Electrical current and direction of magnetic field

[rewebster]

Physics produces models. It does not, and never purported to, answer "what is?" questions: that's metaphysics.

When I think of metaphysics, it tends to be more toward the spiritual, or conversations of the essence of 'things'. There seems to be posts and debates and conversations in just about every one of the forums on all levels, including some, on what could easily be called 'metaphysical'. I don't personally think they should be banned at all, or restricted in a lot of ways (JIMHO). I think they should be encouraged, as long as they stay on or near the topic.

This is because just about every story you read or hear about the very initial concepts of ideas, the thoughts, and conversations tend toward what could be termed 'metaphysical'. One in particular that comes to mind is when Einstein was thinking and talking about light---"wondered about riding a beam of light"----IF you want to talk about something being in the area of 'metaphysics'--there it is---and where would the theories that he came up with be without this and his other 'metaphysical' thoughts that he thought about and talked to others about. (I would guess that if Einstein posted (somehow) a thread here titled, "I wonder what light would look like if I were riding on the beam?" --it may probably be 'locked' as too speculative.)

Forums are the new coffee houses that Einstein used to frequent-- (just a little more impersonal though).

From the first post:
I mean: what inside conductor's material (atoms) makes field go around that forward direction of current, and why is it ALWAYS the same direction of "swirl"? what mechanism, what logic is implied there??

You could, if you wanted to, take this as a 'metaphysical' question---so?


If you do look at a lot of the post thread titles even in the physics section of the physicsforum, you CAN interpret, if you want, them as 'metaphysical' questions. "what is magnetism?" , "reflecting light?" , "do photons...?" , etc., etc. Most questions will be answering the same, but one or two may spark a new thought--like Einstein's "riding a beam of light" asked in a different light (pun intended).

Who knows what question may spark a new line of thought.

("Answers are easy. It's asking the right questions which is hard."--D. W.---F.of E.)

That's why I was asking if there are any people (physicists) that enjoy thinking more about the fundamental aspects of physics theory. It seems that just because questions like 'what is magnetism?' is so well answered by rout (?) answers doesn't mean that a discussion may not bring up a new thought. Once in a while, I think that because, it seems, that because no one has ever answered it, that it is sometimes purposely thrown into the 'metaphysics' area as it seems to be unanswerable.

I personally think that it should be in the realm of a 'physics' question, as the question will have an answer eventually, I believe. Do you think that questions like this about the 'basics' that haven't been answered yet have to be, or should be, regarded as ' totally, completely, and absolutely unanswerable' and should be grouped with questions like, 'do people have souls?'

--------------------------------------------

If you don't want to be 'known' to have an interest in basic fundamental ideas, you can always send me a private message. I can see that some may see these types of questioning of 'basics' may seem to some as 'acknowledging' that there are still quite a few 'unknown' basic ideas, and some may not want to be known for having such an interest.

 

[rewebster]

There are definitely unresolved problems in fundamental theoretical physics. But the point is that until we have some very definite experimental evidence to compare with, we will have a very tough time coming up with a new theory.

What area/kind of very definite experimental evidence would you think that should be, or do you think it can be resolved mathematically?

 

[masudr]

By metaphysics, I usually mean about physics. While that fits in, more or less, to your interpretation of the word, it must be made clear that if any experiment can be done to produce results (whether actual experiments or thought experiments), then we move back into physics. e.g. "What if I was moving at speed c, what would I observe?" is not metaphysical.

As for the first post, it demonstrates that perhaps something fundamental is not yet understood: it is not that the conducting ions/electrons fundamentally make the magnetic field come about - we just observe this field in this situation.

As for unanswered theoretical questions requiring experimental evidence: e.g. magnetic monopoles, a setting where quantum gravity effects can be observed, scattering events where Higgs bosons should appear etc. There's a page on stuff like this in Wikipedia I think...

Edit Yes there is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsolved_problems_in_physics

 

[SAZAR]

I say that the strange perpendicular orientation of magnetic field compared to direction of current has to do with the SHAPE (cofiguration) of the charged particle itself.

Electron - it is composed of some basic building blocks of matter the same ones that orientate in space around the source of the magnetic field - actualy the space and the magnetic field itself.
The importance of its shape doesn't "come into light" until the particle is in motion.

I like this macro-world analogy: a bullet-like object falling from great hights - no matter how you drop it the side with more mass would be more attracted by gravitic field and it will gain its sense of dirrection (same is with electron in electric field - the side of electron that is more negatively charged will orientate toward source of the positive electric field that drives it toward itself), and then bullet just has to have some grooves so it forces air to spiral around it (the analogy with air (now regarding electron) is "space mass" of those disoriented bipolar primary building block particles of space vacuum, which because of configuration of those bipolar particles that make up the construction we call electron force vacuum particles to orientate around - and that's magnetic field). Simply put: gravity -> electric field; air -> "space particles"

Is this enough for Nobel Prize? :) ;)