Re: How a magnetic field can deflect the path of an electron

On Nov 7, 12:33 am, frankli...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
It is well known that when an electron passes through a magnetic
field, it is deflected in accordance to the Lorentz Force Law. An
explanation of this can be found at:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/hframe.html

While this well known, the question is, just how does this happen? Why
should an electron's path be bent in a magnetic field? What is doing
the "bending"? Why is it that if the electron is not moving, it is not
attracted or repelled by the magnetic field and why does the force on
the electron depend on the velocity of the electron. Furthermore, why
is the force on the electron at right angles to both the direction of
the magnetic field and the direction of the electron.

This post attempts to answer these challenging questions.

While this is not a crazy question, I'll just make a couple of
comments.
- The way physics works is not to directly ask *why* a physical law is
the way it is (and not some other way), but to note what the laws are,
exactly. Bootstrapped to the extrication of these laws come some
concepts that are foundational to writing the laws. In the present
case, there's the concept of a magnetic field and the law associated
with that field goes like this F = qv x B, where v and B are vector
velocity and vector magnetic field and the "x" symbol refers to a
vector cross product. This law says *automatically* and by
construction that the force is perpendicular to the velocity because
the cross product result is *always* perpendicular to the factor
vectors. So your "why" question then becomes "but why is it qv x B?"
And this is where physicists say, "Until we have a more fundamental
law, it is sufficient to say that it is that way because it is." Now,
this may seem unsatisfying, but the way physicists tackle this is to
see where this law doesn't work and then to try to find a more
fundamental law that works in all cases where this law only works in
some. In so doing, a concept may be attached to that broader law that
gives some understanding of why it was qv x B. Note the order: Find a
law that works more broadly, and *then* use any concepts strapped to
the broader law to understand why the previous law was the way it was
-- and NOT in the order concept first, then broader law.

- It is tempting to say, "But I don't like the magnetic field concept.
It's too vague and mysterious and it has no little fundamental pieces,
and I don't see how an electron can be influenced without something
material pulling or pushing on it." But this is dangerous. The
dangerous presumption is that the world conforms to your vision that
*everything* works by banging little material things on other material
things. You are attempting to get the world to conform to *your*
underpinning conceptual framework, rather than asking how the world
works and trying to find the *right* conceptual framework that seems
to work best -- which may look nothing like little material things
banging on little material things.

PD


The answer turns out to be quite trivial if we first imagine space as
consisting of dipole pairs consisting of positrons and electrons. In
regions without a magnetic field, these dipoles are randomly oriented.
A charge passing through this field is not deflected in any meaningful
way. This is the normal case of an electron travelling in a straight
line.

Now, let us imagine a wire with a stream of electrons passing through
it. As these electrons pass they comb the field of dipoles surrounding
the wire such that they line up in the direction of the current flow.
What we see outside of the wire is an ordered alignment of dipole
pairs. The stronger the current, the stronger the alignment becomes.
This alignment of dipoles is actually what we refer to as a "magnetic"
field. Where ever you see a magnetic field, the physical realization
of this field is an alignment of dipole particles that make up space.

So now we have an aligned dipole field in the direction of current
flow. Now, what happens when an electron approaches the wire from a
perpendicular direction.  I have draw an ascii representation of this
situation.

     (incoming electron)
       |
      V
      e-

+-           +-
        +-
+-           +-  (surrounding aligned dipoles)

________________________> - -   -  -   - --    - - --- -   >      (wire with many electrons moving through it)

________________________

Space is actually solidly filled with these dipoles so in order to
move, the electron must separate the dipoles in order to pass by them.
       |
      V
      e-  (electron approaches aligned dipoles)
+-+-+-+-

      (electron is now squeezed between dipoles)
+-+-e-+-+-

In this situation, the electron sees an unbalanced force. To its left,
it sees a negative charge which it is repelled from and a positive
charge to the right which is attractive. This generates a force that
causes the electron to move to the right in this diagram as it passes
through additional layers of aligned dipoles.

+-+-+-e-+-

This is the answer to the question of what actually bends the path of
an electron as it passes through a magnetic field. It is a natural
consequence of passing through an aligned dipole field. This model
also allows us to understand the other questions I posed about the
magnetic field.

If the electron is not moving in the field, it will quickly cause its
own alignment of the dipoles such that all of the positive ends of the
dipoles end up pointing at the electron.
       -
      +
  -+e-+-
     +
     -

This disrupts the local field alignment and cancels all forces.
Therefore, we expect that an electron which is not moving in a
magnetic field, will not experience a net force.

The force on an electron passing through a magnetic field depends on
how many layers of aligned dipoles it is passing through. The more
layers an electron passes through, the more it will be influenced to
bend its path. The number of layers it passes through is directly
proportional to the velocity of the electron through the aligned
dipole field. This is the simple explanation for why an electron is
deflected more when it is travelling faster an why the force depends
on velocity.

From the diagrams it is easy to see that the force on the electron can
only be in the direction of the current that creates the field. It is
normally said that the force on an electron is at a 90 degree angle to
the magnetic field. However, it is just that the conventional magnetic
field is defined to be at 90 degrees to the current that generates it.
It is then confusing to see that the direction of force is at an
apparent 90 degree angle to the magnetic field direction, but really,
it is the direction and shape of the magnetic field that has been
improperly turned 90 degrees. If we consider the magnetic field as
being in the same direction as the current that generates it, it is
simple and intuitive to see that the force is always going to be in
the direction of the current that generates the field. It can also be
seen that the force is maximized when the electron approaches at a 90
degree angle to the current as it is the side-to-side forces that
cause the electron to be bent from a straight path.

In conclusion, I have provided a possible physical mechanism behind
the Lorentz Force Law. It relies on a dipole background field which
generates the necessary electrostatic forces to deflect an electron
travelling through it.

This is based on my earlier work from my TOEhttp://www.geocities.com/franklinhu/theory.htmlhttp://www.geocities.com/franklinhu/maghow.htmlhttp://www..geocities.com/franklinhu/magfield.html

I welcome your comments on this speculation, but considering that
mainstream science doesn't have any explanation for these phenomenon,
I'd say this was an interesting start.

-fhumag

.

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