Re: Hidden Richness in Electromagnetism

From: Gregory L. Hansen (glhansen_at_steel.ucs.indiana.edu)
Date: 03/19/05 

Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 13:27:01 +0000 (UTC)

In article <1111196174.457106.322890@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
Bohl <aharanovbohm@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>hhc314@yahoo.com wrote:
>> In a nutshell, aren't all EM waves 'transverse'?
>>
>> Harry C.
>
>
>Beats me. Well in medieval times, people don't know electromagnetic
>waves (light) fill the air... so who knows.. perhaps other waves
>fill the air too that is not EM transverse waves but its cousins
>not yet detectable by present instruments.

And perhaps invisible muffins fill the air. Ignorance is no reason to
prefer one particular unproven theory over another.

>
>Anyway. Let me just focus on the first paragraph. Can you show
>what this means "whenever an EM wave starts to
>form, both the transverse and longitudinal waves start to form.
>However, the transverse wave has a function, which cancels the
>longitudinal wave. So if that function persists, we get the
>familiar EM wave. Now when we cancel the normal wave, we cancel
>the component that had cancelled the LW (scalar wave). So we get
>out a LW (scalar wave)".
>
>What function is he talking about available in transverse wave
>that cancel the longitudinal wave?

It would be something novel. In free space, electromagnetic waves are
non-interacting and follow a simple superposition rule. E.g. a vertically
polarized wave can't turn a horizontally polarized wave into a vertically
polarized wave; they basically proceed independently as if the other
didn't exist. What he's talking about is an interaction term between the
transverse and longitudinal waves, one that has no theoretical or
experimental justification that I know of.

I'm not quite sure what he means by "longitudinal". If I didn't know he
has a thing for scalar waves, I'd assumed the longitudinal waves are
vector waves polarized longitudinally rather than transversely, which
is something that can happen only if the wave has mass. Which would imply
dispersion even in free space.

But I suppose he must mean scalar waves. The only analogy to scalar waves
that I can think of is sound waves. I don't think there's any scalar
analogy to, e.g., the photon or W bosons, so I can't say much about it off
the top of my head. 

-- 
"Not that there's anything wrong with just lying around on your back.  In 
its way, rotting is interesing too... It's just that there are other ways 
to spend your time as a cadaver."  -- Mary Roach, "Stiff", 2003.

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