Man, the Bellows!

Man, the bellows!

One of my favourite science education topics is when the very capable (sometimes clever) sciencers explain electromagnetism and I don’t understand a word of it.

Thank you for your time.

Bye.

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post-script notes:

  • Hey, Guys.
  • Glad you could join me for an extended set of notes detailing what I think about how to do electromagnetism explanations.
  • If I do the usual essay structure thing of giving a brief history of research into electromagnetism it would just confuse things even further (plus, my brain just treats what I know about magnetism as pointers to reference notes in external sources rather than information that I am carrying around in my head for use).
  • Okay. So, we’ve got the two main jumping on-&-off points: Permanent Magnets (your basic iron magnet) and Electromagnets (an iron nail wrapped with copper wire [which can be bare but we’ll assume it is insulated] that is attached to the positive and negative points of a battery).
  • Two permanent magnets with one of the poles (say, north) aligned against each other repel; aligned opposite (north against south) they attract.
  • The electromagnet (as long as the voltage is appropriate for the wire) will produce a magnetic field that can attract or repel another magnet depending on the alignment of the poles (as expressed in the paragraph above).
  • These notes are to provide a different way to remember the ‘Relativity Explanation of Electromagnetism’.
  • There are many vids showing a line of electrons and a line of protons which then manage to induce the same state that the teacher induced in Charlie Brown in class.
  • Electrons flow and their velocity causes Time Dilation which causes Length Contraction between them in comparison to the Protons experiencing a reduction in charge strength and that causes a magnetic field North-South in the direction of the Electron flow.
  • Somehow.
  • … eurgh …
  • Instead, imagine a bellows.
  • Two pieces of wood (entirely upto your own preferences; flat and round, flat and square, maybe flat and heart shaped), a diaphragm of thick concertina’d paper like an accordion between them, a small pipe (like from a cake icing-bag) at one end of the diaphragm, maybe handles on each piece of wood but at the opposite end to the pipe.
  • (A fancy bellows may have holes in the wood that also open and close to allow sucking in air then close when blowing.)
  • Open (pull apart) the handles and the bellows suck in air.
  • Close (push together) the handles and the bellows blow out the air.
  • The sucking-in is analogous to attraction.
  • The blowing-out is analogous to repulsion.
  • A ball (or balls) can play the part of the object being acted upon.
  • Now, when we think of the Electrons flowing, we can think of the bellows closing and blowing away the ball.
  • The direction of the Electron flow determines the polarity of the electromagnet; negative to positive causes north to south polarity.
  • We can picture this as the bellows having an orientation; flat or standing, horizontal or vertical. This orientation is just a mind tool rather than an actual analog. So, we can also decide to have a rule that when the bellows are flat they are blowing, when they are standing (on their edge) they are sucking. Another rule could add positive and negative signs on each side of the bellows to represent the connection to the battery.
  • It could be that “the rule” is that when the charge-symbol is on the left and flat then it is acting as a repulsive north polarity force but when standing and on the left it is acting as an attractive north polarity force. It would depend on the “polarity” that is showing if it is marked on the ball-object. (The demonstrator has to remember that “like” repels and “opposite” attracts.)
  • In this example, the ball does not have the same properties as an object that can be affected by magnetism. It is entirely passive and responsive. A magnetic-compass would show the polarity of a permanent magnet or an electromagnet. If everything in the demonstration is wood or paper then there is little obvious magnetic effects.
  • It is upto the demonstrator to remember that Vertical is to Open/Suck and Horizontal is to Close/Blow.
  • A magnetised object in a field will respond according to polarity of the field incident upon it. So, a magnetic-compass shows you the north-south polarity acting upon it. However, you could put a little weather-vane on the ball-object which would show that there is airflow from the bellows upon it; it would not be North-South but Towards-Away.
  • But, bellows are so tiring to use.
  • You could use a hairdryer and a ping-pong ball to represent superconductor levitation, instead.

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note note:
My “the Particular theory” describes the magnetic force as being due to polarisation of Space-particles because of electric charge.

That’s it.

It also hints that that’s why free Electrons do not move at the Speed-of-Light.

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