An idea I had

[richjkl]

I've been lurking around here for a while, reading and having a lot of fun thinking about the universe. But today I had an idea I felt might be worth sharing, or at least shot down by you friendly scientists! :) I apologize in advance if an idea like this has already been discussed here, I just haven't had enough time to look through all the posts!

Anyway, I was pondering the composition of electrons and protons and came to the conclusion that subatomic particles must also carry charge. Perhaps all atomic particles contain both positive and negative charge, only in varying amounts! Could an electron have an overall negative charge, but be held together by a positive subatomic particle? Could a proton be the opposite? And could a neutron just be equal amounts?

Now, I've read that the Earth has a very large negative charge, I'm not exactly sure why this is (perhaps the atmosphere is acting as an insulator? Is there already an explanation for this?), but assuming that the sun is a large positive body, it would make sense why the Earth would be attracted to it. But then, wouldn't that mean our moon is also a positive body?

For us humans, being relatively electrically neutral, we should be attracted to both a positive and negative body, as electrical charge is always trying to cancel out. This could make it appear as though there was a single pulling force of gravity, when really we are being pulled by two different charges.

Could the negative electric charge of the Earth be creating the illusion of mass? Could the negative force of the Earth pulling the positive subatomic particles in protons and neutrons explain why they appear so "massive"? At first I thought it couldn't be right, as if the negative force of the Earth was pulling on the positive subatomic particles, wouldn't it also be pushing on the negative ones? Yes, it must be, however, the proximity of the negative and positive subatomic particles makes the attraction strong enough for them to still hold together; in the same sense that magnetism decreases exponentially with distance.

And if an electron is composed of both positive and negative charge, could this be a possible explanation for why electrons don't just slam into the nucleus of an atom in an attempt to cancel the charge?

Could this be gravity, the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, and electromagnetism...all in one?

[rcglinsk]

Hiya,

A few things.

1. If you go into a lab and shoot objects at atoms you see scattering off a nucleus. It's pretty well verifiable that the only thing one can impact with another object in an atom is the nucleus. You can't smack and electron. So, I think there's pretty good evidence there for the larger volume of protons and neutrons compared to electrons. Now, I will add there is a "moon" model of an atom that excludes neutrons. In that model electrons are in the nucleus as well and there is a net of protons in the nucleus and a net of electrons in the valence. In the moon model protons have more volume than electrons and only protons can really collide with each other. Also, many theories of what a neutron is say a neutron is an electron orbiting a proton at a very, very small radius. If you read back through the thunder-blogs I think there was one that conjectured about a EM explanation for gravity that is quite similar but perhaps more developed than your own.

2. You are not neutral! You are negative right now, but during a rainstorm you become positive like the surface you stand on! Cool huh?

3. The large negative charge of the Earth exists always underneath the large positive charge of the "ionosphere." So, it's best to think of Earth as a "leaky capacitor." Go on google or wikipedia or whatever and read up on spherical capacitors. There are a lot of very nice resources out there.

4. I'm not aware of any laboratory experiment that shows neutral bodies being attracted to a charged body. Now, that is a zinger because nothing on Earth is entirely neutral, and we're always in the presence of very strong EM forces. However, from my understanding of the rules of Maxwell's laws, there is not a force between a neutral body and a charged one of the EM variety.

5. As for the rest of your post: I am inspired by your creativity. You think outside of the box and help us all progress. I don't know about any of it, but I'd sure like to find out. I think what you're getting at is very similar to some EU idea I read about either on thunderbolts or another EU-oriented page. I would use the following words: All charged bodies in motion generate magnetic fields. Magnetic fields will move toward an equilibrium that minimizes forces. That could explain gravity. However, we would need much more investigation to even build apparatus that might falsify the idea.

[richjkl]

1. Ah yes, that makes sense, thanks. But I do like the idea that a neutron is just an electron orbiting a proton at very close range, since it seems to match up with http://www.phy6.org/Education/winbelt.html

"The free neutron is however radioactive: within about 10 minutes it breaks up into a proton, which captures most of the energy, an electron and am essentially massless neutrino."

2. Sure, we acquire ambient charge, but isn't the matter we're composed of electrically balanced? (neutral)

4. Isn't this an example of a "neutral" object being attracted to a charged one?

"Connect a 100,000v DC power supply to a pair of bare parallel wires, and connect the other end to a long neon sign tube. The tube lights up, and a few tens of milliamps flow in the connecting wires. At the same time the wires will attract lint, cause arm-hair to rise..."

http://amasci.com/emotor/nostat.txt

[substance]

Of course you can attract or repel a neutral body with a charged one. It`s molecules and atoms simply become dipoles, right? Although it is a very slight effect.
Also I thought that the quark sub-structure of the proton and neutron was a proven fact, wasn`t it?

[richjkl]

Of course you can attract or repel a neutral body with a charged one. It`s molecules and atoms simply become dipoles, right? Although it is a very slight effect.

Well, I'm not so sure about being able to repel a neutral body with a charged one. If I understand the wires example correctly, it's the negative particles within the lint which are being pulled towards the positive wire, and the positive particles which are being pulled towards the negative. On the atomic scale, there are positive and negative particles which compose the atoms of the lint, and they are close enough to negate the effects of the external field (as per the atoms don't get ripped into pieces), but the lint as a whole should be attracted to BOTH wires.

And about quarks...it's hard to say. From what I've read on wikipedia, all observations regarding subatomic particles are indirect, but I'd like to find a better resource to learn about what goes on in particle accelerators. Anyone know any good places?

[MGmirkin]

Of course you can attract or repel a neutral body with a charged one.

How so? Wouldn't the attractive and repulsive forces cancel? I mean, if you're in electrical equilibrium (more-or-less), then wouldn't half your body be positive charges and half your body be negative charges? If you have a singly-charged body some distance away, are you attracted to it? It seems like half your body's particles / atoms would be attracted, and half would be repelled, resulting in no net attraction or repulsion?

That's probably WAY too simplistic as it doesn't take into account the magnitude of the charges in the other body and the resulting electric field. While the body may act something like a dielectric insulator {?} that's not to say that a sufficiently strong electric field couldn't cause it to break down and for bits and pieces to become dislodged (as in the case of sparks to doorknobs probably stripping away some dead skin cells or lightning causing certain ions or charged particle in the body to migrate and generally wreak havoc as they're pulled apart or through various membranes, walls and other things through which they were never meant to pass).

But, could the whole and complete unit be pulled wholesale? I don't know... I suppose, if the body holds a significant overall charge then a large opposite charge could act as an attractor of the body whole? Really don't know tho'...

~Michael

[substance]

Well as far as I understand it the charge created by the atomic dipoles cancels out on almost the entire surface, but on one side of the object there is still a negatively charged layer and on the other a positively charged one. So that it can be repelled/attracted, but it is a very subtle effect. Watch this lecture from around the 12th minute. The professor demonstrates it with a balloon, because it`s a subtle thing, but it had static electricity on the surface, so the experiment was a bit biased.

[electrodogg1]

richjkl said:

Anyway, I was pondering the composition of electrons and protons and came to the conclusion that subatomic particles must also carry charge.

This is the idea of Ralph Sansbury accepted by Wal Thornhill in his Thunderblog of August 22, 2008. It is very interesting and shows how gravity is an electrical effect. I recommend it.

[junglelord]

A link to the Sansbury model and literature
http://mysite.verizon.net/r9ns/

[saturnine]

Here's an interesting quote from the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center's (http://www2.slac.stanford.edu/VVC/theory/quarks.html) website:

How Do We Know Quarks Are Real?

A question you might well ask! If we cannot separate them out, how do we know they are there? The answer is simply that all our calculations depend on their existence and give the right answers for the experiments.

In other words, quarks have been proven to exist just like black holes, dark matter, dark energy, etc.
The Sansbury model linked above doesn't seem to use quarks, but to be honest I only glanced through it as most of it was over my head.

[substance]

Wow, from the way our teacher talks about quarks, one would be really convinced in their existence! And it`s not only about the substructure of neutrons and protons.. she is so sure of everything physics and astronomy related...