10 ms·

Visualizing Electricity

112 points by mickfaraday 6y ago

lihaciudaniel 6y ago
For an ee student this is trivial stuff.
tom-thistime 6y ago
" we propose the following animation: Electricity as surface-to-surface rotational gearing between electron-shells on atoms (see movie below). " That's not the mechanism for ordinary electrical conduction in metals. In my opinion the resulting visualization is very misleading. EDIT: I recommend the excellent Hyperphysics web site. http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/ohmmic.h http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/ohmmic.h
- mickfaraday 6y ago
  Why? Metals are addressed at the end of the video. Metals can be thought of in the same manner except with complex orbitals that host multi-polar contacts with neighboring atoms.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - tom-thistime 6y ago
    In the lab, electrical conduction transmits charge but does not transmit torque. The proposed mechanism would transmit torque but not charge.
  - glogla 6y ago
    I think the poster is referring to the "electron gas as charge carrier" but personally I'm not exactly sure how things fit together.
    - mickfaraday 6y ago
      Charge is symbolized by directional momentum of rotation here. Transmission of momentum indicates arc'ing of current.
  - jabl 6y ago
    Molecular orbitals are a useful tool when studying, well, molecules. But, it is a simple model that doesn't capture the full complexity of reality. In particular, it doesn't work at all for metals.
qqqqquinnnnn 6y ago
Really love this. How did you decide on the rotational transmission, rather than electron "flow"?
- mickfaraday 6y ago
  Momentum transfer is the key idea. Flow is not apparent. Spherical field rotation is actually a decent way to conceive of electron motion: https://www.physics.mcmaster.ca/phys3mm3/notes/whatisspin.pdf https://www.physics.mcmaster.ca/phys3mm3/notes/whatisspin.pd...
  - EForEndeavour 6y ago
    Wait, that paper discusses how the spin and magnetic moment of a single electron arise from energy in the electron's wave field. Where does the paper connect these ideas to the flow of electrical current? Does current really depend on a "spinning" electron interacting with the spin of a neighbouring electron? (I thought that'd only come up in explaining magnetism.) Is quantum mechanical spin necessary at all to understand classical current flow? On first read, the mental model of atomic-scale gears meshing and turning at different rates (does direction matter? How do you think of amperage in terms of rotating shafts made of meshed gears?) more fraught with simplifying assumptions and unnecessary epicycle-style complications than the conventional hydrodynamic model.
    - mickfaraday 6y ago
      The idea is that transfer of momentum between atoms is a good approximation of current. In that sense, the difference in shell momentum, on average, can be thought of as potential or voltage. Like the hydraulic analogy, this visualization is to help us understand not an exact movie of what's happening. Math may be better for that level of detail, for now. This visualization uses atoms, which is the main advantage over the hydraulic.
centimeter 6y ago
I’m not sure how this visualization is better than the hydrodynamic visualization, but it’s worse in one very important way - it uses “rotation” as a metaphor when angular momentum and spin are already very important. It would be hopelessly confusing to learn this metaphor (which has nothing to do with spin) and then try to disentangle it from your mental model when learning about spin later on.
- mickfaraday 6y ago
  spin for electrons is actually approximated by spherical rotation: https://www.physics.mcmaster.ca/phys3mm3/notes/whatisspin.pdf https://www.physics.mcmaster.ca/phys3mm3/notes/whatisspin.pd...
  - centimeter 6y ago
    Spin and angular momentum are the same physical quantity - their sum is conserved, but not each on its own. Spin just seems to occur in SU(2) rather than SO(3) if I remember correctly.
    - mickfaraday 6y ago
      it is impossible to deconvolve speed/direction in terms of momentum of the electron, so we simplified the idea with rotation speed. Ideally, the high charge atoms would be more cohesive as well as faster.
      - nixpulvis 6y ago
        I'm out of my depth now, but wouldn't this have the same issues in a rotating frame of reference? Surely, if position/direction is conflated, then rotation is too, no? Or am I way off base?
        mickfaraday 6y ago
        You have to really look at the Heisenberg uncertainty relation. Position cannot be sharply determined if we know direction (angular momentum). Speed is problematic too. The state of an electron (or electrons) in the atoms isn't an eigenstate of the velocity (or speed) operator, so no way to nail down the speed precisely. That being said, we chose to abbreviate momentum with rotation speed for our visualization. Reality includes coherence of the shells. They must effectively rotate together to produce coherent momentum and force the other terminal.
ly 6y ago
In case the author of the video reads this: I tried to watch it but after 2 minutes I just had to turn it off as I couldn’t handle that music anymore. It’s extremely distracting when you try to listen to what the narrator is explaining. It’s not that I don’t like background music in explanatory videos, but this music is way too loud and complex to not distract. Also, considering the video is uploaded to YouTube, I would remove the moving white “stars” in the background. The model itself is very detailed already, which makes it noisy after running it though YouTube’s compression, but the moving stars cause there to be even less bandwidth available for the visualization itself, resulting in more compression artifacts.
- mickfaraday 6y ago
  Cool. Thanks for the suggestion- i'll pass it along. You can mute the audio and still read the titles. Same info. Also, i'm pretty sure those are other distant atoms, not stars.
  - Answerawake 6y ago
    Also, stop making the text box slide in and out. This adds nothing and is distracting. Just make it appear and disappear.
    - mickfaraday 6y ago
      noted.
      - jdbz 6y ago
        I liked the video the was it was.
        mickfaraday 6y ago
        thanks!!
        6y ago
hammock 6y ago
Honest feedback, this didn't really explain electricity for me. What is does is introduce an entirely new analogy for understanding electricity. Unfortunately, most elements of the new analogy are not relatable at all, meaning the analogy has no value. What do I care that the electrons "rotation" means charge and the speed means voltage? Why are they shaped like breathmints, how does that help if they are supposed to be gears? At least the water and beads analogies help, because they are something I have a previous understanding of. For what it's worth, I enjoyed the music and the typeface. Made me hang onto watching the video much longer than I would have otherwise. The VO is also good.
- mickfaraday 6y ago
  Yes, the main advantage over those models is that it uses atoms that are essentially shaped and moving as atoms do. Perhaps the gearbox of your car is a relatable phenomenon for you. The breath mints are shaped like gears lol.
  - jillesvangurp 6y ago
    Perhaps a better analogy is Newton's cradle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_cradle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_cradle The ticking beads don't really move but transfer energy to each other. That's maybe a more useful analogy than the notion of beads or water moving through some pipe. I'm not a physicist of course but I get that what was explained to me in high school (many decades ago) was probably a bit of an oversimplification. Ticking beads lose some energy as they smash into each other. Hence thin wires heat up and glow. This is probably cringe-worthy enough for anyone who actually studies this for a living; so I'll stop right there ;-)
    - mickfaraday 6y ago
      Same idea but momentum is angular in our model. Like the gearbox of a car.
schedutron 6y ago
Username checks out!
- mickfaraday 6y ago
  luv.
mncharity 6y ago
Aphysically-high-speed particle tracks are used to represent wind.[1] I wonder if one could play similar games of colorization and expressive particles with electric circuits? What might one do with AC? [1] https://www.windy.com/-Pressure-pressure https://www.windy.com/-Pressure-pressure
- mickfaraday 6y ago
  For us, A/C is simply back and forth motion of the e-shells.
nixpulvis 6y ago
For a post about visualization, there are surprisingly few graphics in the article. Perhaps they want us to read and visualize, but I was disappointed to be frank.
- mickfaraday 6y ago
  yeah, you have to read too. that's a visual process though. did u watch the entire vid?
  - nixpulvis 6y ago
    Yep, sorry. Read my second comment under this thread.
- nixpulvis 6y ago
  The video was decent, but lacks depth. How do electrons with different occupied shells interact, how does this mesh with our existing model? What analogy fits this model for resistance? Capacitance? Are these electrons spinning on an axis with friction, or something? How does this model play with RF electrodynamics? Are there similar constructs for the orthogonal magnetic plane? The list of questions surely goes on...
  - nixpulvis 6y ago
    > Each pair of polar surfaces within an orbital is able to productively contact neighboring atoms. I have no idea what to visualize for "productively" contacting neighbors in this model.
    - mickfaraday 6y ago
      imagine your car's gear box when you put the thing into drive.
  - mickfaraday 6y ago
    Thanks. Yes I think those are great questions that the model (shell-shell contact momentum transfer) can address. All aspects of the existing mathematical description can be built into the shell-contact model but will require serious updates to our animation skills. That being said, I hope we can accomplish those details later. Magnetism, light, and gravity are next on the list, however. Resistance is inability to conduct; so orbitals are not charged (with a CW or CCW cohesion) on balance. Electricity acting on these non-polarized surfaces leads to heat. Capacitance has to do with the induction of voltage during separation by an insulator. Electron spinning is a bit of a simplification; the real concept is angular momentum. In reality it is impossible to deconvolve the contribution of speed and trajectory from momentum. Ideally instead of fast rotating shells as charged, we should animate cohesive motion as well as speed, but that is beyond our present abilities. RF will come with videos on light later. Thank you for the comments! Stay tuned.
dr_dshiv 6y ago
My mental image (fwiw) is that the push of an electron is able to push electrons both in immediate proximity and to electrons at a distance. So, that allows the relatively slow speed of moving electrons to produce nearly light speed changes in momentum of faraway electrons.
- mickfaraday 6y ago
  yep. I think i agree.
  - dr_dshiv 6y ago
    Nice. And this is in contrast to pushing water (sound wave), where the wave propagates only at the speed that molecules bump. Like, if I'm in a big line, and someone pushes at the back of the line, I only get pushed by the person immediately behind me. An electron is able to be pushed by electrons at the back of the back of the line. The electron immediately behind an electron will push hardest, proportional to inverse square law. But when there are twenty electronics behind, and the very last one pushes, it has a decreasing effect on all electrons in front, but at time 2, those movements allow propagate forward, etc etc. Wish I could visualize that. Oh yeah. Ha! I like you spindle representation of inverse square law.
MarcScott 6y ago
I used to use a gravitational field analogy when teaching Secondary school physics. Electrons are equivalent to "balls" with mass. Potential difference equates to a gravitational field (which most people seem to intuitively understand from experience). Balls can roll down slopes of different gradients, and therefore at different speeds, which is analogous to current and resistance. It worked for me.
thaumaturgy 6y ago
It's clear that a lot of work went in to this video and it's hard to hear criticism, especially of a labor of love. At the same time, I'd really like to see better analogies used for electricity, and that's going to require some very high quality work to replace the ones currently used. The background music was quite bad and distracted a lot from the dialogue. (While I personally usually like the sound of bagpipes, most people seem to hate them, so that's an especially bad sound to use.) The background music is tonally too close to the speaker's voice, so the two together sound like the speaker is having to compete with the background music. The constantly-shifting background and the nonstop fluctations of the hydrogen atom both also distracted from the core concept. Especially because the starry background kept changing direction! The video uses vocabulary that isn't going to make intuitive sense to novices. Examples: "radial distribution function", "quantum jumping", "drift velocity", "multipolar contacts". The clockwise-vs-counter-clockwise rotation thing never occupies the same frame in the video, so the watcher is expected to keep track of this mentally. Some people really struggle with that. The advantage of other models of electricity is that they relate it to things that many people have experienced. This model is much more abstract. Abstract can be okay, but you should show reasons why the abstract model is better than the more relatable models. What's wrong with the other models? You say, "For example, it has some serious advantages over the traditional visualizations like the 'electron bead flow' and 'water-pressure analogy'", and you kind of describe one flaw of each of the two other models, but you don't describe why, in practical terms, this is problematic for understanding electricity. Like, okay, the Bohr model doesn't match the reality of probability clouds and quantum effects, but how does this impact simple circuits? I found that the first half of Feynman's QED did a pretty good job of trying to explain quantum behavior in more abstract terms than the traditional approaches to light-as-wave-and-quanta. I'd also recommend looking at videos from 3blue1brown on YouTube for some ideas on how to present abstract concepts to viewers without breaking the bank on production.
- mickfaraday 6y ago
  Thanks for commenting. The primary problem with the other analogies is that they don't use real objects. Physics is the science that studies objects that exist, after all. That means we can't be crashing concepts into one another (like charge reification, for instance). It's important to begin physical explanations with objects instead of concepts, so we advance the atom. While this depiction of the atom isn't the end-all-be-all atom, it's a step in the right direction, hopefully.
kens 6y ago
I understand electricity reasonably well, but that video has left me very confused. Multiple watchings didn't help. The first issue is I don't know what is real and what is metaphorical. The hydrogen orbitals are real? Are they squashed like that?. But the rotations are entirely fictional? Or do they correspond to electron spin? Do hydrogen atoms really share electron clouds or is that a metaphor? Several specific issues: Ionized hydrogen doesn't have an electron, so what is the electron cloud. The ends of the wire rotating clockwise vs counterclockwise: the wires are pointing opposite directions, so the opposite directions cancel out, and they are rotating the same direction? Making a wire of single-file hydrogen: is that even theoretically possible? How is there drift velocity when the atoms are just rotating in place? I understand that voltage is represented by the rotation speed in this model. (Is this different from momentum?) But what is current in this model? Everything was spinning when the circuit was open, and everything is still spinning when the circuit is closed. What "level" of electricity is this model supposed to explain? It's discussing circuits, but I don't see how this model helps one understand why you need a resistor when connecting a LED to a battery, for instance. The resistor reduces current, which is not spin but propagation of an impulse? Or is the model supposed to help understand electric fields and stuff? (How would this model even explain an electric field in a vacuum, where there's nothing to spin?) Or is it intended to provide insight into what's happening at the quantum level? I don't want to be critical, so hopefully these comments are constructive.
- mickfaraday 6y ago
  Thanks for your comment. Yes, this model hopefully incorporates more of 'what is real' than the alternatives. The hydrogen orbital, for example, is approximately spherical/toroidal, which matches the radial distribution plot of QM. Ionized hydrogen has a delocalized electron; it is not gone — but rather elsewhere. In our model it is enmeshed with the others in the column. Speed is used as a surrogate for momentum because QM doesn't allow us to deconstruct the speed/direction from the momentum separately. Ideally we could illustrate a more cohesive motion as well as faster for greater momentum. Current is transfer of motion from the high-momentum, high-V, shells to weaker ones. I have briefly discussed resistors and other elements of circuit in other threads here. Check it out and let's talk there. Concerning your comment about vacuums, we have to understand that there truly is no vacuum. We assume that when atoms are isolated, their surface pressure is decreased such that they can occupy tremendous volumes. Currents in outer space are present with 8.49×10^-23 atoms per 10 cubic centimeters. Hopefully we can move toward capturing QM, and ED descriptions of electricity. A magnetism video will follow soon.
mncharity 6y ago
Apropos visualizing atoms and their electrons, here's a fun sidebar. This IBM video[1] was made with an STM scanning tunneling microscope, which sees outer electrons. So while it shows the IIRC carbon monoxide molecules, standing up like buoys, as little balls, the background copper surface of delocalized electrons looks smooth, with ripples. You can't see the individual copper atoms. But if you instead used an AFM atomic force microscope, which can feel inner electrons, then you could - here's one of silicon[2]. When crafting and teaching abstract representations, it's easy to forget that these are real physical objects. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSCX78-8-q0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSCX78-8-q0 [2] https://imgur.com/a/7Onbz8s https://imgur.com/a/7Onbz8s
GistNoesis 6y ago
Your analogy doesn't work for me. Imagine the following simple case : A AC generator connected to two capacitors in series. Signal --||----||-- Ground . The voltage potential at the middle : In your analogy there is no reason for anything to turn as the electron wave are discontinuous inside the capacitors (there is a huge gap in the order of micrometers between each plate of the capacitor). The main important thing of electricity is the Electric field not the electron field. The electric charges get pushed around by the electric field. Each of these electric charge carry with it its Coulomb electric field. Sum contributions of every charge and you have the local electric field. In fact even more fundamental is the electric potential which you can take the slope to obtain the electric field.
- mickfaraday 6y ago
  We can do A/c with the shells rotating back and forth. The micrometer gap is not a problem for the surface of the atom, which can extend indefinitely. The electron is simply an excitation of the electric field in QM, so one does not come without the other. Physics is the study of objects that exist, and so it's important to begin with objects in a visualization. Fields are a concepts that measure the location of something happening. That something is the surface of the atom.
  - GistNoesis 6y ago
    >electron is simply an excitation of the electric field in QM I am not a physicist but I think here is your mistake. The electron is an excitation of the Electron Field. It's matter aka fermions. The electric field are bosons. Those are two orthogonal things. You can have one without the other (although the fields are coupled).
    - mickfaraday 6y ago
      It is well understood that the bosons are excitations of fields. A boson is not a 'thing' it is a happening. The atom is the first object in physics. That is a shapely thing with location.
jiggawatts 6y ago
I hate to rain on your parade, because I'm deeply interested in alternatives for established models, and as a rule I strongly prefer intuitive visualisations over mathematical wankery, but this is just... nonsense. It has nothing to do with electricity in any sense. There's no matching theory that this is visualising. To begin with: 1) This doesn't explain why in general only metals conduct electricity. You used the example of Hydrogen, which is a nonconductive gas. It might become metallic under certain circumstances, but nobody has a firm grasp on exactly how that works! Using the conditions found only in the cores of giant planets for a "simplified" example is absurd. 2) This doesn't explain why capacitors build up charge (literal excess electrons on one plate, and missing electrons on the other plate.) That is, your theory inside the wires has to also mesh well (heh) with what happens outside the wires, such as the buildup of static electricity. 3) It doesn't explain how electrons conduct electricity through the vacuum, where there are no atomic orbitals. 4) It doesn't explain how rarefied plasmas conduct electricity, where for the majority of the time atomic orbitals are not in contact. 5) It doesn't explain other types of current, such as charged fundamental particles in cyclotrons. 6) You haven't explained how batteries produce the rotations. 7) You haven't explained how dynamos produce the rotations. 8) You haven't explained how resistors, capacitors, and inductors work in this model. 9) You haven't explained how the rotations produce heat, light, or any other useful work done by with electric machines or with electronic devices. 10) You said that ionised hydrogen atoms are required for this to work! But they are just isolated protons. They have no electrons or electron shells! 11) This is actually a flaw of other models too, but I'll throw it on the pile: The infinite extent of the QM electron field is just a simplification of the QM mathematical model. Clearly, this is physical nonsense. A hydrogen atom can never have an electron orbiting it meters away, or light years away. That's just gibberish. 12) And the final nail in the coffin: You'll find that in general an extended 2D or 3D grid of gears will often get "locked up" and cannot transmit rotations. This is practically a meme at this point: https://www.reddit.com/r/CrappyDesign/comments/2hwwy0/those_gears_wont_turn_which_i_guess_makes_it_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CrappyDesign/comments/2hwwy0/those_... For comparison, the liquid flow model is actually relatively accurate in terms of representing what's really going on (electron fluid flowing freely), and is also intuitive. 1) Resistors are like an constriction of the pipe. Flow is allowed but impeded. 2) Capacitors are like a wide section of the pipe, but blocked by a rubber sheet. Bulk flow through a capacitor is not possible, but vibrations can be transmitted. 3) Inductors are like a heavy propeller in the flow. The propeller resists flow while it's being "spun up", but then it no longer resists the flow when its speed matches the flow. If the flow in the pipe is reduced the momentum of the propeller provides pressure to keep the liquid flowing longer than it would have otherwise. 4) Transistors are like a soft rubber section of an otherwise inflexible pipe surrounded by a container with an input. Pressure in the container squeezes the flexible section and prevents flow through the pipe. Etc...
sunkenvicar 6y ago
Whew. This video brought out the haters. Don’t take it personally - many are struggling after 2 months in quarantine. I think you are on to something great. Liked and subscribed!
tom-thistime 6y ago
This might be a workable visualization. As physics it's wrong. There is an existing QM explanation for current flow in solids, attributed to Bloch and dating back to the late 1920s. It doesn't work like this visualization. For example in this visualization the electrons aren't transported anywhere, they just sit in place and rotate. That's misleading. In fact charge flows. I worry about using an incorrect physical picture to visualize physics.
- mickfaraday 6y ago
  Because charge is rotation in this visualization, we can also say that the charge is moving since the speed of rotation propagates after the circuit is closed. This is a patent reification, of course, but the idea is consistent with QM.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

112 points by mickfaraday 6y ago

For an ee student this is trivial stuff.

" we propose the following animation: Electricity as surface-to-surface rotational gearing between electron-shells on atoms (see movie below). " That's not the mechanism for ordinary electrical conduction in metals. In my opinion the resulting visualization is very misleading. EDIT: I recommend the excellent Hyperphysics web site. http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/ohmmic.h http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/ohmmic.h

mickfaraday 6y ago
Why? Metals are addressed at the end of the video. Metals can be thought of in the same manner except with complex orbitals that host multi-polar contacts with neighboring atoms.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- tom-thistime 6y ago
  In the lab, electrical conduction transmits charge but does not transmit torque. The proposed mechanism would transmit torque but not charge.
- glogla 6y ago
  I think the poster is referring to the "electron gas as charge carrier" but personally I'm not exactly sure how things fit together.
  - mickfaraday 6y ago
    Charge is symbolized by directional momentum of rotation here. Transmission of momentum indicates arc'ing of current.
- jabl 6y ago
  Molecular orbitals are a useful tool when studying, well, molecules. But, it is a simple model that doesn't capture the full complexity of reality. In particular, it doesn't work at all for metals.

qqqqquinnnnn 6y ago

Really love this. How did you decide on the rotational transmission, rather than electron "flow"?

mickfaraday 6y ago
Momentum transfer is the key idea. Flow is not apparent. Spherical field rotation is actually a decent way to conceive of electron motion: https://www.physics.mcmaster.ca/phys3mm3/notes/whatisspin.pdf https://www.physics.mcmaster.ca/phys3mm3/notes/whatisspin.pd...
- EForEndeavour 6y ago
  Wait, that paper discusses how the spin and magnetic moment of a single electron arise from energy in the electron's wave field. Where does the paper connect these ideas to the flow of electrical current? Does current really depend on a "spinning" electron interacting with the spin of a neighbouring electron? (I thought that'd only come up in explaining magnetism.) Is quantum mechanical spin necessary at all to understand classical current flow? On first read, the mental model of atomic-scale gears meshing and turning at different rates (does direction matter? How do you think of amperage in terms of rotating shafts made of meshed gears?) more fraught with simplifying assumptions and unnecessary epicycle-style complications than the conventional hydrodynamic model.
  - mickfaraday 6y ago
    The idea is that transfer of momentum between atoms is a good approximation of current. In that sense, the difference in shell momentum, on average, can be thought of as potential or voltage. Like the hydraulic analogy, this visualization is to help us understand not an exact movie of what's happening. Math may be better for that level of detail, for now. This visualization uses atoms, which is the main advantage over the hydraulic.

centimeter 6y ago

I’m not sure how this visualization is better than the hydrodynamic visualization, but it’s worse in one very important way - it uses “rotation” as a metaphor when angular momentum and spin are already very important. It would be hopelessly confusing to learn this metaphor (which has nothing to do with spin) and then try to disentangle it from your mental model when learning about spin later on.

mickfaraday 6y ago
spin for electrons is actually approximated by spherical rotation: https://www.physics.mcmaster.ca/phys3mm3/notes/whatisspin.pdf https://www.physics.mcmaster.ca/phys3mm3/notes/whatisspin.pd...
- centimeter 6y ago
  Spin and angular momentum are the same physical quantity - their sum is conserved, but not each on its own. Spin just seems to occur in SU(2) rather than SO(3) if I remember correctly.
  - mickfaraday 6y ago
    it is impossible to deconvolve speed/direction in terms of momentum of the electron, so we simplified the idea with rotation speed. Ideally, the high charge atoms would be more cohesive as well as faster.
    - nixpulvis 6y ago
      I'm out of my depth now, but wouldn't this have the same issues in a rotating frame of reference? Surely, if position/direction is conflated, then rotation is too, no? Or am I way off base?
      - mickfaraday 6y ago
        You have to really look at the Heisenberg uncertainty relation. Position cannot be sharply determined if we know direction (angular momentum). Speed is problematic too. The state of an electron (or electrons) in the atoms isn't an eigenstate of the velocity (or speed) operator, so no way to nail down the speed precisely. That being said, we chose to abbreviate momentum with rotation speed for our visualization. Reality includes coherence of the shells. They must effectively rotate together to produce coherent momentum and force the other terminal.

ly 6y ago

In case the author of the video reads this: I tried to watch it but after 2 minutes I just had to turn it off as I couldn’t handle that music anymore. It’s extremely distracting when you try to listen to what the narrator is explaining. It’s not that I don’t like background music in explanatory videos, but this music is way too loud and complex to not distract. Also, considering the video is uploaded to YouTube, I would remove the moving white “stars” in the background. The model itself is very detailed already, which makes it noisy after running it though YouTube’s compression, but the moving stars cause there to be even less bandwidth available for the visualization itself, resulting in more compression artifacts.

mickfaraday 6y ago
Cool. Thanks for the suggestion- i'll pass it along. You can mute the audio and still read the titles. Same info. Also, i'm pretty sure those are other distant atoms, not stars.
- Answerawake 6y ago
  Also, stop making the text box slide in and out. This adds nothing and is distracting. Just make it appear and disappear.
  - mickfaraday 6y ago
    noted.
    - jdbz 6y ago
      I liked the video the was it was.
      - mickfaraday 6y ago
        thanks!!
        6y ago

hammock 6y ago

Honest feedback, this didn't really explain electricity for me. What is does is introduce an entirely new analogy for understanding electricity. Unfortunately, most elements of the new analogy are not relatable at all, meaning the analogy has no value. What do I care that the electrons "rotation" means charge and the speed means voltage? Why are they shaped like breathmints, how does that help if they are supposed to be gears? At least the water and beads analogies help, because they are something I have a previous understanding of. For what it's worth, I enjoyed the music and the typeface. Made me hang onto watching the video much longer than I would have otherwise. The VO is also good.

mickfaraday 6y ago
Yes, the main advantage over those models is that it uses atoms that are essentially shaped and moving as atoms do. Perhaps the gearbox of your car is a relatable phenomenon for you. The breath mints are shaped like gears lol.
- jillesvangurp 6y ago
  Perhaps a better analogy is Newton's cradle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_cradle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_cradle The ticking beads don't really move but transfer energy to each other. That's maybe a more useful analogy than the notion of beads or water moving through some pipe. I'm not a physicist of course but I get that what was explained to me in high school (many decades ago) was probably a bit of an oversimplification. Ticking beads lose some energy as they smash into each other. Hence thin wires heat up and glow. This is probably cringe-worthy enough for anyone who actually studies this for a living; so I'll stop right there ;-)
  - mickfaraday 6y ago
    Same idea but momentum is angular in our model. Like the gearbox of a car.

schedutron 6y ago

Username checks out!

mickfaraday 6y ago
luv.

mncharity 6y ago

Aphysically-high-speed particle tracks are used to represent wind.[1] I wonder if one could play similar games of colorization and expressive particles with electric circuits? What might one do with AC? [1] https://www.windy.com/-Pressure-pressure https://www.windy.com/-Pressure-pressure

mickfaraday 6y ago
For us, A/C is simply back and forth motion of the e-shells.

nixpulvis 6y ago

For a post about visualization, there are surprisingly few graphics in the article. Perhaps they want us to read and visualize, but I was disappointed to be frank.

mickfaraday 6y ago
yeah, you have to read too. that's a visual process though. did u watch the entire vid?
- nixpulvis 6y ago
  Yep, sorry. Read my second comment under this thread.
nixpulvis 6y ago
The video was decent, but lacks depth. How do electrons with different occupied shells interact, how does this mesh with our existing model? What analogy fits this model for resistance? Capacitance? Are these electrons spinning on an axis with friction, or something? How does this model play with RF electrodynamics? Are there similar constructs for the orthogonal magnetic plane? The list of questions surely goes on...
- nixpulvis 6y ago
  > Each pair of polar surfaces within an orbital is able to productively contact neighboring atoms. I have no idea what to visualize for "productively" contacting neighbors in this model.
  - mickfaraday 6y ago
    imagine your car's gear box when you put the thing into drive.
- mickfaraday 6y ago
  Thanks. Yes I think those are great questions that the model (shell-shell contact momentum transfer) can address. All aspects of the existing mathematical description can be built into the shell-contact model but will require serious updates to our animation skills. That being said, I hope we can accomplish those details later. Magnetism, light, and gravity are next on the list, however. Resistance is inability to conduct; so orbitals are not charged (with a CW or CCW cohesion) on balance. Electricity acting on these non-polarized surfaces leads to heat. Capacitance has to do with the induction of voltage during separation by an insulator. Electron spinning is a bit of a simplification; the real concept is angular momentum. In reality it is impossible to deconvolve the contribution of speed and trajectory from momentum. Ideally instead of fast rotating shells as charged, we should animate cohesive motion as well as speed, but that is beyond our present abilities. RF will come with videos on light later. Thank you for the comments! Stay tuned.

dr_dshiv 6y ago

My mental image (fwiw) is that the push of an electron is able to push electrons both in immediate proximity and to electrons at a distance. So, that allows the relatively slow speed of moving electrons to produce nearly light speed changes in momentum of faraway electrons.

mickfaraday 6y ago
yep. I think i agree.
- dr_dshiv 6y ago
  Nice. And this is in contrast to pushing water (sound wave), where the wave propagates only at the speed that molecules bump. Like, if I'm in a big line, and someone pushes at the back of the line, I only get pushed by the person immediately behind me. An electron is able to be pushed by electrons at the back of the back of the line. The electron immediately behind an electron will push hardest, proportional to inverse square law. But when there are twenty electronics behind, and the very last one pushes, it has a decreasing effect on all electrons in front, but at time 2, those movements allow propagate forward, etc etc. Wish I could visualize that. Oh yeah. Ha! I like you spindle representation of inverse square law.

MarcScott 6y ago

I used to use a gravitational field analogy when teaching Secondary school physics. Electrons are equivalent to "balls" with mass. Potential difference equates to a gravitational field (which most people seem to intuitively understand from experience). Balls can roll down slopes of different gradients, and therefore at different speeds, which is analogous to current and resistance. It worked for me.

thaumaturgy 6y ago

It's clear that a lot of work went in to this video and it's hard to hear criticism, especially of a labor of love. At the same time, I'd really like to see better analogies used for electricity, and that's going to require some very high quality work to replace the ones currently used. The background music was quite bad and distracted a lot from the dialogue. (While I personally usually like the sound of bagpipes, most people seem to hate them, so that's an especially bad sound to use.) The background music is tonally too close to the speaker's voice, so the two together sound like the speaker is having to compete with the background music. The constantly-shifting background and the nonstop fluctations of the hydrogen atom both also distracted from the core concept. Especially because the starry background kept changing direction! The video uses vocabulary that isn't going to make intuitive sense to novices. Examples: "radial distribution function", "quantum jumping", "drift velocity", "multipolar contacts". The clockwise-vs-counter-clockwise rotation thing never occupies the same frame in the video, so the watcher is expected to keep track of this mentally. Some people really struggle with that. The advantage of other models of electricity is that they relate it to things that many people have experienced. This model is much more abstract. Abstract can be okay, but you should show reasons why the abstract model is better than the more relatable models. What's wrong with the other models? You say, "For example, it has some serious advantages over the traditional visualizations like the 'electron bead flow' and 'water-pressure analogy'", and you kind of describe one flaw of each of the two other models, but you don't describe why, in practical terms, this is problematic for understanding electricity. Like, okay, the Bohr model doesn't match the reality of probability clouds and quantum effects, but how does this impact simple circuits? I found that the first half of Feynman's QED did a pretty good job of trying to explain quantum behavior in more abstract terms than the traditional approaches to light-as-wave-and-quanta. I'd also recommend looking at videos from 3blue1brown on YouTube for some ideas on how to present abstract concepts to viewers without breaking the bank on production.

mickfaraday 6y ago
Thanks for commenting. The primary problem with the other analogies is that they don't use real objects. Physics is the science that studies objects that exist, after all. That means we can't be crashing concepts into one another (like charge reification, for instance). It's important to begin physical explanations with objects instead of concepts, so we advance the atom. While this depiction of the atom isn't the end-all-be-all atom, it's a step in the right direction, hopefully.

kens 6y ago

I understand electricity reasonably well, but that video has left me very confused. Multiple watchings didn't help. The first issue is I don't know what is real and what is metaphorical. The hydrogen orbitals are real? Are they squashed like that?. But the rotations are entirely fictional? Or do they correspond to electron spin? Do hydrogen atoms really share electron clouds or is that a metaphor? Several specific issues: Ionized hydrogen doesn't have an electron, so what is the electron cloud. The ends of the wire rotating clockwise vs counterclockwise: the wires are pointing opposite directions, so the opposite directions cancel out, and they are rotating the same direction? Making a wire of single-file hydrogen: is that even theoretically possible? How is there drift velocity when the atoms are just rotating in place? I understand that voltage is represented by the rotation speed in this model. (Is this different from momentum?) But what is current in this model? Everything was spinning when the circuit was open, and everything is still spinning when the circuit is closed. What "level" of electricity is this model supposed to explain? It's discussing circuits, but I don't see how this model helps one understand why you need a resistor when connecting a LED to a battery, for instance. The resistor reduces current, which is not spin but propagation of an impulse? Or is the model supposed to help understand electric fields and stuff? (How would this model even explain an electric field in a vacuum, where there's nothing to spin?) Or is it intended to provide insight into what's happening at the quantum level? I don't want to be critical, so hopefully these comments are constructive.

mickfaraday 6y ago
Thanks for your comment. Yes, this model hopefully incorporates more of 'what is real' than the alternatives. The hydrogen orbital, for example, is approximately spherical/toroidal, which matches the radial distribution plot of QM. Ionized hydrogen has a delocalized electron; it is not gone — but rather elsewhere. In our model it is enmeshed with the others in the column. Speed is used as a surrogate for momentum because QM doesn't allow us to deconstruct the speed/direction from the momentum separately. Ideally we could illustrate a more cohesive motion as well as faster for greater momentum. Current is transfer of motion from the high-momentum, high-V, shells to weaker ones. I have briefly discussed resistors and other elements of circuit in other threads here. Check it out and let's talk there. Concerning your comment about vacuums, we have to understand that there truly is no vacuum. We assume that when atoms are isolated, their surface pressure is decreased such that they can occupy tremendous volumes. Currents in outer space are present with 8.49×10^-23 atoms per 10 cubic centimeters. Hopefully we can move toward capturing QM, and ED descriptions of electricity. A magnetism video will follow soon.

mncharity 6y ago

Apropos visualizing atoms and their electrons, here's a fun sidebar. This IBM video[1] was made with an STM scanning tunneling microscope, which sees outer electrons. So while it shows the IIRC carbon monoxide molecules, standing up like buoys, as little balls, the background copper surface of delocalized electrons looks smooth, with ripples. You can't see the individual copper atoms. But if you instead used an AFM atomic force microscope, which can feel inner electrons, then you could - here's one of silicon[2]. When crafting and teaching abstract representations, it's easy to forget that these are real physical objects. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSCX78-8-q0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSCX78-8-q0 [2] https://imgur.com/a/7Onbz8s https://imgur.com/a/7Onbz8s

GistNoesis 6y ago

Your analogy doesn't work for me. Imagine the following simple case : A AC generator connected to two capacitors in series. Signal --||----||-- Ground . The voltage potential at the middle : In your analogy there is no reason for anything to turn as the electron wave are discontinuous inside the capacitors (there is a huge gap in the order of micrometers between each plate of the capacitor). The main important thing of electricity is the Electric field not the electron field. The electric charges get pushed around by the electric field. Each of these electric charge carry with it its Coulomb electric field. Sum contributions of every charge and you have the local electric field. In fact even more fundamental is the electric potential which you can take the slope to obtain the electric field.

mickfaraday 6y ago
We can do A/c with the shells rotating back and forth. The micrometer gap is not a problem for the surface of the atom, which can extend indefinitely. The electron is simply an excitation of the electric field in QM, so one does not come without the other. Physics is the study of objects that exist, and so it's important to begin with objects in a visualization. Fields are a concepts that measure the location of something happening. That something is the surface of the atom.
- GistNoesis 6y ago
  >electron is simply an excitation of the electric field in QM I am not a physicist but I think here is your mistake. The electron is an excitation of the Electron Field. It's matter aka fermions. The electric field are bosons. Those are two orthogonal things. You can have one without the other (although the fields are coupled).
  - mickfaraday 6y ago
    It is well understood that the bosons are excitations of fields. A boson is not a 'thing' it is a happening. The atom is the first object in physics. That is a shapely thing with location.

jiggawatts 6y ago

I hate to rain on your parade, because I'm deeply interested in alternatives for established models, and as a rule I strongly prefer intuitive visualisations over mathematical wankery, but this is just... nonsense. It has nothing to do with electricity in any sense. There's no matching theory that this is visualising. To begin with: 1) This doesn't explain why in general only metals conduct electricity. You used the example of Hydrogen, which is a nonconductive gas. It might become metallic under certain circumstances, but nobody has a firm grasp on exactly how that works! Using the conditions found only in the cores of giant planets for a "simplified" example is absurd. 2) This doesn't explain why capacitors build up charge (literal excess electrons on one plate, and missing electrons on the other plate.) That is, your theory inside the wires has to also mesh well (heh) with what happens outside the wires, such as the buildup of static electricity. 3) It doesn't explain how electrons conduct electricity through the vacuum, where there are no atomic orbitals. 4) It doesn't explain how rarefied plasmas conduct electricity, where for the majority of the time atomic orbitals are not in contact. 5) It doesn't explain other types of current, such as charged fundamental particles in cyclotrons. 6) You haven't explained how batteries produce the rotations. 7) You haven't explained how dynamos produce the rotations. 8) You haven't explained how resistors, capacitors, and inductors work in this model. 9) You haven't explained how the rotations produce heat, light, or any other useful work done by with electric machines or with electronic devices. 10) You said that ionised hydrogen atoms are required for this to work! But they are just isolated protons. They have no electrons or electron shells! 11) This is actually a flaw of other models too, but I'll throw it on the pile: The infinite extent of the QM electron field is just a simplification of the QM mathematical model. Clearly, this is physical nonsense. A hydrogen atom can never have an electron orbiting it meters away, or light years away. That's just gibberish. 12) And the final nail in the coffin: You'll find that in general an extended 2D or 3D grid of gears will often get "locked up" and cannot transmit rotations. This is practically a meme at this point: https://www.reddit.com/r/CrappyDesign/comments/2hwwy0/those_gears_wont_turn_which_i_guess_makes_it_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CrappyDesign/comments/2hwwy0/those_... For comparison, the liquid flow model is actually relatively accurate in terms of representing what's really going on (electron fluid flowing freely), and is also intuitive. 1) Resistors are like an constriction of the pipe. Flow is allowed but impeded. 2) Capacitors are like a wide section of the pipe, but blocked by a rubber sheet. Bulk flow through a capacitor is not possible, but vibrations can be transmitted. 3) Inductors are like a heavy propeller in the flow. The propeller resists flow while it's being "spun up", but then it no longer resists the flow when its speed matches the flow. If the flow in the pipe is reduced the momentum of the propeller provides pressure to keep the liquid flowing longer than it would have otherwise. 4) Transistors are like a soft rubber section of an otherwise inflexible pipe surrounded by a container with an input. Pressure in the container squeezes the flexible section and prevents flow through the pipe. Etc...

sunkenvicar 6y ago

Whew. This video brought out the haters. Don’t take it personally - many are struggling after 2 months in quarantine. I think you are on to something great. Liked and subscribed!

tom-thistime 6y ago

This might be a workable visualization. As physics it's wrong. There is an existing QM explanation for current flow in solids, attributed to Bloch and dating back to the late 1920s. It doesn't work like this visualization. For example in this visualization the electrons aren't transported anywhere, they just sit in place and rotate. That's misleading. In fact charge flows. I worry about using an incorrect physical picture to visualize physics.

mickfaraday 6y ago
Because charge is rotation in this visualization, we can also say that the charge is moving since the speed of rotation propagates after the circuit is closed. This is a patent reification, of course, but the idea is consistent with QM.
- deleted 6y ago
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