correctly, one of Faraday main discovery was displaying the lines
of the magnetic field using metallic powder. Showing that fields were "real"
things.

Two electrons don't interact directly with one another. It's more electron
interact with photon which then interact with another electron. The one case
where two electron interact directly with one another is the Pauli exclusion
principle to make sure electron don't find themselves at the same place.

When in doubt follow the energy.

You can store the energy as bumps in light field aka photons (E^2+B^2
(eps0=mu0=c^2=1) ).

You can also store the energy as bumps in the Fermionic field : sums of
kinetic energy of electrons.

Finally you can store energy in the coupling between those two fields. But
this happen only locally.

At first approximation when dealing with electricity problems what matters is
the energy of the electric field, not the kinetic energy of the moving
electrons.

~~~
mickfaraday
Faraday believed his 'fields' were what some sort of actual objects were
doing. He called them tentacles IIRC.

In our initial atom at beginning of the vid, the electron has tentacles based
on Faraday to account for the tails of the RDF of QM — the indefinite
extension of the shell. These will be important in visualizing the atomics of
light and gravity in future vids. We ignore them for the circuit because they
would obscure the events, but the tentacles remain!

~~~
GistNoesis
At the extreme electricity works just fine without the electrons. Take two
hydrogen nucleus without any electrons (aka proton H+). Throw them around and
see where they interact and land.

They experience electrostatic repulsion, no electron cloud required.

Local classical Maxwell is enough to explain electricity no need for QM.

I think I get what you are trying to do : "making the Light field implicit".
It's a tempting thing to do because when things are coupled we are kind of
thinking : is it the electric field which deformed the electron cloud or is it
the electron cloud which generated the field.

But this picture is dangerously misleading. It makes you assume strange
electron cloud which interact non locally in complicated way (strange
arms...). By giving special properties to the electron it doesn't respect the
symmetry with respect to charge. Maxwell works just fine for protons. It also
completely obscure the facts that we can have external E and B field ; in
particular it makes you think that photons need matter to exist which isn't
the case.

It is much more clear and general to make light fields and matter fields
explicit.

~~~
mickfaraday
photons are transactions between atoms.

~~~
GistNoesis
Your formulation is misleading.

"Light is the way to exchange momentum between charge carriers".

First atoms are neutral, while light affect can only charge particles.

The atom is a composite of a positively charged point-like nucleous, and a
negatively charged cloud-like charge density. This complex dance duo, can
store energy in between them. Those are the bound states of the electron, but
that's not the matter of electricity but chemistry. In electricity, this dance
duo can store energy in its surrounding by deforming its electron cloud to
become an electrostatic dipole.

Transaction is the wrong picture to have when we are dealing with electricity.
The continuous picture is a lot better.

The momentum of an atom is a continuous quantity. At every moment in time it
can be exchanged locally in continuous amounts. Both the positive nucleous and
electron cloud are taking from the field and giving locally to the field.

Photon is kind of a confusing term because you have to distinguish between the
virtual photon which mediates the coulomb interaction in a continuous way, and
the real one which can go on its way, or be absorbed/emitted by atoms provided
that the electron cloud can deform in such a way to account for energy
conservation during the collision.

To see the distinction take the previous example of two protons H+ going
towards each other then away. The trajectory to have in mind is they are
following a perfect curves trajectories, and not a sequence of straight lines
occasionally changing direction when the photon transaction happen. Those
typical QM like trajectory you see in cloud chambers need the energy to become
bounded in some discrete way. For example electron fly straight, real photon
hit and is absorbed and atom change direction to conserve momentum and the
electron jump to a higher orbital to conserve the energy (the energy is
bounded to the atom for some time), the electron keep flying straight, then it
emits a new photon and change direction. These kind of trajectories happen
when the energy can only bounded in discrete quantities, but that's a matter
about QM, and not electricity.

Finally clarifying what that the light field is carrying in : momentum, and
making clear that the light field doesn't carry electric charge.

------
hammock
Honest feedback, this didn't really explain electricity for me. What is does
is introduce an entirely new analogy for understanding electricity.
Unfortunately, most elements of the new analogy are not relatable at all,
meaning the analogy has no value. What do I care that the electrons "rotation"
means charge and the speed means voltage? Why are they shaped like
breathmints, how does that help if they are supposed to be gears?

At least the water and beads analogies help, because they are something I have
a previous understanding of.

For what it's worth, I enjoyed the music and the typeface. Made me hang onto
watching the video much longer than I would have otherwise. The VO is also
good.

~~~
mickfaraday
Yes, the main advantage over those models is that it uses atoms that are
essentially shaped and moving as atoms do.

Perhaps the gearbox of your car is a relatable phenomenon for you. The breath
mints are shaped like gears lol.

~~~
jillesvangurp
Perhaps a better analogy is Newton's cradle:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_cradle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_cradle)

The ticking beads don't really move but transfer energy to each other. That's
maybe a more useful analogy than the notion of beads or water moving through
some pipe.

I'm not a physicist of course but I get that what was explained to me in high
school (many decades ago) was probably a bit of an oversimplification. Ticking
beads lose some energy as they smash into each other. Hence thin wires heat up
and glow.

This is probably cringe-worthy enough for anyone who actually studies this for
a living; so I'll stop right there ;-)

~~~
mickfaraday
Same idea but momentum is angular in our model. Like the gearbox of a car.

------
kens
I understand electricity reasonably well, but that video has left me very
confused. Multiple watchings didn't help.

The first issue is I don't know what is real and what is metaphorical. The
hydrogen orbitals are real? Are they squashed like that?. But the rotations
are entirely fictional? Or do they correspond to electron spin? Do hydrogen
atoms really share electron clouds or is that a metaphor?

Several specific issues: Ionized hydrogen doesn't have an electron, so what is
the electron cloud. The ends of the wire rotating clockwise vs
counterclockwise: the wires are pointing opposite directions, so the opposite
directions cancel out, and they are rotating the same direction? Making a wire
of single-file hydrogen: is that even theoretically possible? How is there
drift velocity when the atoms are just rotating in place?

I understand that voltage is represented by the rotation speed in this model.
(Is this different from momentum?) But what is current in this model?
Everything was spinning when the circuit was open, and everything is still
spinning when the circuit is closed.

What "level" of electricity is this model supposed to explain? It's discussing
circuits, but I don't see how this model helps one understand why you need a
resistor when connecting a LED to a battery, for instance. The resistor
reduces current, which is not spin but propagation of an impulse? Or is the
model supposed to help understand electric fields and stuff? (How would this
model even explain an electric field in a vacuum, where there's nothing to
spin?) Or is it intended to provide insight into what's happening at the
quantum level?

I don't want to be critical, so hopefully these comments are constructive.

~~~
mickfaraday
Thanks for your comment. Yes, this model hopefully incorporates more of 'what
is real' than the alternatives.

The hydrogen orbital, for example, is approximately spherical/toroidal, which
matches the radial distribution plot of QM.

Ionized hydrogen has a delocalized electron; it is not gone — but rather
elsewhere. In our model it is enmeshed with the others in the column.

Speed is used as a surrogate for momentum because QM doesn't allow us to
deconstruct the speed/direction from the momentum separately. Ideally we could
illustrate a more cohesive motion as well as faster for greater momentum.

Current is transfer of motion from the high-momentum, high-V, shells to weaker
ones.

I have briefly discussed resistors and other elements of circuit in other
threads here. Check it out and let's talk there.

Concerning your comment about vacuums, we have to understand that there truly
is no vacuum. We assume that when atoms are isolated, their surface pressure
is decreased such that they can occupy tremendous volumes. Currents in outer
space are present with 8.49×10^-23 atoms per 10 cubic centimeters.

Hopefully we can move toward capturing QM, and ED descriptions of electricity.
A magnetism video will follow soon.

------
ly
In case the author of the video reads this: I tried to watch it but after 2
minutes I just had to turn it off as I couldn’t handle that music anymore.
It’s _extremely_ distracting when you try to listen to what the narrator is
explaining. It’s not that I don’t like background music in explanatory videos,
but this music is way too loud and complex to not distract.

Also, considering the video is uploaded to YouTube, I would remove the moving
white “stars” in the background. The model itself is very detailed already,
which makes it noisy after running it though YouTube’s compression, but the
moving stars cause there to be even less bandwidth available for the
visualization itself, resulting in more compression artifacts.

~~~
acqq
> It’s not that I don’t like background music in explanatory videos

And I'm totally against it. It is always distracting to me. If I'd want to
have background music I could play it myself, and it would match my choice.
The only videos that should have background music is where the music is in any
way an important element of the story, e.g. if the topic is the work of an
artist or composer. Otherwise, it _is_ distracting.

~~~
nixpulvis
A catchy intro is nice tho.

~~~
acqq
Intro != background

~~~
nixpulvis
true

(two can play at this game)

------
mncharity
Apropos visualizing atoms and their electrons, here's a fun sidebar. This IBM
video[1] was made with an STM scanning tunneling microscope, which sees outer
electrons. So while it shows the IIRC carbon monoxide molecules, standing up
like buoys, as little balls, the background copper surface of delocalized
electrons looks smooth, with ripples. You can't see the individual copper
atoms. But if you instead used an AFM atomic force microscope, which can feel
inner electrons, then you could - here's one of silicon[2].

When crafting and teaching abstract representations, it's easy to forget that
these are real physical objects.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSCX78-8-q0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSCX78-8-q0)
[2] [https://imgur.com/a/7Onbz8s](https://imgur.com/a/7Onbz8s)

------
thaumaturgy
It's clear that a lot of work went in to this video and it's hard to hear
criticism, especially of a labor of love. At the same time, I'd really like to
see better analogies used for electricity, and that's going to require some
very high quality work to replace the ones currently used.

The background music was quite bad and distracted a lot from the dialogue.
(While I personally usually like the sound of bagpipes, _most_ people seem to
hate them, so that's an especially bad sound to use.) The background music is
tonally too close to the speaker's voice, so the two together sound like the
speaker is having to compete with the background music.

The constantly-shifting background and the nonstop fluctations of the hydrogen
atom both also distracted from the core concept. Especially because the starry
background kept changing direction!

The video uses vocabulary that isn't going to make intuitive sense to novices.
Examples: "radial distribution function", "quantum jumping", "drift velocity",
"multipolar contacts".

The clockwise-vs-counter-clockwise rotation thing never occupies the same
frame in the video, so the watcher is expected to keep track of this mentally.
Some people really struggle with that.

The advantage of other models of electricity is that they relate it to things
that many people have experienced. This model is much more abstract. Abstract
can be okay, but you should show reasons why the abstract model is better than
the more relatable models. What's wrong with the other models? You say, "For
example, it has some serious advantages over the traditional visualizations
like the 'electron bead flow' and 'water-pressure analogy'", and you kind of
describe one flaw of each of the two other models, but you don't describe why,
in practical terms, this is problematic for understanding electricity. Like,
okay, the Bohr model doesn't match the reality of probability clouds and
quantum effects, but how does this impact simple circuits?

I found that the first half of Feynman's _QED_ did a pretty good job of trying
to explain quantum behavior in more abstract terms than the traditional
approaches to light-as-wave-and-quanta. I'd also recommend looking at videos
from 3blue1brown on YouTube for some ideas on how to present abstract concepts
to viewers without breaking the bank on production.

~~~
mickfaraday
Thanks for commenting.

The primary problem with the other analogies is that they don't use real
objects. Physics is the science that studies objects that exist, after all.
That means we can't be crashing concepts into one another (like charge
reification, for instance). It's important to begin physical explanations with
objects instead of concepts, so we advance the atom.

While this depiction of the atom isn't the end-all-be-all atom, it's a step in
the right direction, hopefully.

~~~
bvrmn
Analogies are needed to grasp concept and allow to do predictions. This
visualization was meaningless for me. I can't predict what will happen if we
make three point connection with different potential for example.

------
MarcScott
I used to use a gravitational field analogy when teaching Secondary school
physics.

Electrons are equivalent to "balls" with mass. Potential difference equates to
a gravitational field (which most people seem to intuitively understand from
experience). Balls can roll down slopes of different gradients, and therefore
at different speeds, which is analogous to current and resistance.

It worked for me.

------
tom-thistime
This might be a workable visualization.

As physics it's wrong. There is an existing QM explanation for current flow in
solids, attributed to Bloch and dating back to the late 1920s. It doesn't work
like this visualization. For example in this visualization the electrons
aren't transported anywhere, they just sit in place and rotate. That's
misleading. In fact charge flows.

I worry about using an incorrect physical picture to visualize physics.

~~~
mickfaraday
Because charge is rotation in this visualization, we can also say that the
charge is moving since the speed of rotation propagates after the circuit is
closed. This is a patent reification, of course, but the idea is consistent
with QM.

------
mncharity
Aphysically-high-speed particle tracks are used to represent wind.[1] I wonder
if one could play similar games of colorization and expressive particles with
electric circuits? What might one do with AC?

[1] [https://www.windy.com/-Pressure-
pressure](https://www.windy.com/-Pressure-pressure)

~~~
mickfaraday
For us, A/C is simply back and forth motion of the e-shells.

------
dr_dshiv
My mental image (fwiw) is that the push of an electron is able to push
electrons both in immediate proximity and to electrons at a distance. So, that
allows the relatively slow speed of moving electrons to produce nearly light
speed changes in momentum of faraway electrons.

~~~
mickfaraday
yep. I think i agree.

~~~
dr_dshiv
Nice. And this is in contrast to pushing water (sound wave), where the wave
propagates only at the speed that molecules bump. Like, if I'm in a big line,
and someone pushes at the back of the line, I only get pushed by the person
immediately behind me. An electron is able to be pushed by electrons at the
back of the back of the line. The electron immediately behind an electron will
push hardest, proportional to inverse square law. But when there are twenty
electronics behind, and the very last one pushes, it has a decreasing effect
on all electrons in front, but at time 2, those movements allow propagate
forward, etc etc.

Wish I could visualize that. Oh yeah. Ha!

I like you spindle representation of inverse square law.

------
jiggawatts
I hate to rain on your parade, because I'm deeply interested in alternatives
for established models, and as a rule I strongly prefer intuitive
visualisations over mathematical wankery, but this is just... nonsense.

It has nothing to do with electricity in any sense. There's no matching theory
that this is visualising.

To begin with:

1) This doesn't explain why in general only metals conduct electricity. You
used the example of Hydrogen, which is a _nonconductive_ gas. It _might_
become metallic under certain circumstances, but nobody has a firm grasp on
exactly how that works! Using the conditions found only in the cores of giant
planets for a "simplified" example is absurd.

2) This doesn't explain why capacitors build up charge (literal excess
electrons on one plate, and missing electrons on the other plate.) That is,
your theory inside the wires has to also mesh well (heh) with what happens
_outside_ the wires, such as the buildup of static electricity.

3) It doesn't explain how electrons conduct electricity through the vacuum,
where there are no atomic orbitals.

4) It doesn't explain how rarefied plasmas conduct electricity, where for the
majority of the time atomic orbitals are not in contact.

5) It doesn't explain other types of current, such as charged fundamental
particles in cyclotrons.

6) You haven't explained how batteries produce the rotations.

7) You haven't explained how dynamos produce the rotations.

8) You haven't explained how resistors, capacitors, and inductors work in this
model.

9) You haven't explained how the rotations produce heat, light, or any other
useful work done by with electric machines or with electronic devices.

10) You said that ionised hydrogen atoms are required for this to work! But
they are just isolated protons. They have no electrons or electron shells!

11) This is actually a flaw of other models too, but I'll throw it on the
pile: The infinite extent of the QM electron field is just a simplification of
the QM mathematical model. Clearly, this is physical nonsense. A hydrogen atom
can never have an electron orbiting it meters away, or light years away.
That's just gibberish.

12) And the final nail in the coffin: You'll find that in general an extended
2D or 3D grid of gears will often get "locked up" and cannot transmit
rotations. This is practically a meme at this point:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/CrappyDesign/comments/2hwwy0/those_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/CrappyDesign/comments/2hwwy0/those_gears_wont_turn_which_i_guess_makes_it_a/)

For comparison, the liquid flow model is actually relatively accurate in terms
of representing what's really going on (electron fluid flowing freely), and is
also intuitive.

1) Resistors are like an constriction of the pipe. Flow is allowed but
impeded.

2) Capacitors are like a wide section of the pipe, but blocked by a rubber
sheet. Bulk flow through a capacitor is not possible, but vibrations can be
transmitted.

3) Inductors are like a heavy propeller in the flow. The propeller resists
flow while it's being "spun up", but then it no longer resists the flow when
its speed matches the flow. If the flow in the pipe is reduced the momentum of
the propeller provides pressure to keep the liquid flowing longer than it
would have otherwise.

4) Transistors are like a soft rubber section of an otherwise inflexible pipe
surrounded by a container with an input. Pressure in the container squeezes
the flexible section and prevents flow through the pipe.

Etc...

~~~
mickfaraday
Hydrogen is a great place to start with electricity since there is only one
orbital surface/ electron-shell. The principles are easily generalized to the
multipolar surfaces of metals. Metals are conductive because of these unique d
orbitals. In general they have unpaired electrons, which means charge on
balance.

"To begin with"...

1) these are ionized hydrogens with delocalized electrons. 2) Capacitors build
up voltage, which is differential rotation of their metal's e-shells. 3) In
the vacuum, there is such low pressure on the atoms that their surfaces expand
to fill the void. There is no such thing as a true vacuum. This is also how
cathode ray tubes work under this model. 4) See above. The orbitals are in
contact. 5) All those cyclotron measurements are electric at the end of the
day. 6) Batteries charge the terminals electro-chemically. chemistry will
follow in an additional video after magnetism. Basically, it is the same
concept. Enmeshment of surfaces. 7) What dynamos? 8) All materials resist
current to certain extent; this has to do with how conductive they are, which
is a direct result of how their orbitals are configured/ how the atom is
shaped. Capacitors are just terminals separated by insulating resistors. All
these details deserve a follow-up blog at some point for sure. Thanks. 9)
light is coming. Heat is chaotic motion, while electricity is a particular
rotatory type. heat also involves translation/vibration in addition to shell
rotation. 10) Hydrogens that are ionized are not empty protons, they simply
have delocalized shells. 11) We don't think the limitless extension of the
electron is mathematical gibberish. We think that those structures are
essential to other atomic phenomenon, including light and gravity. videos to
follow. 12) the locked up gear thing isn't a problem for the multi-polar
orbitals of actual metals. It would be a problem for a hydrogen lattice,
unless it had a hexagonal crystal, with bent geometry...hm.

~~~
jiggawatts
At the risk of feeding a troll:

> Hydrogen is a great place to start

It is an insulator, so a terrible place to start. Simplicity doesn't help if
it's oversimplified to the point of being _totally wrong_.

> In the vacuum, there is such low pressure on the atoms that their surfaces
> expand to fill the void.

I don't think you realise just how absurdly distorted the orbitals would have
to be for this to make sense. The gap in a classic Leidenjar capacitor is
about 1mm, or something like 4 million times the inter-atomic spacing. You
seriously want me to believe that the surface atoms have electrons whizzing
out to orbits shaped like a 4,000,000-to-1 ratio ellipse and then coming back
to whip around a specific nucleus? You're... kidding, right?

> All those cyclotron measurements are electric at the end of the day

What I mean is that cyclotrons have individual, loose particles circling
around. Like isolated electrons, muons, protons, or whatever. They're not
atoms, but there's a definite current that you can measure in Amperes. The
beam makes a magnetic field and everything. How does your "atomic orbitals
meshing together" explain currents that don't involve atoms!?

> Batteries charge the terminals electro-chemically... Basically, it is the
> same concept.

The same concept as what? You haven't explained how _chemicals_ can produce
the electron shell _rotations_.

> What dynamos

It's another word for generators. How does an AC generator generate your
current? Use equations please that predict the output current using numbers
based on the geometry of the coils and the rotation.

> All materials resist current to certain extent

That's just plain false, superconductors exist.

> All these details deserve a follow-up blog at some point for sure.

They deserve treatment in the first post, the first paper, the first video.
It's like saying "I've got this wonderful idea for fusion power! The actual
fusion and power bit I might cover later, I'm going to start by waffling on
about how the vacuum chamber has no air in it."

> Hydrogens that are ionized are not empty protons, they simply have
> delocalized shells

In no way is this true. You can separate protons from electrons and move them
meters apart and they'll just sit there. This happens all the time in
interstellar space where plasmas can have mean inter-particle distances
measured in meters. There is no meaningful way in which you can point at a
particle in _one room_ and say that it "belongs" to a particle in _another
room_ and that this makes up a hydrogen atom.

> We don't think the limitless extension of the electron is mathematical
> gibberish

Mathematically it's perfectly fine. You can define fields however you like.
Infinite extent, infinite precision, infinite whatever you like. The physical
universe just doesn't work that way, there are no known physical infinites.

> We think that those structures are essential to other atomic phenomenon,
> including light and gravity.

If you can solve the problem of gravity, you can collect your Nobel prize.
Unfortunately you have to start with baby steps, such as explaining how
capacitors work without hand-waving. Use numbers. Run a simulation or two.

> the locked up gear thing isn't a problem for the multi-polar orbitals of
> actual metals. It would be a problem for a hydrogen lattice, unless it had a
> hexagonal crystal, with bent geometry...hm.

Hmm indeed. Look at the crystal structures of common metals:
[https://www.ggspdt.com/uploads/8/1/0/4/81043910/8970374_orig...](https://www.ggspdt.com/uploads/8/1/0/4/81043910/8970374_orig.png)

The close-packed hexagonal structure cannot transmit rotations in the sense of
enmeshed gears, because it's made up of a bunch of triangles! Last time I
checked, zinc, magnesium, and cadmium are all conductors.

Again, with actual metals, the "polar" orbits don't participate in conduction.
Loose electrons do, and they don't mesh like gears. They can't possibly,
because hexagonal lattices still conduct electricity.

~~~
mickfaraday
Not gonna dignify your ad-homs..but aren't u the troll here? Last meal for
you: the model is perfectly compatible with all of maxwell's equations and
basic QED. This is an illustration not a new theory.

Yes, ionization is interpreted as thinned, extended outer surface of the atom
(e-shell). No physical reason it cannot fill a room if depressurized
sufficiently.

Otherwise, show me a single electron. And then use it explain the concept of
charge, not quantitatively but mechanistically. What other than magic holds it
in it's path?

Until then, ionization is delocalized surface of the atom because that's the
only way to rationalize the idea with physical objects (aka the atom), which
physics ought start with. It IS the study of objects that exist. If you
consider ionization this way, it clears up the rest of your concerns & I will
happily walk you through the details. If you're not willing to take that
interpretation we have nothing more to discuss, eh?

~~~
jiggawatts
> perfectly compatible with all of maxwell's equations and basic QED. This is
> an illustration not a new theory.

You may have misunderstood a few aspects of QED. It is true that the U(1)
field of QED and gauge theory says that there are "little circulations" that
explain all known electromagnetic phenomena, but this is at a completely
different scale than electron _orbits_ , and doesn't require atoms in general.

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nixpulvis
For a post about visualization, there are surprisingly few graphics in the
article. Perhaps they want us to read and visualize, but I was disappointed to
be frank.

~~~
nixpulvis
The video was decent, but lacks depth.

How do electrons with different occupied shells interact, how does this mesh
with our existing model?

What analogy fits this model for resistance? Capacitance? Are these electrons
spinning on an axis with friction, or something?

How does this model play with RF electrodynamics? Are there similar constructs
for the orthogonal magnetic plane?

The list of questions surely goes on...

~~~
nixpulvis
> Each pair of polar surfaces within an orbital is able to productively
> contact neighboring atoms.

I have no idea what to visualize for "productively" contacting neighbors in
this model.

~~~
mickfaraday
imagine your car's gear box when you put the thing into drive.

------
qqqqquinnnnn
Really love this. How did you decide on the rotational transmission, rather
than electron "flow"?

~~~
mickfaraday
Momentum transfer is the key idea. Flow is not apparent. Spherical field
rotation is actually a decent way to conceive of electron motion:
[https://www.physics.mcmaster.ca/phys3mm3/notes/whatisspin.pd...](https://www.physics.mcmaster.ca/phys3mm3/notes/whatisspin.pdf)

~~~
EForEndeavour
Wait, that paper discusses how the spin and magnetic moment of a single
electron arise from energy in the electron's wave field. Where does the paper
connect these ideas to the flow of electrical current? Does current really
depend on a "spinning" electron interacting with the spin of a neighbouring
electron? (I thought that'd only come up in explaining magnetism.) Is quantum
mechanical spin necessary at all to understand classical current flow?

On first read, the mental model of atomic-scale gears meshing and turning at
different rates (does direction matter? How do you think of amperage in terms
of rotating shafts made of meshed gears?) more fraught with simplifying
assumptions and unnecessary epicycle-style complications than the conventional
hydrodynamic model.

~~~
mickfaraday
The idea is that transfer of momentum between atoms is a good approximation of
current. In that sense, the difference in shell momentum, on average, can be
thought of as potential or voltage.

Like the hydraulic analogy, this visualization is to help us understand not an
exact movie of what's happening. Math may be better for that level of detail,
for now. This visualization uses atoms, which is the main advantage over the
hydraulic.

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schedutron
Username checks out!

~~~
mickfaraday
luv.

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lihaciudaniel
For an ee student this is trivial stuff.

