Recent content by Diane Wilbor

Thanks for the references! I can understand the idea of initial ionization appearing randomly and causing multiple branches. But if those branches do not terminate at a current sink (like a lower potential cloud, or literally to ground), then why (and how) does massive current travel down...

When a voltage gradient across a dielectric becomes too large, the material will break down and become conductive, mostly because of plasma ionization. Thus we get lighning, static electricity fingertip shocks, and tesla coil shows. But often during such breakdowns, there are multiple...

Eric, great idea! And I've done exactly that, looking in Griffiths, Jackson, Smythe, and Eyges texts. I haven't spotted any problem like this one. I suspect the proof is simple and obvious, I just can't spot it. Over the weekend I did verify the cosine solution is correct for a cylinder as...

I keep thinking about Green's functions. We don't have the greens function explicitly, but the (given) surface density does actually represent ##{\partial G\over\partial N} \cdot N##. Could we convert a source Greens function to a dipole Greens function by some kind of manipulation? Changing the...

Right, the dipole induces postive charges in one direction and negative in the other. That's what my proposed ##\cos \theta## term does. But I have to prove that the math behind that hypothesis is correct.

Homework Statement A grounded Z-axis symmetric closed conductor has a single point charge at the origin within it, inducing negative charge onto its inner surface. Given the induced charge density from the unit point charge, find the surface charge induced instead by a unit dipole at the...

Thanks for the great forums! I'm working on numerically solving 2D waveguide problems.