Juergens said Vacuum is an Electrical Insulator I remember 2 of Juergens' papers. The first was published in Pensee' about 1975, Of the Moon and Mars, in which he argued very well that lunar rilles etc are the result of huge electric discharges, probably between the Moon and Mars. His other paper that I remember was published in Kronos a couple years or so later about the electrical nature of the Sun. I think it was in the Pensee' article that he mentioned the claim that a vacuum is an insulator. He said breakdown of the vacuum insulator begins with electrons in the cathode building a bridge to the anode, I think.
But it's possible that it's only air that is an insulator, while a vacuum is a non-insulator. I hesitate to call it a conductor, since there's nothing in it that conducts. Instead, it's a medium with no resistance. Experiments were apparently done in air on Earth, so the breakdown voltage in air is apparently what was measured, rather than that in vacuum.
If Juergens was wrong about vacuum being an insulator, EU theory would need to be greatly revised. Here below are a couple of online statements suggesting that vacuum is a non-insulator.
Isn't vacuum the best insulator? https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/isnt-vacuum-the-best-insulator.289153/ Hi, I always thought vacuum is the best insulator, until I find figures that state breakdown field for vacuum is about 2*10^6V/cm, while some dielectrics breakdown in field higher than that(Al2O3 is 4~5*10^6). - So I'm wondering why? I mean electrons in vacuum has the highest potential energy compared to electrons confined in some lattices right? Vacuum is supposed to be the highest possible potential barrier?
Is a vacuum an electrical insulator or an electrical conductor? https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110309143956AAKi1ib Look up electron beam welding. A vacuum removes the molecules that interfere with the beam making it easier for the beam to do its job.
At http://qdl.scs-inc.us/2ndParty/Pages/8819.html Charles said: Another example demonstrates the direct relationship between increasing mean free path and increasing conductivity.1:pg18 In the atmosphere, the air gets thinner with altitude, increasing the mean free path. At about 12 km above the surface, the density of the air is about 1/3 of that at the ground level. And as we can see in Figure 1, the conductivity at that height is 3 times that at the ground level.
>>I invite everyone to provide the best arguments you know of that vacuum is an insulator, or a non-insulator.
JeffreyW
Re: Does Space Insulate or Conduct?
All you need to do is place a AA battery in a vacuum chamber and see if it short circuits. A short circuiting AA battery will heat up. A 9V battery short circuited will explode. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpBb4VqyHb8
Stick a 9V battery in a evacuated bell jar and if it explodes then vacuum conducts electricity. If it doesn't then vacuum is an insulator. Problem solved.
I think vacuum is an insulator like air. It does not conduct electricity. It has no resistance to radiation, but radiation is not electrical conduction. The two are not the same process.
"We reverse this; the current in the wire is set up by the energy transmitted through the medium around it." ("Electrical Papers" Vol. 1, page 438, by Oliver Heaviside.)
The importance of Heavisides's phrase "We reverse this; "cannot be overstated. It points to the watershed between the 'practical electricians', who have held sway for the last half century, promulgating their theory – which we shall call 'Theory N', the Normal Theory: that causes is electric current in wires and electromagnetic field are merely and effect – an the 'ethereals' who believe what we shall call 'Theory H': that the traveling field is the cause, and electric currents are merely an effect of these fields.
Opposition to any attempted change from the familiar Theory N to Theory H was forceful and successful for the next century. Sprague, a 'practical electrician' wedded to Theory N, with its retention of the phlogiston-like 'fluid'*, electricity, at the center of the electromagnetic stage wrote:
"A new doctrine is becoming fashionable of late years, devised chiefly in order to bring the now important phenomena of alternating currents under the mathematical system. It is purely imaginery … based upon Clerk Maxwell's electromagnetic theory of light, itself described by a fabourable reviewer as 'a dating stroke of scientific speculation,' alleged to be proved by the little understood experiments of Hertz, and supported by a host of assumptions and assertions for which no kind of evidence is offered; but its advocates now call it the 'orthodox' theory.
"This theory separates the two factors of electricity …, and declares that the 'current' the material action, is carried by the 'so-called conductor' (which according to Dr. Lodge contains nothing, not even an impulse, and according to Mr. O. Heaviside is to be regarded as an obstructor) … - Ivor Catt: The Death of electric Current
Lloyd
Re: Does Space Insulate or Conduct?
Could everyone elaborate a little?
Is the heliospheric current sheet an electric current, or not? And why or why not?
CharlesChandler
Re: Does Space Insulate or Conduct?
JeffreyW wrote: All you need to do is place a AA battery in a vacuum chamber and see if it short circuits.
I agree. I'm looking for a paper that I saw once, that was discussing all of the fancy things they have to do, to keep the electronics on the Space Station from shorting out.
Anyway, here's another way of drawing the same conclusion...
Vbreakdown = B p d / (C + ln(p * d)), where: p is the pressure of the gas, d is the distance between the two conducting plates, and B and C are constants that are determined by experiments.
As the pressure approaches 0, the breakdown voltage approaches 0. What does that tell you?
JeffreyW
Re: Does Space Insulate or Conduct?
CharlesChandler wrote:
JeffreyW wrote: All you need to do is place a AA battery in a vacuum chamber and see if it short circuits.
I agree. I'm looking for a paper that I saw once, that was discussing all of the fancy things they have to do, to keep the electronics on the Space Station from shorting out.
Anyway, here's another way of drawing the same conclusion...
Vbreakdown = B p d / (C + ln(p * d)), where: p is the pressure of the gas, d is the distance between the two conducting plates, and B and C are constants that are determined by experiments.
As the pressure approaches 0, the breakdown voltage approaches 0. What does that tell you?
It tells me math doesn't accurately describe reality. As well, it tells me placing matter where there is no matter is the cause of the problem. A breakdown voltage with electrically conductive material only applies to matter.
1. Where there is no matter, there is no breakdown voltage, (the material cannot break down/conduct electricity) not
2. Where there is no matter the breakdown voltage is zero (the material conducts electricity perfectly like a superconductor).
Breakdown voltage being zero and there being no breakdown voltage are not the same thing. They are actually the complete opposite of one another.
Lloyd
Re: Does Space Insulate or Conduct?
Does Space Insulate or Conduct?
Let me rephrase the question. Does the vacuum of space resist current or not resist current? If it does not resist, then it is not an insulator. Is it?
Lloyd
Re: Does Space Insulate or Conduct?
TB Forum Review Here are some previous statements from this forum on the subject. (CC, do you have a page on your site for this stuff?)
Post by freedomrox» Wed Apr 02, 2008 10:02 pm Quick - Upriver - Where's that bucket?... [] If it was an insulator, then wouldn't it naturally follow that space would not be conducive to a solar wind? [] If space is full of radiation and protonic streams as observed then it necessarily would follow that space is the conductive medium, wouldn't it?
Post by upriver» Wed Mar 20, 2013 2:40 pm The Anode Sun Vs The Plasmoid Model I believe that space is a conductor.. I think you can measure the permeability of space...| If space was not a conductor would you get plasma filaments? Logically I would say no..
Post by CharlesChandler» Thu Mar 21, 2013 3:53 am The Anode Sun Vs The Plasmoid Model - And if free space was not a conductor, neon lights wouldn't work. Lightning wouldn't happen. The aurora wouldn't happen. Any time an electron has to pass through free space in order to get from one atom to the next, because it is outside of the electron cloud of a crystal lattice, it is passing through... free space. If free space was a perfect insulator, discharges in plasma wouldn't happen. - And don't tell me that free space is a perfect insulator, but that sometimes an electron can tunnel through it. If that's the case, it isn't exactly a perfect insulator anymore. Especially if this happens at a regular rate. That would be like saying that a seive can form a perfect seal, except for the holes in it, which sometimes allow stuff through. Which times? All times! That's not a perfect seal. It's a seive! - The only thing preventing an electron from zipping freely through empty space in response to an electric field is the binding energy of the last atom it called home. Once outside of an electron cloud, the only resistance comes from collisions with atoms.
Post by CharlesChandler» Thu May 08, 2014 4:32 pm The General Theory of Stellar Metamorphosis A vacuum is actually a conductor, and the reason that it won't produce a spark is that there isn't enough resistance to set up the instability of a breakdown voltage, because there is nothing to break down. Proving this is easy — get set up to measure the Paschen curve, but instead of just measuring pressure and the gap distance at which sparks occur, also hook up an ammeter to measure the current. At too much of a gap, there is too much resistance. So there is no spark, and very little current. At just the right gap, you get a spark, and there will be a surge in current. At too small of a gap, you won't get a spark, but look at the ammeter — it will show that all of the current available is flowing through the wires and across the gap — it just doesn't encounter enough resistance to have to tunnel through it with a spark. - So perfect vacuums are perfect conductors, and electric currents in space don't need to find a nearby filament to act as a wire — they would flow more easily through the less dense surroundings. But electric currents in space are rare, because it's tough to get a charge separation within a near-perfect conductor. Without any capacitance, the force that separates charges has to be dynamic and sustained.
Post by Solar» Fri May 09, 2014 3:09 pm Major Findings in Physical Sciences - The fundamentals above are principles of electrodynamic theory as put forth by Oliver Heaviside using today's terminology ("vacuum"). This is the reason Heaviside said: "We reverse this; the current in the wire is set up by the energy transmitted through the medium around it." ("Electrical Papers" Vol. 1, page 438, by Oliver Heaviside.) - It is also why Heaviside considered what are now called "conductors" (metals for example) to actually be "obstructors" to the actual "flow of energy" occurring in the "medium" (dielectric) surrounding the metal. Consider Heaviside's reasoning for another famous deduction wherein "a perfect conductor is a perfect obstructor". In other words; the presence of the metal actually obstructs the flow of energy spatially surrounding the wire. - This is also why "Electrons have nothing to do with the flow of electricity. Electrons are the rate at which electricity is destroyed. Electrons are the resistance." - Eric Dollard: - Internal Obstruction and Superficial Conduction "The properties of a perfect conductor are derived from those of common conductors by examining what would happen if the resistivity were continuously reduced, and ultimately became zero. In this way we find that a perfect conductor is a perfect obstructor []"
Post by seasmith» Fri May 09, 2014 8:34 pm Major Findings in Physical Sciences [] Re 'filaments', 'jets' and the like, there has to be reason for their relative confinement, and occasional visibility. so, ønce again it seems we are back down to aetheric substrates (which Solar and Heaviside seem to be implying) and induced alignments/orientations. [ergo Potentials~ primary to Fields~]
Post by CharlesChandler» Sat May 10, 2014 12:26 am Major Findings in Physical Sciences I don't follow — how did you get from "has to be reason" to "back down to aetheric substrates"? Filaments are predicted and easily simulated with electrostatics, which is directly applicable because we know that the plasma is ionized. - As concerns the conductivity issue, this is from the Essential Guide, Chapter 6: Currents, Filaments and Pinches: - >> Evidence of filaments and electric currents in space is widespread. Filamentary structure is acknowledged by most astronomers to exist at all levels, from the solar system to galactic and intergalactic scales. The only area of disagreement between the Electric Model and the Gravity Model is whether these filaments are current-carrying structures, naturally following the laws of plasma electrodynamics, or somehow fluid 'jets' thousands of light-years long, gravitationally driven in accordance with computer simulations of the hypothesized gravity forces due to cold dark matter (CDM). << - In order to be current-carrying structures, the filaments would have to be better conductors than the surrounding medium. Then, the existence of such filaments are taken as evidence of currents, as in your statement that there "has to be a reason". Well, are the filaments actually better conductors, or is the surrounding vacuum a better conductor? (It's the latter.) And it's a false dichotomy to say that either the filaments are fluid dynamic, or electrodynamic. There is a third possibility: electrostatics.
Post by Solar» Sat May 10, 2014 9:00 am Major Findings in Physical Sciences Seasmith is correct. How are you, one questing for "truth", not understanding what Seasmith has said when you are readily using fundamental principles of electrodynamics (Heaviside's reasoning of space as 'dielectric conduction') established long ago from reasoning about the very same Aether Substratum?? - Aetheric substrate is present. On the coat tails of modern physics you've simply adopted Aether Properties under another name - "vacuum" – while uttering fundamentals inherent of Its nature as put forth by Heaviside, Faraday et al. By way of reasoning from O. Heaviside's "Internal Obstruction and Superficial Conduction" previously referenced above, and as known in the physics, the electro-motive forces are 'transmitted' of the "space" surrounding the material. The material then 'obstructs' and/or 'reflects' the movement of the impinging "fields" - which is but another characterization of 'localized vacuum'. - Neglected in popularized astrophysics is the inclusion of those Aether deduced electrodynamic relations from the very minds that codified the EM theory. - 'Where' is the inclusion of this neglected knowledge and deductions stemming from it in any theory that proposes that the universe is electric?' – including an electrostatic model. [] your electrostatic ideas share in that heritage.
Post by CharlesChandler» Sat May 10, 2014 2:29 pm Major Findings in Physical Sciences - [] I was just saying that the ubiquitous filaments in nature, at all scales, from polymerized molecules to the sinuous structure of nebulae, are easily understood in terms of the ability of neutrally charged matter to become electrically polarized, which produces a linear electrostatic body force between particles. Aggregates of such polarized particles then naturally prefer filamentary geometries. So there might be a substrate best described as aether, but the observations trace first to measurable electrostatic principles, and then to the next lower level, if one cares to pursue it deeper.
answers.yahoo.com: Is a vacuum an electrical insulator or an electrical conductor? https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110309143956AAKi1ib - If you had a cathode and an anode near each other in a vacuum would current flow between them? If they did not spontaneous do that, would current flow between them, through the vacuum, after they were touched together (much like in arc welding)? - Anthony answered 4 years ago - Look up electron beam welding. A vacuum removes the molecules that interfere with the beam making it easier for the beam to do its job. Source: 34 years welding. - Asker's rating & comment - 5 out of 5 - Of course that's right. I used to run electron microscopes, so I should have made the connection.
viscount aero
Re: Does Space Insulate or Conduct?
Lloyd wrote: Does Space Insulate or Conduct?
Let me rephrase the question. Does the vacuum of space resist current or not resist current? If it does not resist, then it is not an insulator. Is it?
Lloyd, perhaps consider some points raised in this thread on phys.org:
There are some good nuggets in there. When you read the thread, pay particular attention to "MrGrynch." He is a pro-plasma physics member and brings some interesting insights against the typical phys.org establishment crowd.
I only glossed through the above link but will offer my first opinions on this interesting topic
The general idea I'm getting initially is that space is a vacuum and nothing more (without going into a discussion about the aether). To wit, a proper conductor requires its own physical structure, composed of atomic particles, to give up electrons and carry a flow of electrons against its own lattice of molecular integrity (ionic, covalent, hydrogen bonding, et al). The vacuum of space features no such physics.
As you know, some materials are highly non-conductive (like plastics) and will not "unbond" easily by allowing electrons to flow through their structures. And to my knowledge, the vacuum itself is non-atomic, non-molecular, non-architectural, and is--for sake of argument--a nothingness. There is no molecular structure there. So to use the term "conductor" as applied to outer space is a misplaced term in my opinion. It is neither a conductor nor insulator or semi-conductor.
Moreover, it is the particles within this vacuum (the nothingness), ergo, plasmas, that are what electrify the vacuum. In other words, the vacuum does not promote nor inhibit electricity as it cannot inhibit the existence or flow of currents that arise within it. It's not made of plastic nor copper wire. It isn't made of anything (without invoking an aether and/or quantum/non-locally interacting field). The vacuum is therefore non-partisan.
If I am totally wrong then at least I made myself believe in my own BS
CharlesChandler
Re: Does Space Insulate or Conduct?
Electric currents in gases/plasmas are actually pretty easy to understand, if you start out with particle physics, and compare the expectations directly to the macroscopic properties of such currents.
Think of so many billiard balls on a table — perhaps a large table, with lots and lots of them. To make them analogous to atoms, let's magnetize them such that they'll stick to each other, like electrons sticking to atomic nuclei. Then let's put all of these little clusters into motion, such that they bounce gently off of each other.
If you start throwing queue balls through the population of clusters, the queue balls will collide with these clusters, slowing them down. This is resistance, instantiated at the particle level.
If the queue balls are traveling fast enough, when they collide with clusters, they will knock the clusters apart. Then the clusters will clank back together. The "clanking" in analogous to electron uptake by an ion, and that releases a photon. So this is analogous to a glow discharge. The queue balls still move slowly through the population of clusters, getting slowed down by all of those collisions. So the analogous electric current is still very weak.
At the next higher energy level, the queue balls are moving so fast that the collisions are violent. Aside from knocking the clusters apart, they also impart a lot of velocity to the cluster components, which is analogous to heat. The heat thins out the population of clusters, analogous to the reduction in density of a hot gas or plasma. This has an interesting effect — at a reduced density, there are fewer collisions. With fewer collisions, the collisions that do occur will be even more violent, meaning even more heat, and even less density, meaning even fewer collisions. So at this point, we've crossed a threshold, beyond which the dynamics are very different. The resistance drops to next to nothing; the velocities are extreme; and the clanking sounds (analogous to photon emission) are loud (analogous to brightness). In EE, this "threshold" is called the breakdown voltage, and it varies with the chemical composition, as well as the resting density of the gas. To have a breakdown, it's true that you need for there to be resistance that can be broken down. So you need molecules there, that can impede the flow of electrons. If the electric force acting on those electrons is sufficient to generate a substantial degree of heat, you get this runaway reaction that eliminates the resistance.
So... if there wasn't any resistance to begin with, it's true that there is no breakdown voltage. And in a perfect vacuum, there wouldn't be any resistance, so there wouldn't be any breakdown.
Does this mean that a perfect vacuum is a perfect conductor?
That all depends on how you define "conductor". But if you think that there has to be matter there to transport the electrons from point A to point B, you're mistaken. In gases and plasmas, if you subscribe to the atomic theory of matter, there is a lot of empty space between the atoms, and the electrons are definitely making the journey through that empty space. And the net velocity can be calculated as a straight function of the strength of the electric field, minus the electron's resting inertia, minus the time lost to collisions, times the mean free path between collisions. Plasmas might be conductors, but it isn't the matter in the plasmas that are responsible for getting the electrons from point A to point B. Rather, the matter presents the resistance. The free space between atoms presents no resistance at all. And the less dense the plasma, the less the resistance. In a perfect vacuum, there is no resistance.
BTW, I prefer using the term "electron drift" rather than "electric current" to refer to the movement of charged particles in plasmas, just to avoid all of the obfuscated concepts and terms in EE. But the bottom line is that charged particles move without restraint in a perfect vacuum (ummm... a vacuum except for themselves of course), and no, there doesn't have to be any matter there to transport the electrons, or +ions for that matter.
jjohnson
Re: Does Space Insulate or Conduct?
FIrst, the term vacuum is not as well known and not well defined, like other terms in science. No one knows why mass is associated with matter, in terms of its always being accompanied by a gravity field. Charles Chandler noted that there is a lot of empty space between the electrons and other particles moving through space. He's right, up to a point, although the IEEE claims that over 99% of the observable matter in the Universe exists in the plasma state.
That means a substantial fraction of it (less than 1% charged particles (electrons, protons, ions and electrostatically charged dust and grainy plasmas, up to 100% in high energy conditions near stars and plasmoids. As each atom consists of particles whose dimensions are miniscule compared to the lengths of space between their components, even solid matter is a very empty vacuum, for the most part. An iron atom is mostly hard vacuum.
There are particles present in the emptiest parts of space, out between galaxies. There may be only one particle per 10 cubic meters, possibly less, but technically it's not empty, but highly rarefied.
So we need to be careful about what we think of when we say "a vacuum", and that those we are discussing it with understand and, one hopes, know and agree with the definition.
Space seems to be, or is routinely described as, completely filled with fields. This is another one of those terms, very handy at describing the phenomena of reactions to forces or transmission of power across "empty space" - the vacuum - so it appeals to engineers and physicists who have to figure out what's happening and the rules that it seems to follow. Open space between stars and planets and galaxies is filled with electromagnetic radiation, or photons in its "particle" guise. Some of that radiation is particularly good at resonating with electrons and readily knocks them away from their nuclei if the intensity is approriately high - "ionizing radiation", it's called. It can occur over a fairly broad range of frequencies and energy levels.
Finally, space contains "large numbers" of neutrinos, tiny, ghostly little buggers that rarely interact with matter at all and are wicked hard to detect, even with large, expensive detectors under the best of conditions.
So, by way of preamble, big space,what we find between here and our moon, or between the Sun and Pluto and its moons, or between our Sun and the next star over, Proxima Centauri, and the space between the edge of our Milky Way galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy, broadly speaking, is not "a vacuum", nor is it empty. The very best vacuum we have ever managed to make in a lab here on Earth has more atoms and molecules left in it than in the atmosphere hanging around our Moon.
Okay, so be careful of what you call a vacuum. It exists, but it has relatively little to do with conduction, and even less with resistance, in my own view. Electricity is one of the emergent properties of the combination of the things we call matter and its internal components, particularly the so-called "charged" particles that are not contained in a charge-neutralized or neutral atomic combination such as an atom or a molecule - and space, where the "fields" which mediate the exertion of force and transmission of power across distances (length measures) within the vacuum.
All these things exist together, over the undefined extent of our Universe. Light supposedly can traverse this immense distance. So, too can the effect of the two long-range forces of electromagnetism and gravity, the specific origin of neither of which do we know. Not to put too fine a point on it. What we as a species know, and know well enough to convert into basic understandings of how our Universe works, is as an electron in an atom of seawater to the all the water in our oceans and skies and rivers and icepacks. And I'm being generous with that estimate.
Electricity in wired circuits and "printed" circuits and in our electric power generation industries and their transmission lines, is one form of electric phenomena, one we have particularly invented to harness electric power for our various uses, as a sentient, technological life form. Heaviside, Poynting, Ampere, and many others in the early days of discovering and experimenting with electricity to figure it out and write laws and define the parts and invent circuits and machines like motors and light emitters that ran on electricity, formed the basis of much of the thinking about how electricity works even today.
Electricity is usually thought of as a "current", defined as a flow of charged particles in a conductor which move with a force developed by the voltage, similar to physical concept of "pressure", and which meet a counter-force to their free movement, which is called resistance. Today, superconducting materials with zero or extraordinarily close to zero resistance have been invented and made and experimented with.
The power transmitted by electricity isn't carried through the wires in circuits, counter to what we hear in grade school. It is transmitted at the speed of light through the fields exterior to conductors or "wires" from the source - battery, generator, alternator, solar cell receiver, etc. The real carriers of electricity are in the electromagnetic field that permeates space everywhere, even right here. The fields are "mediated" or set up or acted upon by charged particles, usually electrons under our conditions, but any kind of moving charged particle affects the local electromagnetic field, perturbs it, and can cause it to direct force and power to a distant location.
So how about out in space where there aren't "wires".
Electricity "works good" there, too. It is still generated and directed by the presence of moving charges and their accompanying electromagnetic fields. Lets start close to home. Lightning doesn't need wires, although it can be conducted by them, too. Electricity travels from cloud to cloud, cloud to ground, and clouds to ionosphere and then magnetosphere, thousands of times every second on planet Earth, as well as throughout parts of near-Earth space, within and including Earth's entire magnetopshere.
Without wires. With moving charged particles, which are more efficient than wires becasue the positive charges are not tied down and virtually immobilized in a metal crystal lattice of ionic bonds.
What forces cause charged particles to move? Gravity fields and electric fields. Compared to the forces that can be set up by moving charged particle, gravity is usually not strong enouuguh to have a significant effect on their motion, so in most cases talking about electriciy and its forces and effects can safely neglect gravitational forces. But not always. Never dismiss gravity, like, what happens when all the positive and negative charges hook up and turn themselves back into electrically neutral or non-polarized states of matter? Gravity happens then, unimpeded by electrical forces
The word voltage, or voltage gradient, is exactly the same thing as an electric field. An electric field is created between areas of different net charge, as when more electrons are on one side of a plate capacitor and more positive charges are on the other plate. In space, there is nearly always a relatively high enough fraction of "loose" or unbound charges, like electrons, protons, loose radicals, etc. that it is fair and safe enough to say that space consists of plasma. Astronomers may say, but there are the same number of positive and negative charges, so it is "net neutral" and plasma can't exert large forces and gravity always wins. Those that do are unclear on the concept. Plasma is self-organizing; it creates double layers which maintain charge separation, and very large electric fields can be attained as a result. Stares are plasma, and they eject charged solar "wind" particles radially outward for great distance around them, large masses like coronal ejections are easily flicked away from a stellar surface at hundreds of km/s without batting an eyelash. Where's the net neutral passiveness of something as powerful as a star?
So, to the question. Does a vacuum exhibit resistance? My answer is, sure. It is, by definition, devoid of matter, and we don't really have an idea of what makes it up or work the way it does. But space, in the sense of the fullness of a Universe filled with galaxies and stars and dusty molecular clouds and planets and rubble, is NOT a vacuum. It is a plasma, for the most part, even on as cool and condensed a set of matter in a gravity well as our planet and other planets.
Does a plasma have resistance? Yes. As Professor Donald Scott elegantly shows in "The Electric Sky", a plasma system with a voltage gradient will conduct a current of charges which generates an electromagnetic field in which power flows from beginning to end, so long as there as a closed or complete circuit. A line drawn on his graph of the classes or modes of electric movement or discharge from the zero point (0,0) where the voltage (Y-axis) and current (x-axis) meet, to any point on the discharge graph lies above zero current. Thus, all points have a finite amount of resistance. Electric flow in a plasma - which can be extended to the plasma conditions throughout space, thus meets some degree of resistance. Should the charges become neutralized and the electric fields collapse, electric power flow stops and no electricity is "conducted". This is not a function of the resistance of the vacuum, which might be one of those inappropriate sets of terms together; it is a function of the charges and the plasma conditions. Disrupt or neutralize a plasma and you disrupt its current-carrying qualities.
It is an observation of the EU model that large, filamentary, current-carrying structures of moving charged particles connect and carry power across large distances of space. This power effects the workings and the observed phenomena in the Universe at large, as well as close by. The EU does not claim to know the precise source of the charge separation and self-organizational properties that emerge with large plasma structures.
To close a circuit requires the movement of charges from an area of more of the same charge polarization (negative or positive) to an area where there is less of that charge. That means, in cosmic currents, electrons tend to move as a current flow in one direction in the electric field, and positive charges such as protons move in the opposite direction. Both kinds contribute to the total current - defined as the number of charges passing through a square meter (or some other area unit of convenience) per second. In either direction!
To understand even the rudiments of seeing how the universe might organize itself along largely plasma-mediated lines, takes a commitment to read a lot, and to work to understand a lot of new and sometimes complex or difficult subjects. It is a perspective that is at once a couple hundred years old - possibly much older than that - and which today is still very much in its infancy. Don't bad-mouth anyone who finds it difficult to understand, or who has other ideas of how the science works. That's what energizes science,and should promote really interesting discussions and lots of trips back to the drawing board. Science that solidifies into a solid belief system leaves itself open to being taken over. Read Kuhn and Hook and other historians for an overview of scientific revolution. The signs are not obvious except, sometimes, in hindsight. They are common, and they are inevitable, if we are going to get good at this. Whether this is one of those times remains to be seen.
Buy books. Read them. Keep discussing what you think and are finding out. Be skeptical but constructive and positive. Be unfailingly polite to all, because how you answer your detractors and keep your cool will be watched and noted by those who are on the sidelines. There is a lot of information on the Thunderbolts site, and much more on the web and in bookstores and in all kinds of self-education. Good luck.
Cheers, mates Jim
viscount aero
Re: Does Space Insulate or Conduct?
CharlesChandler wrote: Electric currents in gases/plasmas are actually pretty easy to understand, if you start out with particle physics, and compare the expectations directly to the macroscopic properties of such currents.
Think of so many billiard balls on a table — perhaps a large table, with lots and lots of them. To make them analogous to atoms, let's magnetize them such that they'll stick to each other, like electrons sticking to atomic nuclei. Then let's put all of these little clusters into motion, such that they bounce gently off of each other.
If you start throwing queue balls through the population of clusters, the queue balls will collide with these clusters, slowing them down. This is resistance, instantiated at the particle level.
If the queue balls are traveling fast enough, when they collide with clusters, they will knock the clusters apart. Then the clusters will clank back together. The "clanking" in analogous to electron uptake by an ion, and that releases a photon. So this is analogous to a glow discharge. The queue balls still move slowly through the population of clusters, getting slowed down by all of those collisions. So the analogous electric current is still very weak.
At the next higher energy level, the queue balls are moving so fast that the collisions are violent. Aside from knocking the clusters apart, they also impart a lot of velocity to the cluster components, which is analogous to heat. The heat thins out the population of clusters, analogous to the reduction in density of a hot gas or plasma. This has an interesting effect — at a reduced density, there are fewer collisions. With fewer collisions, the collisions that do occur will be even more violent, meaning even more heat, and even less density, meaning even fewer collisions. So at this point, we've crossed a threshold, beyond which the dynamics are very different. The resistance drops to next to nothing; the velocities are extreme; and the clanking sounds (analogous to photon emission) are loud (analogous to brightness). In EE, this "threshold" is called the breakdown voltage, and it varies with the chemical composition, as well as the resting density of the gas. To have a breakdown, it's true that you need for there to be resistance that can be broken down. So you need molecules there, that can impede the flow of electrons. If the electric force acting on those electrons is sufficient to generate a substantial degree of heat, you get this runaway reaction that eliminates the resistance.
So... if there wasn't any resistance to begin with, it's true that there is no breakdown voltage. And in a perfect vacuum, there wouldn't be any resistance, so there wouldn't be any breakdown.
Does this mean that a perfect vacuum is a perfect conductor?
That all depends on how you define "conductor". But if you think that there has to be matter there to transport the electrons from point A to point B, you're mistaken. In gases and plasmas, if you subscribe to the atomic theory of matter, there is a lot of empty space between the atoms, and the electrons are definitely making the journey through that empty space. And the net velocity can be calculated as a straight function of the strength of the electric field, minus the electron's resting inertia, minus the time lost to collisions, times the mean free path between collisions. Plasmas might be conductors, but it isn't the matter in the plasmas that are responsible for getting the electrons from point A to point B. Rather, the matter presents the resistance. The free space between atoms presents no resistance at all. And the less dense the plasma, the less the resistance. In a perfect vacuum, there is no resistance.
BTW, I prefer using the term "electron drift" rather than "electric current" to refer to the movement of charged particles in plasmas, just to avoid all of the obfuscated concepts and terms in EE. But the bottom line is that charged particles move without restraint in a perfect vacuum (ummm... a vacuum except for themselves of course), and no, there doesn't have to be any matter there to transport the electrons, or +ions for that matter.
I really grasped your billiards symbolism
I think where I was coming from was a position that demands there be "something" in order for anything to happen. Doesn't electricity need a conducting medium?
Looking more into this, I found this definition:
"electrode [i′lek‚trōd] (electricity) • An electric conductor through which an electric current enters or leaves a medium, whether it be an electrolytic solution, solid, molten mass, gas, or vacuum. • One of the terminals used in dielectric heating or diathermy for applying the high-frequency electric field to the material being heated."
So you are right (?) Per definition, the vacuum of space offers no resistance whatsoever to anything. It is the perfect conductor. Per your explanation, too, the outer space vacuum is a superconductor. But it isn't composed of anything. It is pure nothingness (unless, again, we go into quantum fields and theoretical physics). That is why my mind gravitated to a non-partisan vacuum and why I concluded that it was neither a resistor nor a conductor.
Therefore if it acts like a conductor then it must be one
"...Currents measured during deployment phase were at least three times greater than predicted by analytical modeling, and amount of power generated was directly proportional to the current. Tether voltages of as high as 3,500 volts were developed across the tether, and current levels of about 480 milliamps were achieved. Researchers also able to study how gas from satellite's thrusters interacts with ionosphere. Also collected first-time measurements of ionized shock wave around the TSS satellite, a phenomenon that cannot be studied in the laboratory and is difficult to mathematically model. Another first was collection of data on the plasma wakes created by moving body through electrically-charged ionosphere. Some experiments conducted using free- flying satellite and attached tether before it re-entered Earth's atmosphere and broke up."
In the above account, were there no conductor, there would have been no electrical overloading of the tether. The vacuum itself was not only the conductor but it acted as the electrode (the Sun and Earth's plasmaspheres notwithstanding).
CharlesChandler
Re: Does Space Insulate or Conduct?
jjohnson wrote: Does a plasma have resistance? Yes.
Hey Jim!
With all of this talk about the theory of vacuums etc., the true issue isn't getting addressed. So let's evade the problems of perfect-this and perfect-that, and ask the practical question: all other factors being the same, which is a better conductor, 1) a high-density plasma, or 2) a low-density plasma?
The relevance is that EU theory seems to rely on high-density plasma being a better conductor, such that electric currents in space favor filaments of matter, treating them like cosmological extension cords. But the data show that there is a 1:1 relationship between resistance and density, all other factors being the same. So I'm saying that currents (if present) would avoid filaments of matter in space, and if they were going to flow at all, they'd prefer the interplanetary, interstellar, or intergalactic voids — wherever the density was less. This would leave stars without their external power sources.
For example, in the Earth's atmosphere, conductivity increases steadily with altitude, at a rate that is coupled to the reduction in density. The relationship is most direct within the troposphere, where there are no chemical differences with altitude (at least on a sunny day).
Conductivity per altitude, as collected by a rocket-borne Gerdien cylinder, courtesy Lars Wåhlin. Note that at about 12 km above the surface, where the density is roughly 1/3 that at the surface, the conductivity is 3 times greater.
Wåhlin, L., 1989: Atmospheric Electricity. New York: Research Studies Press (John Wiley & Sons)
D_Archer
Re: Does Space Insulate or Conduct?
CharlesChandler wrote: that currents (if present) would avoid filaments of matter in space
The filaments are the currents Charles, another baseless attack on the EU paradigm.
