Post by Empress Palpatine on Dec 30, 2009 12:54:09 GMT -6
This is the second part of my article "The Electro-Magnetic Force." If you have not yet read the first part, it is best if you do so before reading this as this is a continuation.
In the late 1700's and early 1800's, they found clever ways to make electricity and even ways to have it last a little longer. A man named Volta made the first crude battery. He filled a series of glass containers with some sort of liquid chemical and put metal sticks of two different metals in the containers of fluid. Each metal stick in the container had a different potential as far as electric charge. If connected, a charge would move through all the sticks. He wired them all together so that is just what they would do. The more containers with sticks wired together, the more juice would happen. The same would happen if one stuck each pair of metal sticks or nails in a series of lemons and wired them together. (The chemical in the lemon is likely similar.) The batteries that we use today are similar, just less weird looking.
The point is, they found a way to make electric juice. Nobody as yet knew magnets were similar, but they soon found out. In 1820, another person found out a weird fact. Compass needles were suddenly changing direction if they went near an electric current. For a few years they played with currents and magnets. Clunky glass jars with liquid or lemons was not a very convenient method (unless it it Gilligan's Island). They had their first clue that somehow magnets can cause currents to flow. In 1832, Faraday figured it out. One has to move the magnet to make anything happen. If they sit still, nothing happens. The details of how the fields of each interact is a bit complicated, but the short story is this: If you keep moving the wire or the magnet, the juice will keep flowing. Keep this up, and you can run your T.V. or your toaster. Now they just do this on a huge scale (move giant coils of wire near magnets) and send you the bill!
This method produces an ever regenerating electro-magnetic field. This is the one you can feel in a meditative state.
They did not take long to put it to industrial use. By the early 20th century everyone was plugging in. I am sure that when it was new, people contemplated what this mysterious new invisible force was. Freemasons and mystics of that time (Pike in particular) thought of it as the alchemical Azoth, even an aspect of God Himself. This was all forgotten though. By the time I was born, no one thought about it any more. Only in the past 60 days before writing this article did I even find out how they made electricity.
There are two things to think about when this force flows. There is what goes through the wire, and there is what extends outside the wire as it flows. That which flows through the wire is the current. This flows between the _ and the + end. The wire is made up of one of the metals that has electrons that are free to move. Silver or gold is best, but too expensive for common use. Copper works fine, so that is what they often use for wires. Such metals are conductive. The electrons just need a little persuasion to move from atom to atom along the wire. The persuasion is the moving magnet. It flows like water through a pipe.
For certain purposes there may be a section of "pipe" where they put a section that is a little less conductive than the rest of the wire. It is sort of like putting rocks in the pipe. The juice has to push a little harder against resistance. This can cause things to heat up/light up in that particular spot. This is what the filament on a common light bulb is.
But this is not the whole story. Something oozes beyond the wire, just like the something that oozes beyond the magnet. It is a force that pushes in a somewhat odd direction. It is not like the force when someone pushes something or throws a ball. Those kinds of forces are the most mundane, and they go in a line. This new force goes sideways and curls like a serpent. It is strongest right near the wire (or magnet) and becomes less and less intense as you go further away. Its flow and shape can be shown by arrows.
Here is an example of how it would flow around a live curled wire:
This is an example of a live straight wire's field:
Notice how similar it is to the magnet you saw in part I:
If you combine them and keep the current going by movement you get two fields firing each other up:
It is like two snakes coiling together!
This is more or less what the fields look like as the energies coil like snakes. What makes them stronger and lasting longer is keeping the charge going. Faraday figured out how. Move a magnet near the wires and the force will continue to flow. The more moving you do the more flow you get. Like two snakes, a magnetic field coils around a changing electric field. An electric field coils itself around a changing magnetic field. The word "coil," "coiling" or "curl" is used by the physics world.
This electro-magnetic field is not just seen with weird bare live wires. Lots of things can give off this field as long as what is happening with the wires and magnets is happening, even if the device looks different to the eye. Regardless of the device, the charges are:
The fact is, you are surrounded every day by many of these fields, and a sensitive person can feel it. Your T.V., radio, etc. have these. You are surrounded! When you think about it, there are so much more of these fields than our ancestors had. This is because we have so many gadgets and gizmos.
The physicists of the late 19th and early 20th century would not leave these forces to vague definition. They figured out math, math beyond the average person's comprehension. They even found that the electro-magnetic force was not just about the power in your wall socket.
In 1873 a fellow named James Maxwell wrote down math to show exactly how and where the fields curl.
So what if you take some small thing of charge and keep oscillating it rapidly to cause the field to steadily flow forth? The field can spread out a long way in waves, even into space, even far into empty space. By experiment they found how fast these waves go. They go as fast as light. There are so many kinds of waves, one of which is the radio you listen to. Certain waves are the light you see, the visible light spectrum.
So why such a variety of kinds of waves? The wavelength of the wave gives its characteristics. Some are for warming your food in the microwave. Some the doctor uses to x-ray a patient. There are many more. What seemed rather weird at the time is that electricity and light are at root the same. Even many people today do not realize it.
So, in a manner of speaking, we have all been using the Force in recent history. By ancient standards, modern society is using magick.
Part I and II has explained this Force from a scientific viewpoint. Part III will compare it to esoteric lore and the Force use of the Sith.
I used two books as my main source for parts I and II. I recommend them for anyone here who would like more detailed information. Both books are very readable to the normal person.
THE EVOLUTION OF PHYSICS From Early Concepts to Relativity and Light Quanta, by Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld. It first came out in 1938 and 1966 and was only recently re-released. A good part of this book is about electro-magnetism.
THE CARTOON GUIDE TO PHYSICS by Larry Gonick and Art Huffman, 1990. This one I loved because it had lots of pictures. It has a big section that deals with electro-magnetism. It is jam packed with info. It can be very hard to find readable books on this subject, but I think I hit the jackpot with these.
Here are a few links for the brave:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_current
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Field
Note: I especially like the picture that shows the arrows flowing forth and the two polarities. It gives such a feel. A closer look:
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/EfieldTwoOppositePointCharges.svg
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_field
Good hunting fellow Sith!
UNLIMITED POWER!!!!!!!!
In the late 1700's and early 1800's, they found clever ways to make electricity and even ways to have it last a little longer. A man named Volta made the first crude battery. He filled a series of glass containers with some sort of liquid chemical and put metal sticks of two different metals in the containers of fluid. Each metal stick in the container had a different potential as far as electric charge. If connected, a charge would move through all the sticks. He wired them all together so that is just what they would do. The more containers with sticks wired together, the more juice would happen. The same would happen if one stuck each pair of metal sticks or nails in a series of lemons and wired them together. (The chemical in the lemon is likely similar.) The batteries that we use today are similar, just less weird looking.
The point is, they found a way to make electric juice. Nobody as yet knew magnets were similar, but they soon found out. In 1820, another person found out a weird fact. Compass needles were suddenly changing direction if they went near an electric current. For a few years they played with currents and magnets. Clunky glass jars with liquid or lemons was not a very convenient method (unless it it Gilligan's Island). They had their first clue that somehow magnets can cause currents to flow. In 1832, Faraday figured it out. One has to move the magnet to make anything happen. If they sit still, nothing happens. The details of how the fields of each interact is a bit complicated, but the short story is this: If you keep moving the wire or the magnet, the juice will keep flowing. Keep this up, and you can run your T.V. or your toaster. Now they just do this on a huge scale (move giant coils of wire near magnets) and send you the bill!
This method produces an ever regenerating electro-magnetic field. This is the one you can feel in a meditative state.
They did not take long to put it to industrial use. By the early 20th century everyone was plugging in. I am sure that when it was new, people contemplated what this mysterious new invisible force was. Freemasons and mystics of that time (Pike in particular) thought of it as the alchemical Azoth, even an aspect of God Himself. This was all forgotten though. By the time I was born, no one thought about it any more. Only in the past 60 days before writing this article did I even find out how they made electricity.
There are two things to think about when this force flows. There is what goes through the wire, and there is what extends outside the wire as it flows. That which flows through the wire is the current. This flows between the _ and the + end. The wire is made up of one of the metals that has electrons that are free to move. Silver or gold is best, but too expensive for common use. Copper works fine, so that is what they often use for wires. Such metals are conductive. The electrons just need a little persuasion to move from atom to atom along the wire. The persuasion is the moving magnet. It flows like water through a pipe.
For certain purposes there may be a section of "pipe" where they put a section that is a little less conductive than the rest of the wire. It is sort of like putting rocks in the pipe. The juice has to push a little harder against resistance. This can cause things to heat up/light up in that particular spot. This is what the filament on a common light bulb is.
But this is not the whole story. Something oozes beyond the wire, just like the something that oozes beyond the magnet. It is a force that pushes in a somewhat odd direction. It is not like the force when someone pushes something or throws a ball. Those kinds of forces are the most mundane, and they go in a line. This new force goes sideways and curls like a serpent. It is strongest right near the wire (or magnet) and becomes less and less intense as you go further away. Its flow and shape can be shown by arrows.
Here is an example of how it would flow around a live curled wire:
This is an example of a live straight wire's field:
Notice how similar it is to the magnet you saw in part I:
If you combine them and keep the current going by movement you get two fields firing each other up:
It is like two snakes coiling together!
This is more or less what the fields look like as the energies coil like snakes. What makes them stronger and lasting longer is keeping the charge going. Faraday figured out how. Move a magnet near the wires and the force will continue to flow. The more moving you do the more flow you get. Like two snakes, a magnetic field coils around a changing electric field. An electric field coils itself around a changing magnetic field. The word "coil," "coiling" or "curl" is used by the physics world.
This electro-magnetic field is not just seen with weird bare live wires. Lots of things can give off this field as long as what is happening with the wires and magnets is happening, even if the device looks different to the eye. Regardless of the device, the charges are:
The fact is, you are surrounded every day by many of these fields, and a sensitive person can feel it. Your T.V., radio, etc. have these. You are surrounded! When you think about it, there are so much more of these fields than our ancestors had. This is because we have so many gadgets and gizmos.
The physicists of the late 19th and early 20th century would not leave these forces to vague definition. They figured out math, math beyond the average person's comprehension. They even found that the electro-magnetic force was not just about the power in your wall socket.
In 1873 a fellow named James Maxwell wrote down math to show exactly how and where the fields curl.
So what if you take some small thing of charge and keep oscillating it rapidly to cause the field to steadily flow forth? The field can spread out a long way in waves, even into space, even far into empty space. By experiment they found how fast these waves go. They go as fast as light. There are so many kinds of waves, one of which is the radio you listen to. Certain waves are the light you see, the visible light spectrum.
So why such a variety of kinds of waves? The wavelength of the wave gives its characteristics. Some are for warming your food in the microwave. Some the doctor uses to x-ray a patient. There are many more. What seemed rather weird at the time is that electricity and light are at root the same. Even many people today do not realize it.
So, in a manner of speaking, we have all been using the Force in recent history. By ancient standards, modern society is using magick.
Part I and II has explained this Force from a scientific viewpoint. Part III will compare it to esoteric lore and the Force use of the Sith.
I used two books as my main source for parts I and II. I recommend them for anyone here who would like more detailed information. Both books are very readable to the normal person.
THE EVOLUTION OF PHYSICS From Early Concepts to Relativity and Light Quanta, by Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld. It first came out in 1938 and 1966 and was only recently re-released. A good part of this book is about electro-magnetism.
THE CARTOON GUIDE TO PHYSICS by Larry Gonick and Art Huffman, 1990. This one I loved because it had lots of pictures. It has a big section that deals with electro-magnetism. It is jam packed with info. It can be very hard to find readable books on this subject, but I think I hit the jackpot with these.
Here are a few links for the brave:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_current
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Field
Note: I especially like the picture that shows the arrows flowing forth and the two polarities. It gives such a feel. A closer look:
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/EfieldTwoOppositePointCharges.svg
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_field
Good hunting fellow Sith!
UNLIMITED POWER!!!!!!!!