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Re: Capacitor charge, were is it?
Richard Hull wrote:
<snip>
> The electron charge is fortuitous and was locked in as unit charge for
> convenience and not as a be all end all unit of charge. Fractional
> charges do not bug me! When we say their is X amount of charge in the
> air or space about a metallic sphere, I have never associated it with
> electrons, it is just charge and nothing else. The fact that we can
> equate it to our fixed real world example, just gives us an anchor point.
> ( that the charge represents the presence of so and so many
> electrons---it doesn't, of course).
>
> This is all part of the "look and feel" of static electricity, and the
> casting aside of the need for material charge carriers and material
> bodies to collect and hold that charge. We are a "touchey-feely" type
> organism we like physical models, especially for things which seem
> non-physical.
>
> Richard Hull, TCBOR
I don't believe that an electric charge has ever been observed in vacuum;
negative charges reside in electrons, and positive charges reside in
positrons (proton = neutron + positron). Do you have any experimental
data that would indicate otherwise?
If a charge could exist in a vacuum, what would determine its polarity??
Also, if a charge had no mass, wouldn't the slightest electrostatic force
produce an infinite acceleration on that charge?? (Remember, F = ma)
A collection of massless charges in a vacuum would therefore be impossible,
since they would all instantly retreat from each other, at infinite speed.
Electrostatic deflection plates in an oscilloscope are positive proof
(NPI) that charges have finite acceleration in an electric field.
I don't want to seem nit-picky on this issue, but I consider it a very
bold conjecture indeed to suggest that a charge can exist in a vacuum,
and it's often distinctions on this scale that separate fringe science
from the 'mainstream'.
-GL