4 ms·

I don't have the faintest idea how to physically imagine magnetic reconnection. I've only seen it described in terms of "field lines", which are pretty much ima

I don't have the faintest idea how to physically imagine magnetic reconnection. I've only seen it described in terms of "field lines", which are pretty much imaginary. Can anyone explain it in more concrete terms without requiring intimate familiarity with Maxwell's equations? Edit: To be clear about the unreality of field lines, since that's apparently necessary: magnetic fields are not made of finite numbers of discrete 1D elements. They are continuous. The placement of individual "field lines" in a drawing is purely arbitrary. This part I understand quite well.

simonh 6y ago
Field lines aren’t imaginary. A field line is simply a contour along which the field has equal strength. Reconnection is when unconnected contours of the same potential merge and then diverge in a different topology. For reasons we don’t fully understand, but are learning to engineer, this can result in a very powerful acceleration of parts of the plasma medium.
- nabla9 6y ago
  That's not true. Magnetic field is a vector field, not scalar field. Magnetic field line is visualization of the direction of the field, not related to the strength. The strength shows in the density of the field lines.
  - andrewflnr 6y ago
    Even if it wasn't a vector, contours of 3d scalar fields are 2d, not 1d.
  - simonh 6y ago
    You are quite right, my apologies.
taylorfinley 6y ago
You needn't think of them as imaginary, you can make a viewer and see them yourself pretty easily. Here's a randomly-chosen example, one of many similar on YouTube: https://youtu.be/VkSQX5VpYpQ https://youtu.be/VkSQX5VpYpQ
- FreeFull 6y ago
  This is misleading: The reason that iron fillings form lines instead of just spreading evenly is that nearby fillings interact magnetically with each other, rather than anything to do with the field of the large magnet having "lines". Magnetic fields are continuous over space.
  - taylorfinley 6y ago
    Thank you for the correction! Today I Learned.
steve76 6y ago
Heat transfers through conductive surfaces, convective mediums or radiation. That last is the photoelectric effect. If it's bright on the outside, it's relative internal clock is ticking fast. Nature will always take the easiest path. If slowing down or speeding up it's own relative clock is part of that, it's going to do it. It has no internal mind. A field is nothing mystical, no cloud of invisible stuff going around. Everything says it's easier to move heat if something is magnetized. What's magnetism? The other side of electricity. Electrical potential transfers. Atoms don't just look at the next atom up, but all around. That's the magnetic field. What are particles? Anything that absorbs heat without changing external properties. So it doesn't have to be a little grain of sand. Anything that takes heat without moving the thermometer or a higher frequency or voltage. We are in a bath of such photoelectric particles, very different than a bath of material like water or air. Relative time brings in uncertainty. Nature "goes to the tape" and will change it for the fastest path. Things can only travel so fast before they are two different things. That's given by latency of electromagnetic radiation, internal state to external properties. That's how we calculate minimal particle size. Only other room to go is gravity applications, popping something in and out of existence, hitting everything at once. Coherent control of pair production, matter waves at the center of the sun, with one side on earth and the other side the black hole at the center of the milky way come to mind. Effectively we put Earth inside a black hole, have a universe to ourselves, and negate the ethics of all that is and could ever be. But what the hell. I want to be 50 again. So you have plasma. Hot enough to break internal atomic bonds. And you are flowing that. So conservation of energy. What's push that plasma is not electricity, one particle of electron potential flowing through the plasma. But that electron flowing through another medium, and it's "want of electron" push the plasma indirectly. Wrote that fast, and concrete. Probably needs help itself, but hope that helps.

simonh 6y ago

Field lines aren’t imaginary. A field line is simply a contour along which the field has equal strength. Reconnection is when unconnected contours of the same potential merge and then diverge in a different topology. For reasons we don’t fully understand, but are learning to engineer, this can result in a very powerful acceleration of parts of the plasma medium.

nabla9 6y ago
That's not true. Magnetic field is a vector field, not scalar field. Magnetic field line is visualization of the direction of the field, not related to the strength. The strength shows in the density of the field lines.
- andrewflnr 6y ago
  Even if it wasn't a vector, contours of 3d scalar fields are 2d, not 1d.
- simonh 6y ago
  You are quite right, my apologies.

taylorfinley 6y ago

You needn't think of them as imaginary, you can make a viewer and see them yourself pretty easily. Here's a randomly-chosen example, one of many similar on YouTube: https://youtu.be/VkSQX5VpYpQ https://youtu.be/VkSQX5VpYpQ

FreeFull 6y ago
This is misleading: The reason that iron fillings form lines instead of just spreading evenly is that nearby fillings interact magnetically with each other, rather than anything to do with the field of the large magnet having "lines". Magnetic fields are continuous over space.
- taylorfinley 6y ago
  Thank you for the correction! Today I Learned.

steve76 6y ago

Heat transfers through conductive surfaces, convective mediums or radiation. That last is the photoelectric effect. If it's bright on the outside, it's relative internal clock is ticking fast. Nature will always take the easiest path. If slowing down or speeding up it's own relative clock is part of that, it's going to do it. It has no internal mind. A field is nothing mystical, no cloud of invisible stuff going around. Everything says it's easier to move heat if something is magnetized. What's magnetism? The other side of electricity. Electrical potential transfers. Atoms don't just look at the next atom up, but all around. That's the magnetic field. What are particles? Anything that absorbs heat without changing external properties. So it doesn't have to be a little grain of sand. Anything that takes heat without moving the thermometer or a higher frequency or voltage. We are in a bath of such photoelectric particles, very different than a bath of material like water or air. Relative time brings in uncertainty. Nature "goes to the tape" and will change it for the fastest path. Things can only travel so fast before they are two different things. That's given by latency of electromagnetic radiation, internal state to external properties. That's how we calculate minimal particle size. Only other room to go is gravity applications, popping something in and out of existence, hitting everything at once. Coherent control of pair production, matter waves at the center of the sun, with one side on earth and the other side the black hole at the center of the milky way come to mind. Effectively we put Earth inside a black hole, have a universe to ourselves, and negate the ethics of all that is and could ever be. But what the hell. I want to be 50 again. So you have plasma. Hot enough to break internal atomic bonds. And you are flowing that. So conservation of energy. What's push that plasma is not electricity, one particle of electron potential flowing through the plasma. But that electron flowing through another medium, and it's "want of electron" push the plasma indirectly. Wrote that fast, and concrete. Probably needs help itself, but hope that helps.