[sdiy] Trying to establish confidence in my test equipment

[Philippe Gauthier]

I know this is going a little off-topic, so I'll try to summarize my answers.

Bob Weigel wrote:
> Magnetically induced currents.....there most certainly *IS* a measurable
> voltage but it's not the result of shorting a capacitor or battery or
> whatever across the leads.  It's due to some *other* current moving in a
> medium with magnetic permeability.

No. Magnetic induction is only caused by a change in the magnetic field.

> In the case of a 'fixed magnet' even, it's actually a functional current
> due to allignment of atomic structures in a lattice such that an
> imbalanced number of spins in an atom like iron having an extra
> unmatched electron spin in the outer orbital, are alligned to create a
> net component of current at the 'edge' of the material.  Picture a bunch
> of little wheels going around in a cross section of material.  Inside
> the spins all cancel since the one below is moving opposite direction
> the one above where they draw near each other.  However at the interface
> there is something resembling..a conveyor belt of charge going around
> the whole cross sections outer boundary.

Atoms with a filled electron shell will have a balance of magnetic dipole
moments (resulting from electron spin). Most atoms in ferromagnetic materials
have a partially filled electron shell. Such atoms will create a net magnetic
moment. In the case of a "permanent magnet", these magnetic dipoles are aligned
to create a measurable field. There are no macroscopic current involved.

I don't know then how your surface current theory can be explained.

> Anyway a net movement of charge creates a magnetic field so there IS
> SOMEWHERE a functional potential and in the fixed magnet very very
> little resistance since this current is bound into the atomic
> scturures!  The 'voltage' that induces this current is built into the
> structure of the atom itself.
> I'm one of the kooks who believes that while it's very very efficient,
> that there is an actual medium which we dont' understand which even
> taxes such processes but sometimes at an immeasurable amount.  I believe
> this for several reasons

There is no macroscopic current in a ferromagnetic material.

> * The abundance of red shift data on things far away...either we're kind
> of the center of the universe and everything is moving away from us
> (back to the middle ages we go eh? :-) ) OR EM, (eg. light) like any
> other oscillation we observe in nature, loses some amount of energy to
> the medium through which it propogates.  Our instruments possibly
> haven't been sensetive enough to measure this until...

The observation of red shift (from Doppler effect) does not tell that we're at
the center of the universe. What Hubble measured is that the red shift increases
with distance.

You can make this small experiment. You need a map (hand drawn is good too), a
ruler, and a photocopier that can enlarge/reduce image size. Make some copies of
the map at different enlargement ratios. This will be a representation of your
expanding universe! Choose a fixed location on the map (your place, anything)
and a few other locations. Use the ruler to measure the distance between the
fixed location and the other ones on each map and note the results.

What you should observe is that the increase of distance (what we call velocity)
is proportional to the distance itself. In other words, farther objects will
move away faster.

Light does not lose momentum, so does not change its wavelength. What you can
possibly measure is a decrease in light intensity.

> * in '98 a couple independent studies showed that some galaxies that are
> far away seem to be..accelerating!! Now..I personally don't believe that
> they are.  A whole galaxy accelerating?  We don't understand what would
> cause this.  However if it is moving away fairly fast in those cases,
> AND light fatigues...ahhhhh...now it starts to possibly make sense. I'm
> trying to get the actual data and see if it correlates.  But very
> likely..obviously..it will.  And we'll be able to actually finally
> estimate how much light fatigues and how far off our estimates have been
> due to the assumption that light doesn't fatigue at all.

Hubble's law (red shift increases with distance) implies an accelerating
universe. Sorry, the rest of your statement doesn't make any sense.

> There are some blue shifts out there.  That would mean they are moving
> quite a bit faster towards us than we think.

Locally, there are objects moving towards us. For example, the rotation of a
galaxy can cause one part to move in our direction even if the galaxy itself is
moving away.

-- 
Philippe Gauthier <philippe.gauthier at deuxpi.ca>