I appreciate your courage... Discussions can get tough if you touch on people's internal beliefs... But the only way to achieve real understanding is being able to explain to others....The thread clearly shows that people have a very intuitive understanding of charge, though they seem to use very different definitions.Steve Smith wrote:I really didn't want to get into this discussion because it has gone down so many rabbit trails that I can't find a straight path through the thread. Forgive me if I repeat what others have said.
I agree with the "material" statement. Space is material, but I'm confused why you have to add the "of matter" property. Solid matter is almost the opposite of moving charge and this statement also leaves a gap to understand the propagation of EM waves.Dave Thomson was correct in that charge is a fundamental "property" [of matter]. Because electric charge is fundamental it's like mass or length, it's a foundational principle that's used to help explain other phenomena -- what it electric current? It's the flow of electric charge. We might as well ask "what is space" or "what is time" -- those fundamental concepts are very difficult to break into. In many ways, people get trapped into logical fallacies when trying to explain them. The arguments become circular very rapidly.
Electric charge IS material. It is not "energy" (another difficult to define term)
The point is that "charge" IS the actual fabric of 'space' and sure that is 'recursive'. But recursivity is a condition for an active self-contained system. It also get's rid of that intangible aether discussion...
It is essential to understand that next to the space dimension also a time dimension is needed to 'observe' the space dimension. Both the space and time dimension are not directly observable, they can only observe eachother. Charge can then move in the space dimension as a current or wiggle in the time dimension as magnetism. In that sense the (electromagnetic) vector potential can be seen as the fabric of "time". This is the one-dimensional definition of "spacetime" as viewed from a 'point' in space itself.
The time it takes to move space (T/S) is the definition of the energy (the 'slowness' to move space).
Positive and negative charge is charge moving in opposite directions.it is a component of matter, more specifically, rather than a property of substance. When one peers into the atom, one finds that it is composed of charged particles. "Things" are made of electric charge, both positive and negative. "Things" are solid only because the electric charges in them are keeping them from falling apart; the postive and negative charges are equally balanced, attract one another and form chemical bonds.
Thunderbolts rule! But the actual charge separation will only happen on a surface.Chemistry is electrical in nature, as are all natural processes. For instance, whenever something moves through space it is electric charge that's moving. When I walk down the street, the + and - charges in my body are moving together, so electric charge can change location. We call that "kinetic" or "mechanical" action. But, if somehow the negative charges in my body decided to move while all the positive charge stayed behind I would become the center of an electric current that would convert me into a flash of lightning.
The charge moves along the space on the surface of the wires.Electric charge has nothing to do with energy. They aren't the same thing at all. Electric charge is slow while the energy in the circuit is fast. In many ways I've been incorrect in referring to "electrical energy" offhandedly because the two concepts aren't related. When the power station sends me electricity, the electric charges in the wire hardly move at all, they just kind of vibrate in place. However, the energy in that transmission moves at the speed of light. Like waves in water -- and water is an excellent analogue to electric charge -- the water molecules don't move, the wave passes "through" them, leaving them right where they were. In that same way, electric charge is what the energy flows "through".
It is hard to understand since there is recursivity, even at the basic level of 'what is space'? Our discussion is an example of the universe observing itself and so is any manifestation of energy.So, what is charge? Have I become circular, as well? Can it be avoided? Electric current is the flow of electric charge. It's voltage that makes current flow and (high) voltage is static electricity. Electrostatic fields are formed when the charges in an atom are not balanced. If I remove the electron from a hydrogen atom and move it somewhere else, an e-field will be created -- the "spring" that wants to pull the hydrogen atom back together again. Incidentally, that's how hydrogen fuel-cells work
I leave it here. I'm not sure that I contributed to any understanding. It's taken me years to comprehend "coulombs" and why they aren't "joules", but that's the most elementary part of the thing.
I think that is the right word...a point in space is more than an abstract point in space.My good friend Mel Acheson likes the word "reify". I believe that that is a principle that shouldn't be ignored in this discussion. Because we call a phenomenological group "electricity" doesn't make it real. Some one I know wrote that you can spend all night looking at the stars and you won't find any astronomy up there.