AUTHOR'S COMMENTARY
UP-TO-DATE REMARKS ON CHAPTER 1
[THE ELECTRON]
Copyright © Harold Aspden, 2002
It is 33 years since I wrote Physics without Einstein and, not surprisingly, there are new perspectives that can now clarify some of the doubts raised by what I have written in that work.
The Electron in Motion
In chapter 1, as to the nature of the electron charge, it is stated that the electron has spherical form and shown on p. 12 that its inertia, in having a mass property determined by its intrinsic electric energy as divided by c2, is a physical manifestation of its reaction to conserve and not radiate that energy when accelerated. This proposition, together with its mathematical proof hold as firm as ever. The analysis is based on an electric field disturbance within the actual body of charge propagating at the speed c. That suffices to establish the derived relationship between mass and energy. The analysis does not depend upon the assumption of a finite speed of propagation in the free space region outside the charge's spherical boundary radius. Nor indeed do I see any basis for thinking that a magnetic field disturbance might be set up within that body of charge.
I later came to accept that the electric field seated outside the charge of the electron is carried along with the electron as if part of a rigid whole, there being no electric field ripple set up in enveloping space by electron acceleration. It is as if the field we know as being attenuated with distance according to the inverse-square law is an instantaneous action-at-a-distance phenomemon, a feature now normally assumed in quantum theory but one which I was able to confirm once I discovered how Nature determines the Neumann Potential. See my paper [1988a].
This disposes of the dynamic electric field problem which I raised on page 6 of chapter 1. As to the question of raised on page 7 of whether magnetic field energy is a negative quantity in potential terms, this is really a question of how electric charge in motion interacts with other moving charge elsewhere. Here one needs to relate such motion to a common reference frame, the electromagnetic frame of reference set by the aether itself, meaning the crystal-like lattice array formed by the aether lattice charges, as discussed later on p. 96 in chapter 6. An isolated electron in motion is not interacting with other charge, because even though there are charges in the aether itself and an electron moving through the aether will disturb those charges by its electric field action, those aether charges in that lattice array define the electromagnetic frame of reference and so are not interacting with the electron in setting up a magnetic field. Though there are also virtual lepton charges in the fabric of the aether, the latter charges exist in oppositely-charged pairs and so the net effect of an intruding charge is zero.
The mutual interaction of charges in motion is the subject of chapter 2, but, as to chapter 1 and the analysis on pages 6 and 7, since we rule out of consideration the electron having any dynamic electric field energy component and now rule out any self-excited magnetic energy component, the latter having been regarded as negative, we are left only with kinetic energy. Hence, as the onward analysis in chapter 1 shows, there being no energy radiation accompanying acceleration of the solitary electron, its intrinsic energy is conserved and energy is also conserved as between the loss of potential energy from the accelerating source and the gain of kinetic energy by the electron.
It is appropriate here to explain that, though I rule out the possibility of an accelerated electron radiating any of its energy, I do not preclude energy radiation by a concerted in-phase oscillation of a group of electrons. If one has a formula for energy radiation as being proportional to (ne)2, where n electron charges e, move together, the lack of a contribution by (e)2 to this formula by each of those n electrons, reduces the radiation to proportionality with n(n-1)e2. I am aware of the role this has in Thomson scattering of X-rays by electrons and the experimental support for the formula, but as far as I can judge, that experimental support is not sufficiently precise to distinguish n2 from n(n-1)2, though X-ray scattering has been used in the early days of atomic theory to give a rough indication of the number of electrons in individual atoms.
Superconductivity
With hindsight I now wonder why I included the section dealing with superconductivity in Physics without Einstein. It was, I presume, to underline the point I had just made in chapter 1 concerning the fact that an accelerated electron does not radiate its energy. There are numerous electrons colliding together and with atoms in the normal state of a conductor, whether or not it is superconductive, so the point I had to make holds just as well without reference to the superconductive state.
In the event, however, superconductivity was later to become a very telling factor in supporting my aether theory, both in regard to what I came later to say on the subject of gravitation and the role of the 'supergraviton' and also on the theme of the way in which magnetic field energy is stored in the aether. In this connection I refer the interested reader to my reference [1989a].
The reader may now wish to return to the Contents page of Physics without Einstein.