Critique of Hooper-Monstein Experiment.
By Cyril Smith
created on 12/20/97 - JLN Labs - last update on 12/20/97
1. Introduction
An experiment has been reported on the Web ( performed by company RQM at http://www.rqm.ch/eng/hoopera2.htm and replicated by experimenter J.L.Naudin at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/jlnaudin/html/hoopmnst.htm) in which a parallel pair of bar magnets with their axes in opposing directions are moved inwards towards a centrally placed conductor. In spite of the magnetic field at the wire being zero, a voltage is induced in the wire. It is claimed that this goes against conventional electro-magnetic theory. This critique has been written to show that the experiment does not contravene established theory if attention is paid not just to the wire in question, but to the total experiment. Comparisons are also made with other recognised areas of EM theory where electric fields exist without the magnetic component being present.
The experiment is then discussed in more detail and used as an example of how our established EM theory has been interpreted incorrectly in regard to field cancellation and photon annihalation. By simple reasoning of results from similar (gedanken) experiments it is argued that the electrically neutral aether must be a dense quantum sea of EM particles who’s overall macroscopic effect averages out to zero. Over the small space/time spans at the atomic and nuclear level the particle effects do not cancel out leading to quantum features such as Heisenberg’s uncertainty.
The potential energy available from this aether is enormous, far in excess of that generally quoted for the cosmic background or zero point energy density of space. At the present time man’s efforts at harnessing the aether by electromagnetic means are puny compared with what is on offer. Experimenters like J.L Naudin and others who report via the Web should be encouraged to continue in their efforts to extract energy from this source.
What is missing in our theories is the true link between EM and Quantum theory (our present Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) is not so much a theory as a set of empirical rules discovered by experiment). An important player in this is the other missing link between gravity and inertia, also at the quantum level. A fundamental aether particle is proposed which interacts with matter so as to explain gravity, inertia, electric and magnetic forces.
2. The Hooper-Monstein Experiment
It has been claimed that Faraday’s classical induction law (relating the voltage induced in a closed circuit to the time rate of change of the magnetic flux through the circuit) can not apply to this experiment. Presumably this is because the experimenter’s attention is focussed on the wire towards which the magnets are travelling where (quite rightly) most of the voltage induction occurs. However the experiment does involve a closed circuit (it has to in order to measure the voltage), even though most of it is remote from the magnets. This is clearly shown in Figure 1 which is a plan view of the experiment. It can be seen that although the magnetic field is zero at the wire of interest, elsewhere it is not zero and the field lines do pass through the closed circuit loop. It is also obvious that as the magnets move so the total flux through the loop will change. A detailed analysis of the total flux change will reveal that Faraday’s Law is obeyed.
3. Discussion
Many people do not realise that Faraday’s Law results from the line integral (around the closed path) of an electric field, i.e. the changing magnetic flux "generates" an electric field and it is the latter which actually forces the electrons to travel along the wire, that which we recognise as induction. What Faraday’s law does not do is identify in which parts of the closed circiut the induction takes place. In the Hooper-Monstein experiment most of the induction does take place in the section between the magnets, where the magnetic field is zero, and it is this fact that people find amazing. However ther are other instances in EM where electric fields are produced in a region of space where the magnetic field is zero. Standing waves in transmission lines is one example. The right hand rule for photons moving at velocity c is E=cxB (which is similar to the motional induction rule E=vxB which applies to magnets moving at velocity v). Bring two identical photons together travelling in opposite directions with the correct phasing and the B effect can disappear while the E fields add producing twice the value. The moving magnet experiment has the same attributes as the photon experiment.
Although most text books treat electric and magnetic fields as separate entities, this really comes from the historical evolution of our knowledge dating back to the time when they were only known to exist separately (magnets and static electricity). Only later were the connections between time varying or moving fields discovered, which are adequately covered by our EM theory. It should now be obvious that electric and magnetic effects are two different manifestations of just one fundamental form of interaction, carried by a particle (not a photon but a sub-photonic particle) which has the ability to create both. Like the photon experiment just described, in certain situations the one effect can cancel while the other is supported. Against this background the Hooper-Monstein result is not so surprising. There are also situations (electrically neutral space) where both effects cancel out.
Without investigating what is the nature of this sub-photonic particle, but merely accepting its existence on the evidence of EM phenomena, it is interesting to speculate on the density of such particles in "empty" space. Take the gedanken experiment shown in Figure 2. Here a region of space situated between two positive charges has zero electric field because the two electric fields cancel out. Do the particles responsible for carrying the electric field annihalate? We know that they don’t because if annihalations took place then the electric field at any point in space would not be the sum of the two independant fields, and we know by experiment that it is. Hence the particles don’t annihalate, it is merely the observed effect which disappears.
Now take Figure 3 where there are two regions, one containing negative charges and the other positive charges, "communicating" their existence to a third region of space. We know how to sum the contributions from the individual charges, but we also know that the result is the combined effect of the individual particle streams, the particles themselves do not annihalate..
Now bring the two charge regions closer together until we reach the situation shown in Figure 4 where each positive charge is closely connected to a negative one. We have crudely modelled matter where to all intents the electric field outside of the charge region is everywhere zero. And our conventional upbringing tells us that the outside space is electrically neutral, there is no communication from inside the matter to the outside world. Somehow in going from Figure 3 to Figure 4 we have changed our logic. Clearly this is wrong
Now some people will invoke electric screening as an argument to support the change of logic, but again screening is a feature which has historical roots. Screening rules are quoted without any regard as to how screening takes place. When you get down to the fundamentals, screening simply provides additional electrical charge on a surface in a manner such that the field from these new charges cancels out the field to be screened. And as we’ve reasoned above, cancelling the field does not annihalate the particles.
So what does all this mean? Let us take as an example 1 kilogram of copper. We know the number of atoms, and the number of electrons in each atom. Let us ask God to temporarilly remove all the electrons leaving only the positively charged nuclei, so that we can measure their electric field. We find that at a distance of 1 metre the field is of order 1017 volts per metre! Without the cancelling effect of the particle streams from the electrons, the particle streams from the nuclei would create the enormous field of 1017V/m. And that ignores the possibility that particle streams could come from the charges which make up the neutrons. But why stop at 1Kg? We are standing on an earth mass of 6x1024Kg. And not far away is the Sun weighing in at 2x1030Kg. And the particle streams from these are tiny compared with those from distant matter in a Universe of ???Kg.
We must reach the conclusion that our space is seething with particles with unimaginable potential for creating electric effects. It is not then unreasonable to expect that these particles are responsible not only for electric and magnetic forces, but also for other forces of Nature such as inertia and gravity. This also makes them an essential component of what we know as mass. When our experiments involve small time or distance increments, such as atomic and nuclear phenomena, these forces become discontinuoous and jerky resulting from individual aether particle interactions rather than the average of many. Even mass becomes discontinuous, and we have to invent new rules for how mass behaves in between interactions. This explains quantum effects at these levels, and in particular how matter particles can also show wavelike behaviour. Aether particles are also the building blocks of photons, photons being patterns imposed on the particle continuum: photons annihalate when the pattern has zero effect on matter but the particles remain. And since matter can be created from photons, these aether particles are also the building blocks of matter.
A very interesting theory for Nature can be created where the aether particles, having zero mass, cross our space at velocity c. They have energy and momentum, and react with matter by continual absorption and emission. A matter particle is a tightly bound collection of aether particles, the binding forces coming from this continual bombardment. The momentum exchange, obeying certain rules of time delay through the matter particle, accounts for inertial forces, and hence inertial mass. Momentum exchange can also explain electromagnetic forces if the aether particles have another vector property (like spin but they are probably not spinning), and electric charge is modelled by the direction of these spinlike vectors in the bound aether particles making up the matter. Thus outward pointing vectors model positive charge and inward vectors represent negative charge. Aether particles emitted from matter carry the vector aligned with their propagation direction, either parallel or antiparallel defining positive or negative electric fields. Hence this longitudinal feature can account for electric forces.
When the matter particle is moving relative to an observer, emitted aether particles arriving at the observer are seen not to have the spinlike vector exactly aligned with the propagation vector, in which case there is a small transverse effect. This can account for magnetic fields. A stream of particles with their transverse feature alternating is the classical travelling photon having both particle and wave structure. Particles arriving from different directions onto matter can have a transverse feature time pattern equivalent to that of the travelling photon, and create the same observable effect: this is the virtual photon.
Aether particles arriving in our region of space have on average a small transversivity, and this feature is uniform for any direction of arrival. This is the so called flat space-time of General Relativity. Curved space-time is when the transversivity against arrival direction is not constant; the non-uniform momentum exchange then creating forces on matter. Gravity is a result of matter, existing in our region of space where the arriving aether particles have uniform transverse property, emitting only longitudinal ones, so creating around it this non-uniform so called curved space-time feature.
Cyril Smith
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