Alex:
Natural Philosophy cannot define what Form 1 (in my earlier email is).
Ed:
Sorry, no, I just said that two “events” (your term) of a same kind (“steps of ExH”, your term) do not represent a causal relation so that one event would be the cause of the other.
Alex:
I would however claim that this effect:
(A) Physical and geometric. Why? Because we *experience*:
– the source event (step of ExH at point A)
– the result event (setp of ExH in point B)
– there is a geometric link between point A and B in the direction of distance and time, and those are related by speed of light c.
Ed:
This I do not doubt. Your physical “events” (effects) coming from the same source may appear one after the other at A and at B “in the direction of distance L and time T” related by c [L/T]. Nevertheless they are “effects” p of a different generating natural entity, the “cause” E, proportional to p, and acting at A and B according to E/p = c.
Alex:
(B) Present in nature (changes in light intensity travel from stars to earth) and is used (we record those changes in light intensity – in cameras and telescopes, we use radio signals, we communicate in computers)
What does natural philosophy have to offer to us then?
Ed:
Natural philosophy, that is, the causal law E/p = c = constant, so long as it holds explains that the “travelling” of changes in light intensity does not mean that there would something corporeal (“photons”) be wandering from stars to earth at velocity c. According to E/p = c this c is not a vector quantity, so it has no “direction” in space and time and cannot describe the velocity of a “translation” of something in time and over a distance in space; rather it characterizes the space-time frame of reference at rest (!) in which the generation of events takes place.
Alex:
I continue to state that Natural Philosophy does not help us in explaining the Form 1 cause-effect relationship:
(1) it considers characterisation of the space-time frame of reference at rest(!) – whatever this “rest” means – what is at rest in our transmission line? – nothing
Ed:
Alex – doesn’t the transmission line exist “in space and time”? It is this invariable real space and real time characterized by the constant (!) c, which means, it is Newton’s absolute space-time frame of reference that is at rest here!
Alex:
(2) it considers the “cause” E and “effect” p being parts of the world with finite mass – what has mass in our transmission line? – nothing
Ed:
“Cause and effect being parts with finite mass”? No. This is to misunderstand me. Cause E and effect p are NOT “parts with finite mass”! The dimensions of the entity E = pc [mL/T x c] only show that a quantity of E implies a quantity of p = mv of dimensions [mL/T]; but a quantity mv of dimension [mL/T] “is” not “mass”, m, nor “is” it a velocity, v! Rather p = mv it is a natural entity “motion”, or “momentum”, in its own right; which, as a quantity as well as a quality (entity), is different from m and different from v! While the velocity of a falling body doesn’t depend on the body’s mass, this is different with “momentum” mv. You will realize this when a mass of 10 grams and another one of 1 kilogram falling from the same height and at the same velocity will hit your feet, 10 grams the left, 1 kilogram the right one. That momentum p is not “mass” can also be seen when a moving billiard ball hits another one at rest. What happens to the momentum mv of the moving ball? It leaves the first ball, this ball now tending to rest, and passes over to the resting second ball, making it move! And, this leaving and passing over of momentum from ball 1 to ball 2, apparently sort of a resonance process without transfer of mass, happens immediately – but certainly not “instantaneously”, that is, not without consuming time and space! And, bet this process of generation of rest in the first ball, and of generation of motion in the second ball, will happen at a “constant velocity of generation”, c! Same is the observable “propagation” of momentum through a pendulum line.
Alex:
Electric Current, i.e. motion of particles, causes Electric Current, i.e. motion of particles.
We have been there before Heaviside – and it didn’t explain what we have in transmission lines (or radiowaves for that matter) – we have NO moving particles there!
Ed:
I absolutely agree! No moving particles! See above! No moving of anything! But also no “energy current” – so long as we agree that a “current” is always composed of moving particles!
So, our debate continues …
The next part will show that we seem to started to agree!