All “things” have wave properties, &amp; waves operate in fields, so all things have fields, yes? What types of fields (i.a.EM, gravity, Energy) do all things have? Does each type of Field associate with a specific radial distance, velocity or “origin point of emission”?
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There was a reason why I constantly failed physics at school and university, and that reason was, apart from the fact I was immensely lazy, that I mentally refused to &quot;believe&quot; more advanced stuff until I understand the fundamentals (which I, eventually, never did). As such, one of the most fundamental things in physics that I still don't understand (a year after dropping out from the university) is the concept of . No one cared to explain what a field actually is, they just used to throw in a bunch of formulas and everyone was content. The school textbook definition for a field (electromagnetic in this particular case, but they were similar), as I remember it, goes like:  An electromagnetic field is a special kind of substance by which charged moving particles or physical bodies with a magnetic moment interact.  A special kind of substance, are they for real? This sounds like the authors themselves didn't quite understand what a field is so they decided to throw in a bunch of buzzwords to make it sounds right. I'm fine with the second half but a special kind of substance really bugs me, so I'd like to focus on that. Is a field material? Apparently, it isn't. It doesn't consist of particles like my laptop or even the light. If it isn't material, is it real or is it just a concept that helps to explain our observations? While this is prone to speculations, I think we can agree that in scope of this discussion particles actually do exist and laws of physics don't (the latter are nothing but human ideas so I suspect Universe doesn't &quot;know&quot; a thing about them, at least if we're talking raw matter and don't take it on metalevel where human knowledge, being a part of the Universe, makes the Universe contain laws of physics). Any laws are only a product of human thinking while the stars are likely to exist without us homo sapiens messing around. Or am I wrong here too? I hope you already see why I hate physics. Is a field not material but still real? Can something &quot;not touchable&quot; by definition be considered part of our Universe by physicists? I used to imagine that a &quot;snapshot&quot; of our Universe in time would contain information about each particle and its position, and this would've been enough to &quot;de&quot; it but I guess my programmer metaphors are largely off the track. (Oh, and I know that the uncertainty principle makes such (de)serialization impossible — I only mean that I thought the Universe can be &quot;defined&quot; as the set of all material objects in it). Is such assumption false? At this point, if fields indeed are not material but are part of the Universe, I don't really see how they are different from  except for perhaps a more geeky flavor. When I talked about this with the teacher who helped me to prepare for the exams (which I did pass, by the way, it was before I dropped out), she said to me that, if I wanted hardcore definitions,  a field is a function that returns a value for a point in space.  Now this finally makes a hell lot of sense to me but I still don't understand how mathematical functions can be a part of the Universe and shape the reality.
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A charged particle moving with an acceleration produces electromagnetic waves. Why doesn't a charged particle moving with a constant velocity produce electromagnetic waves? As far I understand, the electric and magnetic fields in space will still be time-dependent, if a charged particle is moving with constant velocity, so they could have given rise to electromagnetic waves, but they don't.  Also, why do accelerating charged particles produce electromagnetic waves? What is Nature's intention behind this phenomena?
35690
What is a good way to think of the ? Maxwell imagined it as being movements in the aether, small changed of electric field producing magnetic field. I don't even understand that definition-assuming there is aether. (On the topic of which, has aether actually been disproved? I read that even with the Michelson-Morley experiment the aether wasn't disproved.)
25007
I've got a few questions on induction and electromagnetic fields. My current understanding of induction and electromagnetic fields is that, when electricity/current flows through a wire, it creates an electromagnetic field. If you twist that wire into a coil then you can concentrate that field. You can then induce current into a different coil by placing it inside of the electromagnetic field created by the first coil.  So here are my questions:  Q1. Does the electromagnetic field contain any energy?  EDITED QUESTION  Q2. Electromagnetic fields are the same as waves, so does that mean that when current is induced, they get the energy from electromagnetic waves being exchanged, or do they induce current directly from the electromagnetic field?   Q3. If electromagnetic fields and waves are the same, then doesn't that mean that you can induce current from waves? Therefore transferring electricity over long distances?  Q4. What spectrum of light are the electromagnetic waves that are in a field created by electricity?  Q5. Finally, why is it not possible to induce current from the Earth's magnetic field? I thought Maxwell said that electric fields and magnetic fields were the same thing.   Thank you to anyone who answers.  Edited Q2: So my original question (although asked poorly) still stands. Where does the current that gets induced in the secondary coil come from? How does the electricity transfer from the primary coil to the secondary? For example, is it taken from the stored energy in the e.m field? Does the field just act as a bridge between the 2 coils? Or do the 2 coils exchange e.m waves which carry the electricity that is being transferred from coil 1 to coil 2? Or is it none of these things and something completely different?
47641
I'm just starting to learn physics and I have a question (that is probably stupid.)  I learned that energy levels that the bound electron can have are discrete. I also learned that when an electron transitions from one level to another, a photon with a specific wavelength (energy) is created and released into the wild.  My question is this: are there holes in the electromagnetic spectrum, values of frequency that the created photon can't possibly have?
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For electromagnetic waves there exists a wave/particle duality: light sometimes behaves as a wave, and other times as a particle (photons).  Does such a duality exist for gravitational waves? In other words would we expect gravitational waves to sometimes behave has particles (gravitons)?
72477
A field that is conservative must have a curl of zero everywhere. However, I was wondering whether the opposite holds for functions continuous everywhere: if the curl is zero, is the field conservative? Can someone please give me an intuitive explanation and insight into this, and if it is true, why? Also, please try to not be too rigorous (only in grade 9).
14142
I'm interested in what kind of energy has electric current ?. For everything I taught in school should have kinetic energy because electrons are on a certain potential within the electric field when the switch is closed then the electrons move and the electric current is "generated" which then should have the kinetic energy. And so I was thinking all the time until I came across this article  which actually tells me that everything I know about the electric current is wrong On the other hand, I wonder if so many books from college ,schools, are spoken in the wrong way It's just a little weird that a huge number of scientists and engineers are actually talking nonsense all the time and so I hope that you can help me clarify my dilemma.  thanks in advance.
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Wikipedia states in QFT all fields generally exist in superpostion. Is this correct? So my question is in quantum field theory, are the fields in quantum field theory existing persistently in superposition? or are there times they don't? If they do, would it prove Many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics?
33024
I read this in my textbook: A charged particle or object is not affected by its own electric field.  Since I find this completely unintuitive and my mind is yelling "wrong! wrong! how could a particle even distinguish between its own field and the external fields?" I would really like to hear an explanation about why this is true, if it is.  (A corollary question that comes to my mind after thinking about this is... What about gravity and mass considering the analogous situation? And the other two forces?)
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At the end of this nice video (), she says that  is a chain reaction of electric and magnetic fields creating each other so the chain of wave moves forward.  I wonder where the  is in this explanation. What is the relation between electromagnetic wave and photon?
80784
Two kinds of wave transmission are:   Light waves, where a substance (photon) travels as a wave. An attached rope, like at the gym, that is "waved" up and down. Here, no substance travels to a new spot, but adjacent parts transmit the energy to others.   QUESTION: Which method do gravitational waves propagate by?
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What is the reason for the observation that across the board fields in physics are generally governed by second order (partial) differential equations?    If someone on the street would flat out ask me that question, then I'd probably mumble something about physicists wanting to be able to use the Lagrangian approach. And to allow a positive rotation and translation invariant energy term, which allows for local propagation, you need something like $-\phi\Delta\phi$.  I assume the answer goes in this direction, but I can't really justify why more complex terms in the Lagrangian are not allowed or why higher orders are a physical problem. Even if these require more initial data, I don't see the a priori problem.  Furthermore you could come up with quantities in the spirit of $F\wedge F$ and $F \wedge *F$ and okay yes... maybe any made up scalar just doesn't describe physics or misses valuable symmetries. On there other hand in the whole renormalization business, they seem to be allowed to use lots and lots of terms in their Lagrangians. And if I understand correctly, supersymmetry theory is basically a method of introducing new Lagrangian densities too.   Do we know the limit for making up these objects? What is the fundamental justification for order two?
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Everywhere I get to read statements like EM radiations and EM fields carry "energy as well as momentum " . I wonder if energy and momentum are inalienable . Is it possible for a field to carry only energy without having any momentum term ? I mean isn't it sufficient to say that fields or EM waves carry energy or Doesn't the ability to transfer energy, of the fields, automatically imply that they can change the momentum of another particle while transferring energy to them?
85464
I have read that "thanks to conservation of momentum" there is no dipole gravitational radiation. I am confused about this, since I cannot see the difference with e.m. radiation. Is this due to the non-existence of positive and negative gravi-charges? Is this due to the non-linearity of Einstein equations? How the conservation of momentum enters here?  An example of my confusion below  Q: Why I cannot shake a single mass producing dipole gravi-radiation? A: You need another mass to shake it. Q: Isn't it the same with electromagnetism?
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me and my friend has a discussion last night, and he argued that both an electromagnetic field and gravititonal field are infinite in their area of effect, but with diminishing effects as you get farther away from the object.  I argued that only gravity field is infinite in range.  So which one of us is correct, and please explain in laymen's terms, as we're not physicists :)
53315
I am confused on why would the propagation speed of any EM waves at ANY frequency is constant in the free space (vacuum) but they seem to disperse in any other materials as the propagation speed of EM waves in other materials depends on the frequency? Can someone give me a good proof of this phenomena with appropriate formulas?