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Earnshaw's theorem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earnshaw's_theorem gives a straightforward reason why we can't have a static equilibrium for a system of point charges. For some time I've been trying to find out if anyone's worked out a similar proof for the impossibility of a dynamic equilibrium. I had a memory of having heard such a theorem stated by one of my undergrad profs ca. 1983, and I went so far as to contact him and ask, but he didn't remember anything. Does anyone know anything about this topic?
The plausibility of such a result comes from the fact that by Earnshaw's theorem the charges must accelerate, and accelerating charges usually radiate. Therefore we would expect an arrangement of charges in some localized region of space to steadily lose energy and start to collapse. The end result would probably be either a single pointlike object or possibly multiple such objects heading off to infinity relative to one another. It's not obvious to me what is the best way, in general, to define stability or instability, so a more precise way to frame this is part of the problem. Maybe one way to define a dynamical equilibrium is that both the positions and the velocities of the particles remain bounded in magntiude. Or maybe there is some way to pose this in terms of statistical mechanics; collapse or breakup clearly increases the system's entropy.
The difficulty in proving such a result formally is that acceleration is a necessary but not sufficient condition for radiation. For example, if a spinning, uniformly charged, insulating sphere has inertial center-of-mass motion, it will not radiate, even though the elements of charge are all accelerating. There are even some examples that can be constructed of rigid charge distributions (in some cases asymmetric ones) that spin and undergo center-of-mass acceleration without radiating.[Goedeke 1964]
Goedeke speculates that "if we want the radiation to be exactly zero ... we probably cannot built a distribution out of point charges," although it's not obvious to me whether he means this statement to apply only to his rigid-rotation examples, and in any case he's only forming a conjecture. But it seems reasonable that the conjecture I'm concerned with should only be posed for a finite number of particles. (And I'm only talking about purely electromagnetic systems of point charges, whereas Goedeke's systems need other forces to maintain their rigidity.)
It's also interesting to think about how to pose and prove such a theorem in GR for a gravitationally interacting system, but it seems much tougher since you don't have a background spacetime.
By the way, googling about this stuff will turn up a lot of material by and about a kook named Randell Mills, who claims to have disproved quantum mechanics and found an unlimited source of energy. There are a couple of WP articles, "Nonradiation condition" and "BlackLight Power," where he has tried to promote himself. I think the former misstates the results by Goedeke and Haus, as well as vastly overstating their importance.
Goedeke 1964, http://journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev.135.B281 ; pdf at https://web.archive.org/web/20010305011426/http://www.hydrino.org/Papers/Goedecke.pdf
The plausibility of such a result comes from the fact that by Earnshaw's theorem the charges must accelerate, and accelerating charges usually radiate. Therefore we would expect an arrangement of charges in some localized region of space to steadily lose energy and start to collapse. The end result would probably be either a single pointlike object or possibly multiple such objects heading off to infinity relative to one another. It's not obvious to me what is the best way, in general, to define stability or instability, so a more precise way to frame this is part of the problem. Maybe one way to define a dynamical equilibrium is that both the positions and the velocities of the particles remain bounded in magntiude. Or maybe there is some way to pose this in terms of statistical mechanics; collapse or breakup clearly increases the system's entropy.
The difficulty in proving such a result formally is that acceleration is a necessary but not sufficient condition for radiation. For example, if a spinning, uniformly charged, insulating sphere has inertial center-of-mass motion, it will not radiate, even though the elements of charge are all accelerating. There are even some examples that can be constructed of rigid charge distributions (in some cases asymmetric ones) that spin and undergo center-of-mass acceleration without radiating.[Goedeke 1964]
Goedeke speculates that "if we want the radiation to be exactly zero ... we probably cannot built a distribution out of point charges," although it's not obvious to me whether he means this statement to apply only to his rigid-rotation examples, and in any case he's only forming a conjecture. But it seems reasonable that the conjecture I'm concerned with should only be posed for a finite number of particles. (And I'm only talking about purely electromagnetic systems of point charges, whereas Goedeke's systems need other forces to maintain their rigidity.)
It's also interesting to think about how to pose and prove such a theorem in GR for a gravitationally interacting system, but it seems much tougher since you don't have a background spacetime.
By the way, googling about this stuff will turn up a lot of material by and about a kook named Randell Mills, who claims to have disproved quantum mechanics and found an unlimited source of energy. There are a couple of WP articles, "Nonradiation condition" and "BlackLight Power," where he has tried to promote himself. I think the former misstates the results by Goedeke and Haus, as well as vastly overstating their importance.
Goedeke 1964, http://journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev.135.B281 ; pdf at https://web.archive.org/web/20010305011426/http://www.hydrino.org/Papers/Goedecke.pdf
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