Frederick David Tombe

The historical linkage between optics and electromagnetism can be traced back to the year 1855, when Wilhelm Eduard Weber and Rudolf Kohlrausch, by discharging a Leyden Jar (a capacitor), demonstrated that the ratio of the electrostatic and electrodynamic units of charge is equal to c√2, where c is the directly measured speed of light. Although not initially aware of the connection to the speed of light, Weber interpreted c√2 as a kind of mutual escape velocity for two elements of electricity in relative motion, such as would enable the induced magnetic force to overcome the mutual electrostatic force. A few years later, James Clerk Maxwell converted this ratio from electrodynamic units to electromagnetic units, hence exposing the speed of light directly. On connecting Weber’s ratio to the dielectric constant in an all-pervading elastic solid, Maxwell concluded that light consists in the transverse undulations of the same medium that is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena. The differing perspectives of Weber and Maxwell can be reconciled by linking the speed of light to the circumferential speed of the electric particles surrounding the tiny molecular vortices that Maxwell believed to be the constituent units of the luminiferous medium. If we consider these molecular vortices to be tiny electric current circulations, mutually aligned along their rotation axes to form magnetic lines of force, magnetic repulsion can then be explained in terms of centrifugal pressure acting sideways from these field lines. And if these molecular vortices should take the more precise dipolar form of an electron and a positron in mutual orbit, we can then further explain magnetic attraction, this time in terms of the more fundamental electrostatic force being channeled along the double helix of electrons and positrons that forms a magnetic line of force.

The Lorentz transformations are best known for the relativistic Lorentz factor, γ = 1/√(1 – v^2/c^2), which appears in the equations of special relativity, and it is also known that the Lorentz transformations can be used to derive both the Biot-Savart law in the form B = γv×E/c^2, and the magnetic force in the form E = γv×B.
      It could therefore be argued that magnetism is a relativistic effect, even though it is observed at laboratory speeds. This article will now examine how the physical structure of the luminiferous medium enables the existence of magnetism. The aim will be to identify the latent presence of the speed of light within the fabric of a laboratory magnetic field. On establishing this, the Lorentz factor will then be exposed as an asymptotic coefficient which only becomes significant at speeds close to the speed of light.

Although Maxwell’s most important equations had already appeared throughout his seminal paper entitled “On Physical Lines of Force” , which was written in 1861, it was not until 1864 that Maxwell created a distinct listing of eight equations in his follow up paper known as “A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field” . This was in a section headed as ‘General Equations of the Electromagnetic Field’. While Maxwell refers to twenty equations at the end of this section, there are in fact only eight equations as such. Maxwell arrives at the figure of twenty because he splits six of these equations into their three Cartesian components. Maxwell’s eight original equations,

Jtotal = Jconduction + ∂D/∂t                                                                        (A)
∇×A = μH                                                                                                          (B)                                                                             
∇×H = Jtotal                                                                                                      (C)                                                                       
E = μv×H − ∂A/∂t − ∇ψ                                                                                    (D)                                                               
D = eE                                                                                                                (E)                                                                                   
E = RJconduction                                                                                            (F)                                                                             
∇∙D = ρ                                                                                                              (G)                                                                                   
∇∙J + ∂ρ/∂t = 0                                                                                                  (H)               

will be discussed in depth in individual sections throughout this paper.

James Clerk Maxwell is credited with having brought electricity, magnetism, and optical phenomena, together into one unified theory. The details of what exactly he did were however seriously distorted in twentieth century physics textbooks. Maxwell is most famous in connection with a set of equations which bear his name, but these equations have been totally removed from the physical context within which Maxwell was working, and outside of that physical context the full meaning of these equations is lost. Maxwell was working within the context of a sea of tiny aethereal vortices pressing against each other with centrifugal force. The centrifugal force bit was crucial for explaining magnetic repulsion, yet both centrifugal force and aether are stringently denied by modern physicists who nevertheless continue to hail Maxwell for the equations that he derived by using these very concepts which they deny. This irony seems to be explained at least in part because they think that the equations can be re-derived using Einstein's special theory of relativity. Such an erroneous belief stems from the fact that one of the most important of Maxwell's equations has been wrongly credited to Lorentz and referred to as the Lorentz force law and treated as 'supplementary' to Maxwell's equations. Einstein, being ignorant of Maxwell's original equations and the fact that they contained the Lorentz force law, hence wrongly believed that the equations contained no convective term, and so he made the erroneous conclusion that Maxwell's equations mean that the speed of light must be frame independent in contradiction of classical principles of vector addition of velocities. This erroneous conclusion led Einstein to his special theory of relativity in 1905, and it subsequently led to the erroneous belief amongst both relativists and many anti-relativists, that Einstein's special theory of relativity follows naturally from Maxwell's theory, when in fact Maxwell and Einstein were not even remotely working along the same lines.

Serbian American electrical engineer Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), wrote,
“Long ago he (mankind) recognized that all perceptible matter comes from a primary substance, of a tenuity beyond conception, filling all space, the Ākāśa or luminiferous ether, which is acted upon by the life-giving Prana or creative force, calling into existence, in never ending cycles, all things and phenomena. The primary substance, thrown into infinitesimal whirls of prodigious velocity, becomes gross matter; the force subsiding, the motion ceases and matter disappears, reverting to the primary substance.”
We will now investigate as to what exactly this was supposed to mean.

When a theory of electromagnetism promotes the idea that the medium for the propagation of light waves is an elastic solid comprised of electric particles, the question is always going to be asked as to why this medium would not generate friction in the planetary orbits, such as would cause the planets to spiral into the Sun. It would be impossible for a moving body to completely avoid any physical interaction with these electric particles, and so, in order to comply with Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion, this interaction must be the actual cause of the inertial forces, as opposed to being the cause of any dissipative friction.

If ponderable matter serves as a sink for an all-pervading and all-connecting fluid-like aether, the role of rotation in the stability of the universe, and also in the structure of the medium for the propagation of light, will now be examined.

It was German physicist Gustav Robert Kirchhoff in the year 1857 who first identified the connection between the speed of light and the speed of electric signals in a conducting wire. Meanwhile, although charged particles in a conductor don’t travel at anywhere near the speed of light, this is not considered to be a contradiction, because it is generally accepted that it is changes in the electric current, and not the electric current itself, that are propagated at the speed of light, the assumption being that a longitudinal compression wave propagates through the electron cloud in the conducting material.
      The idea of such a compression wave travelling at the speed of light is not however very convincing, because it’s unlikely that such a wave would just happen to propagate through a cloud of outer shell conduction electrons at exactly the same speed as wireless radiation in space, never mind how the same approach would then also apply in an electrolytic conducting solution. This matter will therefore be investigated further.

Just because centrifugal force isn't a Newtonian force doesn't mean that it isn't a real force. While the prevailing point of view is, that a Newtonian force is a superior kind of force as compared with an inertial force, this perspective hinges entirely on the existence of the totally undefined concept known as an inertial frame of reference. So first of all, we need to establish the physical basis for an inertial frame of reference, and only then will we be better placed to decide whether or not the Newtonian forces are any more real than the inertial forces.

Maxwell's equations are an extrapolation into outer space, of the equations of electromagnetism that were originally established in connection with laboratory electric circuits. In outer space, however, no source electric circuits, as would be required to give meaning to the terms in the equations, are considered to exist. This discrepancy is of course resolved by virtue of the fact that Maxwell developed his equations on the basis that space is densely populated with tiny aethereal vortices, which in effect serve as miniature electric circuits within which the equations of electromagnetism that are contributory to the electromagnetic wave equations, can be applied. This article will examine the deeper nature of a ray of starlight in outer space, in the narrowest context that is physically possible within the framework that Maxwell's sea of aethereal vortices serves as the medium for the propagation of such waves.

In a steady state electric circuit, it is assumed that the current emerging from one terminal is equal to the current which returns back into the power source at the other terminal. This assumption sits alongside the belief that electric current is primarily a flow of charged particles, but this belief doesn’t sit well with transmission lines. An alternative proposal for the deeper physical nature of electric current will now be considered such as to take into account the energy that is dissipated due to ohmic resistance and radiation.

James Clerk Maxwell originally derived his famous equations on the basis that they were the equations that naturally followed hydrodynamically from a sea of tiny aethereal vortices. Nevertheless, Maxwell had difficulty comprehending how such a sea of aethereal vortices could remain stable, and so he introduced electric particles as idle wheels to move around the circumference of his vortices. Maxwell, however, was never happy about this idea and so his sea of vortices ended up on the back burner. This article will briefly examine where Maxwell went wrong with respect to his idle wheels.

There are two physical effects which cause atomic clocks to run slower. These are motion and gravity, and the rate of retardation can be quantified using equations that are closely related to the equations of relativity. This article will examine why this should be, and what the common physical mechanism is between motion and escape velocity that results in these two factors having an identical physical effect on the clock mechanism.

The transformed time in a Lorentz transformation was originally intended to apply to local time as opposed to astronomical time, but without any clear definition as to what was meant by the term "local time". This article will seek to place local time on a firm physical basis that is relevant to the context under consideration.

In the year 1855, German physicists Wilhelm Eduard Weber and Rudolf Hermann Arndt Kohlrausch performed an experiment involving the discharge of a Leyden jar and they established the ratio between electrostatic and electrodynamic units of charge. This ratio, which became known as Weber's constant, was measured numerically to be c√2, where c was very close to the speed of light. Since this experiment had nothing to do with optics, the question then arises as to whether they had perhaps actually measured the speed of electric current, which just happens to be close to the speed of light for the reason that the speed of light is in turn determined by the speed of electric current within the context of the medium for the propagation of light. We must establish the physical commonality between light and electric current.

The purpose is to show that the equation E = mc^2 was already implicit in Maxwell's 1861 paper "On Physical Lines of Force" and that it doesn't mean that mass is equivalent to energy, but rather it relates to the propagation of electromagnetic radiation through a sea of rotating electron-positron dipoles which pervades all of space.

The Planck-Einstein relation, E = hf, relates the energy of discrete pulses of black body radiation, X-rays, and gamma rays to their wave frequency. This relationship appears to contradict the wave theory of light. An investigation will now take place regarding whether the Planck-Einstein relation, and Planck’s constant itself, lie in the domain of the medium for the propagation of light, or in the vestibule of the atom, or in both.

Displacement current was originally conceived by James Clerk Maxwell in 1861 in connection with linear polarization in a dielectric solid which he believed to pervade all of space. Modern textbooks, however, adopt a different approach. The official teaching today is that displacement current is a consequence of extending the original solenoidal Ampère’s Circuital Law to embrace the conservation of electric charge. Yet, unless either of these two methods leads to a displacement current that is related to Faraday’s Law of Induction, then it cannot serve its main purpose, which is to provide a connecting bridge between Ampère’s Circuital Law and Faraday’s Law, hence enabling the derivation of the electromagnetic wave equations. This matter will be investigated in both the Lorenz gauge and the Coulomb gauge.

The Dirac Sea was proposed by P.A.M. Dirac in the year 1930 to explain the negative solutions to the Dirac Equation of 1928. A few years later, in 1934, Dirac invoked the Dirac Sea idea to explain the phenomena of electron-positron pair production and annihilation, that had been discovered by Carl Anderson in 1932. The suggestion was, that throughout the universe there exists an all-pervading underworld in a negative energy state, and that this is filled with electrons. Similarities to nineteenth century luminiferous aethers will be discussed and the question asked as to why the Dirac Sea, and later theories of the quantum vacuum, have never been associated with the propagation medium for electromagnetic waves.

The rattleback (Celtic stone) is the most mysterious phenomenon in classical mechanics. It freely undergoes a complete reversal of its angular momentum without the involvement of any apparent external torque. This mystery will now be investigated at the atomic and molecular level.

Since Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell wrote his Treatise in 1873, it has generally been believed that wireless electromagnetic radiation consists of sinusoidally oscillating electric and magnetic fields, perpendicular to each other and mutually perpendicular to the direction of propagation. The reasons as to why Maxwell concluded these mutually perpendicular orientations will now be investigated, as will the issue of the relative phase in time as between these electric and magnetic disturbances.

Ampère’s Circuital Law is the most controversial of Maxwell’s equations due to its association with displacement current. The controversy centres around the fact that Maxwell’s entire physical basis for introducing the concept of displacement current in the first place, was the existence of a dense sea of molecular vortices pervading all of space. The modern-day physical parameter known as the electric permittivity, ε, being reciprocally related to the dielectric constant, is historically rooted in the elasticity of this medium. Indeed, the dielectric constant served as the vehicle through which the speed of light was imported into the analysis from the 1855 Weber-Kohlrausch experiment, yet the medium itself has since been totally eliminated from the textbooks. In order to understand how the omission of Maxwell’s vortex sea has impacted upon electromagnetic theory, this article will take a close examination of both the Biot-Savart Law and Ampère’s Circuital Law.

It is proposed that all space is permeated with a dense electrically neutral sea of electrons and positrons which serves as the medium for the propagation of light. The challenge remains to devise a stable bonding mechanism within this luminiferous medium that conforms with Maxwell’s equations by providing the necessary solidity and the physical mechanism that will give rise to the characteristics of electromagnetic waves, while at the same time allowing for the fluidity that would avoid the problem of friction in the planetary orbits.

Centrifugal force is an inertial effect which is induced by motion through the luminiferous medium. While it can act in opposition to gravity, there is evidence from Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, that gravity, if strong enough, can affect the physical structure of the luminiferous medium in such a way as to destroy the centrifugal force and convert it into an electrostatic force of attraction that augments the gravity. The physical nature of centrifugal force and the manner in which it can be altered by gravity will now be investigated.

Electromagnetic radiation in deep space, such as starlight, constitutes a propagated disturbance in the prevailing background magnetic field. EM waves can therefore either be directed along the magnetic lines of force, or perpendicular to them, or at any angle in between. With reference to the double helix theory of the magnetic field [1], the common denominator as between perpendicular radiation and parallel radiation will be established.

This article takes a closer look at the bonding and stability mechanisms within the electron-positron dipole sea and how these result in the double helix theory of the magnetic field. The physical connection between the inertial forces and magnetic repulsion will be further investigated.

The modern teaching is that centrifugal force only exists as a fictitious force in a rotating frame of reference, and that the only force acting in an inertial frame of reference when a body undergoes circular motion is an inward acting centripetal force. On the contrary however, it is here proposed that a rotating frame of reference, rather than creating a fictitious centrifugal force, actually masks the existence of a very real inertial centripetal force that has gone unrecognized in the literature. When the books are correctly balanced, it will be demonstrated that centrifugal force is a real force, closely related to kinetic energy, and observable in any frame of reference.

James Clerk-Maxwell suggested that magnetic repulsion is caused by centrifugal force acting between tiny molecular vortices that fill all space. In this article, Maxwell's molecular vortices are considered more accurately to constitute rotating electron-positron dipoles, and the electromagnetic wave equation is derived from the angular momentum of such a dipole without using Faraday's law, electric charge, or Maxwell's displacement current. The derivation involves a magnetic field vector H which takes an inverse power law of unity from the standard expression for the curl of a velocity. This is in contradiction to the standard Biot-Savart law which uses an inverse square law, but the discrepancy is accounted for by the usage of 'displacement' instead of electric charge. It is then suggested that magnetic repulsion closely follows the inverse cube law of centrifugal force.