stefan marinov - maxwell's displacement current does not generate magnetic field

8/3/2019 Stefan Marinov - Maxwell's Displacement Current Does Not Generate Magnetic Field

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MAXWELL'S DISPLACEMENT CURRENT DOES NOT

GENERATE MAGNETIC FIELD

Stefan Marinov

Institute for Fundamental Physics

Morellenfeldgasse 16A-8010 Graz, Austria

•

Bartlett and Corle1

who claim of having been the first to measure the magne

tic field of displacement current are wrong when interpreting their experimental

results. I show that the magnetic field in their experiment is generated enti-

rely by the convection current flowing to the capacitor's plates. Then I report

on a similar experiment carried out by me which shows without any doubt that

the displacement current does not generate magnetic field.

PACS numbers: 03.50.De, 41.10.Fs

According to Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism, the displacement current "flow-

ing" between the plates of a capacitor when their electrical charge changes must

have all the characteristics of conduction current flowing along metal wires. These

p h y ~ j c a l characteristics are two:

a) To act with magnetic forces on other electric c u r r e n t s ~ i .e . , to generate mag

netic intensity field B = rotA, where A is the generated magnetic potential (in my

theor the electromagnetic interactions are determined not by the intensities but

by the potentials and I show3 that at certain rare cases the calculation with the

intensities leads to .wr:ong results).'

b) To "absorb" gnetic forces of other electric currents,•1 • e, , to display pon-

eromotive forces acting perpendicularly to the flow.

It is obvious that the displacement current cannot demonstrate the second of these

character1stics, as if the space between the capacitor's plates should be vacuum,

then to set this vacuum in motion is the same hopeless endeavour as to try to ride

the shadow of a horse. Neither fQr ponderable dielectric put between the capacitor's



plates has someone measured ponderomotive forces when putting the capacitor in an

intensity field.

The situation with respect to the first of the above characteristics is the follow-

ing: Any author of textbooks on electromagnetism asserts that displacement current

0 = (l/4n)aE/at, where E is the electric intensity at a reference point

taken between the plates of a capacitor, generates the same magnetic intensity as

current with density JC = J0

. However, strangely enough, there is only

article1

where this magnetic intensity has been allegedly measured. Indeed, Bart

and Corle (B+C) write1

(p. 59): ''To our knowledge, however, no one has as yet

the displacement current in the apparently direct fashion by observing the

field inside a capacitor that is being slowly charged." I can confirm that

is true according to my knowledge, too. But I must add that B+C have not measu-

field of displacement current as they claim, as the displacement

field.

The apparatus and the measuring method of B+C are too complicated to be discussed

detail. I shall only say the following: According to the prevailing opinion

specialists in electromagnetism (and according to my opinion}, the magnetic

of a current element (the density of the displacement current multiplied by the

between the capacitor•s plates is such a current element} cannot be measured,

one cannot isolate the magnetic field of the remaining part of the circuit. One

on a current element by using sli

contacts, but, as I noted a ~ o v e , nobody until today has succeeded to measure

on vacuum. Nevertheless, B+C, although understanding all those diffi

claim of having resolved the problem for an element of alternating current.

until today nobody all over the world has succeeded in measuring the magne-

ic field even of an element of direct current.

First I shall give some simple theory. Let us have a wire of length d and let us

at a distance r from the middle of the wire if current I

along i t . According to the fundamental definition equality (the e i g h ~ a x i o m of

absolute space-time theory2) ' the magnetic potential generated by a current ele-



Idr (dr is a linear element directed along the electric current I flowing in

at a distance r from i t is A= ldr/cr, where c is the velocity of light (in

the system CGS). Thus for the magnetic potential of our straight wire we shall have,(the current flowing in the ~ s i t i v e directioo)

taking the x-axis the wire, the

point, and considering the magnetic potential of

the whole wire as twice the potential generated by its right half,

d 2- 2 - "" ""( 1 )

0

For' at a point on the positive y-axis,

definition equality, we shall have

(2)

Thus the magnetic intensity generated by an infinitely long wire at a distance y = r

i t wi 11 be

""800

= (ll/cy)z. (3)

let us now consider an infinitely long wire which is interrupted in the middle by•

capacitor, the distancec1rcu ar

between whose\p ates is d.'

According to my concepts, the

of the magnetic intensity at a point distant r from the central point of

capacitor will be

B = B00

(4)

the result on the right side is written f o rd» r. Thus we see that i f , at

condition, we measure the magnetic field at different distances, t , from the cen

tral point of the capacitor's axis, the magnetic intensity will be directly propor-

1 to r.

Exactly these kind of measurements have been ·done by B+C. One can see this rea-

the abstract of their paper which I give in toto: 11We have measured the

field directly inside a thin, circular, parallel-plate capacitor as i t is

eing charged. We find that this field varies linearly with distance from the axis,

is to be expected if a uniform displacement current flows between the plates. The

slope of B vs r agrees with predictions to within 5%.''



B+C have found from the slope of their asuring graph dB/dr = 1.171 ± 0.005 mG/cm.

This result says only one thing (supposing that the radius, R, of the capacitor's

plates is substantially smaller than d): That for their experiment

l/d2 = (c/4)dB/dr = 8782 abampere/c = Sx1o- 9

A/cm2. Nothing else!

B+C have established that at a certain distance r0

the magnetic field was maximum

and then i t began to decrease with the increase of r. This distance r0

can be found

by differentiating the exact formula (4) with respect to r . This gives r0=0.64d, for

0infinitely long conducting wires. If the length,of the conducting wires is comparable

with the separation, d, between the capacitance's p l a t e ~ r0

is obtained as a solution

thEy found experimentally r0

= 3.6d (at R/d = 3.1).

To establish with an absolute surety that the displacement current does not gene-

rate magnetic field,· I carried out the following experiment. The space of a cylindri

al capacitor with a variable distance, d, between its plates, to which alteranting

urrent along long enough wires was conducted, was filled with barium titanat (whose

lectrical permittivity is about 10,000). In the circuit changeable inductive coils

and low Ohmic resistance were inserted and at any specific dis-

tance between the capacitor's plates, and respective specific c a p a c i t a n c e ~ a respec-

tive induction was inserted, so that the circuit remained always at resonance at the

used 50 Hz frequency of tension coming from a variable transformer. 1 measured the

agnetic field produced only by the 11 positive 11 pulses of the current by the help of

a Hall sand put at a constant distance r = 10 em from the central point of the capa-

axis. The distance between the plates was changed from d = 0 to d = 6 em

and by changing the tension applied (and the inductance of the c o i l ~ ) , the current

as always maintained at I = 10 A. The capacitor's plates were etched, by the help

of what the surface and capacitance can be increased until 100 times. The radius of

the plates was R = 4 em.

As the current flowing along the wires was maintained always at the same value,

the displacement current "flowing" between the plates of the capacitor had always

the same value and, according to Maxwell's concepts, the magnetic field at the



same distance the axis of the capacitor had to remain constant. I measured the

magnetic field only for the "positive" half periods of the current.

As my measurements were only relative, I did•

not care to calibrate the galvanometer used as an indicator of the field's strength

and, for any distanced, I registered only the ratio Bd/B0

, where B0

was the indica

tion of the galvanometer for d = 0.

The measured ratios are given in Table 1, where also the ratios according to Max-

well's and my theories are given. As the fluctuationsof the galvanometer were less

than 1%, I explain the slight discrepancies between theory and experiment (which•

do not surpass 2%) by the fact that the ratio R/d was not tending to zero.

d

(em)

1

2

3

4

5

6

TABLE 1

Maxwell's theory

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

Marinov's theory

0.95

0.90

0.85

0.80

0.76

0.71

Experiment

0.97

0.92

0.86

0.81

0. 77

0. 71

This experiment whose performance is very easy shows without any doubt that the

displacement current does not generate magnetic field. Consequently i t has no physi-

cal characteristics. One must once and for ever understand that the electromagnetic

intensities are determined by the potentials but not one by another2

.

Maxwell's myth about the displacement current must be destroyed as soon as pos

sible as only understanding that the displacement current can neither generate nor

"absorb" magnetic forces one can understand how Newton's third law in e 1ectromagne-

4tism can be violated, taking into account that, as Grassmann has established, the

magnetic forces between two current elements violate Newton's third law. The trick

is very simple: one must observe magnetic interaction between circuits with consi-



derable lengths of displacement currents.

My Bul-Cub Machine without Stator5

shows violation of the angular momentum con

servation law as a body of about 2 kg comes into rotation only by the action of in

ternal forces. F i r ~ G r a h a m and lahoz6have observed such a violation but neither

they nor the whole scientific nity has understood the capital importance of

their experiment.

Another apparatus constructed recently by which violates the angular momentum

conservation law using the fact that displacement current cannot absorb magnetic

forces is my Rotating Ampere's Bridge5. An apparatus which is planned to be cons

tructed and which will violate the momentum conservation law js my Flying Ampere's

bridge. Both these apparatus are based on the self-propulsion5of a n-form wire ob-

served first by Ampere.

let note that Or. Maddox7cheered the experimental success of B+C in a lengthy

ts entitled 11Measuring the unmeasurable ... I think that Dr. Maddox has to e n ~

title his comments on my above experiment by something like ..Alas, the unmeasurable

cannot be measured''.

1. 0. F. Bartlett and T. R. Corle, Phys. Rev. lett . 55, 59 (1985}.

2. S. Marinov, Classical Physics (East-West Publ ., Graz, 1981}.

3. S. Ma ri nov, 1984 , third ed.

1986).

4. H. Grassmann, Pogg. Ann. 64, 4 (1845).

5. S. Marinov, T_he __Thorny Way o.f Tr_u,_th, Part III (East-West Publ., Graz, 1988).

6. G. M. Graham and D. G. lahoz, Nature 285, 154 (1980).

7. J. Maddox, Nature 316, 101 (1985).

stefan marinov - maxwell's displacement current does not generate magnetic field

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