ugenetic said:
Thank you very much for your replies, I think I am getting somewhere.
first, I think the ϵ∇2ϕ=−ρfree example actually reinforced my mental picture. the intention of that equation is: I have a potential field, I wonder what's underlying cause of it? and the answer is: density of charges. and you can see, that potential is plagued by the MATERIAL ϵ it is in. Potential, despite of its noble qualities, still bears in its bodily frame the indelible mark of it lowly origin.
Or you could ask how that charge density go there if not in response to the potential?
The intention of the equation is to show a relationship - not cause and effect.
How you look at it depends on the question you want to ask.
That "Currents are moving Charges" was my biggest temptation, along with M dipoles and quantum spin, to think that charges are the fundamental driving force of the Magnetic world. But the rate of flow does not meaningfully translate into the speed of movement of charges, so I am not quite sure.
Sure it does.
If n charges per unit volume of magnitude e move with a drift velocity of
v through a cross-section area A, then the current is
I=neA
v.
So currents are moving charges - but what are they moving with respect to?
Why - with respect to the ammeter of course!
If the ammeter was moving along with the charges, then there would be no current and no magnetic field - only the electric field from the charges remains.
Why am I so obsessed with this heretic idea of "Fundamental"? it is exactly because of this question: " WHo is exciting the coil to produce flux?" The Voltage across the coil or the Current flowing in the coil?
The person turning the dial is
causing the changes. If the dial controls voltage, then the voltage causes everything, if the dial controls the current, then the current controls everything. It just depends on how the equipment is rigged up.
according to [...not me!] Delta2, and my personal belief, it should be the current. But if that's the case, then why so many textbooks just maddeningly assume a Sin V will get a PERFECTLY shaped Sin Flux (considering saturation and hysterisis) ?
Because they are not taking into account hysteresis or saturation.
An EM field can propagate through space all by itself even if the charges that originated it have vanished. It consists of self consistent E and B fields where the E field induces a B field which is just the right shape to induce the original E field ... but it's chicken-and-egg time: the same description works if you start with the B field.
All this is classical.
Go to Relativity and your idea that charges are behind everything looks better.
At the quantum level though, we get a picture where there are intrinsic magnets: no current.
Electromagnetism is understood in terms of interactions with photons.
Now photons are quanta of the EM field - and charges are then understood in terms of their interactions ... thus the field gives rise to the charge??
More generally, particles are understood in QFT as disturbences in an underlying Field - so the Field gives rise to the particles.
I'm not trying to convince you of anything - I'm just trying to show you that what causes what is not so straight forward. At the level you are trying to understand these things, you should not be thinking that the equations imply one side of the equals sign is any more fundamental than the other.