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Ping Winfiled Hill

A question about electron charge.

I was reading about some alternate physics theory, 'Heim' theory. He derives the elementary particle masses to a high precision from basic physics constants it seems. Interesting is that he makes a link between gravity and electromagnetism. But most of all that theory proposes, or predicts, an electron with zero charge.

I remembered some posting of you seeing an anomality in the Millikan experiment, did some googling, quote, from you:

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But I digress. The point of the story is, one Sunday, alone in the > building, I saw a drop which had a 1/3 charge level on it. That is, > I could play with the source and make the charge +2/3 +1.67 -1/3 or > -1.33 etc, but it was always offset by 1/3. At first I couldn't believe > it, then I couldn't figure out what to do with it. I couldn't leave the > equipment to make a phone call from another room, because it could run > into a wall without monitoring and changing voltage in case of the loss > or gain of an electron, etc. Finally it grew boring, and I let it drop. > > The next day I learned more about what I might have seen. Although I > later told the story to some at Harvard and elsewhere, including my > advisor (who was on speaking terms with Fairbanks, and others who were > very interested in such things), no one really knew what to think about > it. Including myself. > > Even those who explored the ocean floor looking for good sources of > a 1/3-charge particle decended from space and left in the sediment > from prehistoric times, didn't bite on my suggestion that someplace > some very interesting atomizer oil must exist! > >-- >Winfield Hill snipped-for-privacy@rowland.org _/_/_/ _/_/_/_/ >The Rowland Institute for Science _/ _/ _/_/ _/ >Cambridge, MA USA 02142-1297 _/_/_/_/ _/ _/ _/_/_/

Such a zero charge electron would be very difficult to detect... But could a zero charge and a charged electron stick together, to give a particle with 2 electron masses and 1 charge? Or 2 zero makes 3 electron masses and 1 charge, looking like 1/3 charge? I love these anomalities, as as long as they are not explained, the door to advancement is wide open for anyone to walk in. I am reading up on Heim's theory, but will take years likely, started with the glossary, this quote from that gives some hint at what he thinks:

From

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HeimTheoryGlossary.pdf

Heim-Lorentz force: >Resulting from the newly >predicted gravitophoton particle that is a >consequence of the Heim space H8. A met- >ric subtensor is constructed in the subspace >of coordinates I2, S2 and T1, denoted as her- >metry form H5. The equation describing the >Heim-Lorentz force has a form similar to the >electromagnetic Lorentz force, except, that >it exercises a force on a moving body of >mass m, while the Lorentz force acts upon >moving charged particles only. In other >words, there seems to exist a direct coupling >between matter and electromagnetism. In >that respect, matter can be considered play- >ing the role of charge in the Heim-Lorentz >equation. The force is given by > F gp = p e 0 v T ×H . Here p is a coefficient, >vT the velocity of a rotating body (insulator) >of mass m, and H is the magnetic field >strength. It should be noted that the gravito- >photon force is 0, if velocity and magnetic >field strength are parallel.

Sorry if all this is a bit away from electronics design. Heim's theory could well be just an other an other idea... as many theories exists. However if the Higgs is not found in Cern, maybe it will get renewed attention. Hope I have not confused anyone by writing about my readings :-)

Reply to
Jan Panteltje
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charge.

These young theorists today! No connection with experimental reality!

(Actually the above statement was made by Dick Feynman when he stood up in front of all of Caltech at a colloquium where John Schwarz had just begun talking about 26-dimensional string theory.)

Tim.

Reply to
Tim Shoppa

m.

o charge.

My bets on Feynman.

Steve

Reply to
osr

On a sunny day (Mon, 27 Jul 2009 07:05:31 -0700 (PDT)) it happened Tim Shoppa wrote in :

Heim is dead, he became 75 IIRC, died a few years ago.

Yes strings suck, as it makes no testable predictions. Heim also calculated the lifetimes of the elementary particles, got quarks into it, he sees quarks as substructures (local condensations). Hope I got that right. He got things right to seven digits... Unifies SR and QM, so that is some work.

As to Feynman, I have some of his lectures downloaded on disk. It seems MS is also releasing the Feynman lectures these days.

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Downloadable? I have those on disk, so must be :-)

Reply to
Jan Panteltje

into it,

I'm interested in the results of the Chinese experiments on variable gravity during eclipses. They just did a whole string of experiments along the track of totality. The kind of thing Western physicists would never do because they *know* nothing will be discovered.

--
Dirk

http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK
http://www.theconsensus.org/ - A UK political party
http://www.onetribe.me.uk/wordpress/?cat=5 - Our podcasts on weird stuff
Reply to
Dirk Bruere at NeoPax

charge.

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[ snip ]

My story wasn't about a zero-charge electron, it was about a supposed fractional-charge observation. In my Millikan oil-drop experiment, I could measure individual charges to an accuracy of somewhere from 1 to 5%, if I recall correctly (the idea was to make hundreds of measurements and get a 0.1% overall accuracy), and so the 1/3 charge I saw easily stood out.

Reply to
Winfield Hill

On a sunny day (Sun, 2 Aug 2009 08:37:07 -0700 (PDT)) it happened Winfield Hill wrote in :

Yes I know that.

What I was asking is: Is it possible to explain the 1/3 charge observation by assuming the existence of particles consisting of two zero charge electrons stuck together with one normal electron. That would make 3x the mass and 1x the charge. But maybe in the Millikan experiment it is extremely unlikely to have an oil drop made of particles like that.... Thank you for the reply.

Reply to
Jan Panteltje

of

normal electron.

I don't think so. The mass of an oil drop is enormously greater than an electron.

The drop could have a speck of something in it, though, giving it a different average density from what is being assumed.

So I don't think any exotic new particles are needed to explain this -- only a drop that isn't pure oil.

--
Greg
Reply to
greg

existence of

normal electron.

Yes, just what I was thinking. An uncharged drop has a million electrons and protons, but a charged drop has a million-and-one electrons and a million protons. Or if it's moving twice as fast as another one, it has a million and two electrons and a million protons.

Even if it were a hydrogen atom, the missing mass of a missing electron would make less than 0.1 percent difference:

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I agree, if not that, the explanation is surely something mundane, though the 1/3 electron charge does seem a little suspicious.

Reply to
Ben Bradley

Well, just one data point could easily be a coincidence. To draw any conclusion you'd need to observe enough of them to be able to calculate error bars.

If you found a bunch of them, and they were all within say 0.1% of being exactly 1/3 charge, *that* would be suspicious...

--
Greg
Reply to
greg

e,

Actually, I got many data points on the one drop. A change of charge on the drop of one electron (more or less) makes a huge difference in the velocity, up or down. While the oil density is a factor, it'd have to change dramatically to have the same effect as a third of a charge, IIRC. Uncertainties in the density contribute at the 0.1% or lower level, not 33%.

Reply to
Winfield Hill

The problem of actually looking for fractional charge is that if it occurs it must be extremely rare. And being so rare any claims for its existence will be met by charges of experimental error. It's a no win situation.

--
Dirk

http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK
http://www.theconsensus.org/ - A UK political party
http://www.onetribe.me.uk/wordpress/?cat=5 - Our podcasts on weird stuff
Reply to
Dirk Bruere at NeoPax

All physics results are based on rare events these days. There are some automated Millikan setups searching for fractionally charged droplets. When they find something, we'll hear about it.

Jeroen Belleman

Reply to
Jeroen Belleman

Or not. It's becoming like Psi research.

--
Dirk

http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK
http://www.theconsensus.org/ - A UK political party
http://www.onetribe.me.uk/wordpress/?cat=5 - Our podcasts on weird stuff
Reply to
Dirk Bruere at NeoPax

Are there? That's good. Any links? I suggested exactly this to some influential people in 1965, but there didn't seem to be much interest.

Reply to
Winfield Hill

SLAC?

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--
Dirk

http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK
http://www.theconsensus.org/ - A UK political party
http://www.onetribe.me.uk/wordpress/?cat=5 - Our podcasts on weird stuff
Reply to
Dirk Bruere at NeoPax

Try Valerie Halyo, at SLAC. I found this link to a paper:

and some on-line quantitative results, here:

No sign of fractional charges...

Regards, Jeroen Belleman

Reply to
Jeroen Belleman

mundane,

Interesting. Way back when i repeated the Millikan experiment in High School we were using suspensions of latex micro-balls. Tremendously easier to get consistent masses and mass/charge ratios. This was in the late 1960s. I do not remember any anomalous results though.

Reply to
JosephKK

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