Antenna question on the wrong website

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I had a quick look at that. It seems to be a mixture of serious, but speculative and dissenting, science and cranks. I don't have the time or inclination to separate one from the other.

Anyone proposing a change to Maxwell's equations, as they currently are, would need to demonstrate a non-trivial consequence which can be tested by experiment - and then wait patiently for the experiment. This is science. This technique has been used to confirm some very counter-intuitive aspects of quantum mechanics - I used to hope that hidden-variable theories would eliminate some of the stranger aspects of QM but experiment has all but got rid of hidden-variables. The universe is stranger than we think. That makes me very suspicious of people who want to make it more intuitive!
 
Will post the correct information one of these days. It turns out my library has been purged of the text with the faulty method and all that is left is correct stuff. My fault on that one for sure including my bad post from a good text, another oops. Everyone makes errors. In the mean time have a look at "Vector Particle Physics" which is very right and gloriously clear. Don't take my word for it. A few dollars and the light of Lockyer's understanding will illuminate.

RJM11- nice link- thanks for that.
 
theories versus facts

Violenceontheradio- how is that antenna project coming? Did a spring work out or did you find another great solution?

DF96- don't EVEN pretend science is settled or unified on EM theory or particle structures. Your somewhat arrogant statement suggest it is. There is a large scientific community who believe most of QED is "crank" theory as it is yet unproven with many missing particles the most prominent being the Higgs boson- or bozo-on as many call it because only bozos would look for such a ridiculous thing. Remember there is no pi-electron either and that was predicted as well as what will be impossible to find- the non-existent "graviton." I do not mind a little discussion on these off subject threads but just do not pretend you are an "absolute" authority. There are none so you cannot be one. Lockyer's work is one of the most clear and concise text I have ever read. Anyone interested in a different (rational) view should spend a few bucks and have their mind cleared of the popular garbage passed off as fact. Quantum's yes, QED NO!
 
There is not a large scientific community who believes that most of QED is crank. There is a largeish crank community most of whom have never even studied QED. QED does not have many missing particles. It only predicted one: the positron, and that has been found. In addition, as I said, QED more or less insisted that there be a photon too. QED makes astonishingly accurate predictions of measured phenomena, such as the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon. It is inconceivable that a seriously wrong theory could be so accurate. You may be confusing QED with QCD. QCD aka "The Standard Model" is undergoing intense scrutiny from real scientists - they are trying to find the holes in their own theory. Most of them expect to find corrections arising from experiment.

I have never heard of the pi-electron. The pion certainly exists. The graviton is still a matter of research, as general relativity does not seem to fit too well with quantum theory. About 35 years ago I helped show, by a series of calculations, that there are problems in this area (I was working on dimensional regularisation, which was a popular renormalisation trick - I showed that it doesn't work for quantum gravity).

I never claimed to be an "absolute" authority. On science there are none, as you rightly say. However, there is a difference between truth and error in science. Error is eventually discarded. Truth is eventually extended. In some areas we may not yet be clear which is which. It is my belief that the standard EM theory is true, although often misunderstood by people who want it to be more intuitive. Being true, it is likely to be extended at some point (QED already did this). Some of this extension could, perhaps, involve gravity but it is very unlikely to change antenna theory!

I note that instead of putting up rational argument you continue to refer me to a book I don't have, and suggest that I am arrogant. I am still waiting for you to tell me about the allegedly missing cross-product.
 
I have just read part of a discussion between Lockyer and someone else, looking at the kinematics of pion decay, and trying to point out that Lockyer does not know the difference between momentum and energy. At one point Lockyer seems to claim that momentum conservation does not apply. I deduce from this that Lockyer is not a serious dissenting scientist but just a crank with a bee in his bonnet.

I don't think I need to read his book!
 
I just read that entire lively discussion. To be fair, at first it looked like your assessment of him might be quite correct. However, by the end of that discussion thread, it was difficult to not believe that he might be on to something. And, to your points, having read the entire discussion, I note that he certainly does know the difference between momentum and energy and does also properly honor conservation of momentum, and definitely appears to be a serious scientist and not a "crank".

By the way, wouldn't it be "dynamics" rather than "kinematics"? In some mechanical engineering courses (Statics and Dynamics) that I took while getting my electrical engineering degree, I was taught that Kinematics was about the mathematical description of motion, not including the physical reasons for the motion, while Dynamics also included the physics that governed the motion.
 
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The part of the discussion I read was about energy and momentum conservation, which is kinematics. For particle physics dynamics is about the decay mechanism and the branching ratios if there is more than one potential decay path. This may crop up in other sections.

I will have a look at the rest of the discussion, as you suggest that the bit I referred to is not representative of the whole.

I do have concerns about some aspects of modern physics, but I have no reason to doubt EM and Maxwell's equations. I guess I see myself as a partly dissenting insider, rather than an external critic.
 
I have just read through the entire thread I linked to above, and it has strengthened my initial conclusion. Lockyer is not a serious dissenting scientist, although that is what he sincerely believes himself to be. I was very impressed by the patience and politeness of his critics, as they explained his (sometimes elementary) errors.

His view is that if you break up a particle then whatever flies out must have been inside the particle to start with. This is the mechanical engineering approach to fundamental physics. Where his theory disagrees with experiment he just says the experiment is wrong. He is confused about neutrinos, and does not accept that the weak interaction can create or destroy electrons. Essentially he believes in the conservation of certain particles, rather than the (partial) conservation of quantum numbers. He also cannot understand that a point particle can have properties, defined by its interactions.

Critics of EM will have to do better than that!
 
In free space, one wavelength at 260 MHz would be approximately v/f = 300x10^6 / 260x10^6 = 1.154 meters.

I guess free space means the same thing as electrical wavelength right? I was taught that the electrical wavelength = 984 divided by the frequency in MHz. The answer in feet that is. So 984 divided by 260 is 3.784615385 feet which is probably 1.154 meters I am guessing.

But that would not be the length you would need to cut the wire.

This would :

Physical wavelength is 936 divided by the frequency in MHz so 936 divided by 260 is 3.6 feet. With my limited knowledge I do not see any usefulness in calculating electrical wavelengths.
 
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