Talk:Magnetic monopole/Archive 1

message: The length scale over which this special vacuum configuration exists is called the correlation length of the system. A correlation length cannot be larger than causality would allow, therefore the correlation length for making magnetic monopoles must be at least as big as the horizon size determined by the metric of the expanding Universe. According to that logic, there should be at least one magnetic monopole per horizon volume as it was when the symmetry breaking took place.
This statement consists primarily of self-referential jargon, and desperately needs to be re-written:
# What is the "correlation length", and why does it exist?
# Why can't it be "larger that causality would allow"? What does this even mean?
# What "horizon size determined by the metric of the expanding Universe"? Do you mean "the size of the universe"?
# Why should there be 1 monopole per volume? And what volume, I thought we were talking about length?
# If there's 1 per such volume, why do we expect 10^11 of them today? Alternately this could be re-phrased as why is the volume 10^11 different than it was during the symmetry breaking? And when did this occur?
—Preceding unsigned comment added by Maury Markowitz (talk • contribs) 18:33, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't explain all of it, but the questions you ask lead into other areas of physics, rather than magnetic monopoles. For 1, the correlation length is the distance over which quantum vacuum fluctuations influence (or correlate with) one another. So this leads to a volume of the area within that distance, which is where you get the volume you mention in 4. For 3, the horizon size is the size of the observable universe. See the wikipedia page on 'observable universe'. Notably, the early observable universe was much smaller than it is now, and at one point it would have been 10^-11 times the volume, which may go some way towards clarifying that. None of this is self referential, and in my opinion is written just fine. It's just using scientific terms you may be unfamiliar with. Perhaps it might be a good idea to link up some of the technical terms to their relevant wikipedia pages though. Also, a 'correlation length' article would be useful if anyone is skilled enough to write it. 314159 00:59, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can someone explain this in English? 

message: From the article:
"The most recent such experiments suggest that monopoles with masses below 600 GeV/c² do not exist, while upper limits on their mass due to the existance of the universe (which would have collapsed by now if they were too heavy) is about 1026 eV."
These two figures should be converted to the same notation for clarity. I'd do it myself but I'd have to bust my brains to remember how, and then I'd probably screw it up. Also, I don't understand why the first figure has the "/c²"; it's a constant, so do the math for the poor reader. KarlBunker 17:37, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This has been fixed - it should be eV/c^2.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Crumley (talk • contribs) 20:12, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

text: You remember E=mc²?  Well, eV and GeV are units of energy.  So, if we take Einstein's famous equation, and divide by c² on both sides, we get E/c²=m.  Thus, we can measure mass in units of energy divided by the square of the speed of light.  Properly, we should use eV/c² or GeV/c² in both cases, but physicists are lazy, and it is a sufficiently strong and widespread convention that the c² is frequently left off in practice.  If we "[did] the math for the poor reader" by actually dividing by c², we'd have to choose some non-standard and/or less informative units for mass.  600 GeV is the rest mass energy of a particle massing 600 GeV/c², to explain why the chosen units are particularly informative.  See Electronvolt#Using electronvolts to measure mass for somebody else's wording of what I just said.  Jon Wilson 24.162.120.52 03:46, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Mass

message: The article says:"The magnetic force is actually due to the finite speed of a disturbance of the electric field, the speed of light, which gives rise to forces that appear to be acting along a line at right angles to the charges. In effect, the magnetic force is the portion of the electric force directed to where the charge used to be."
I find this to be bull. This would predict no magnetic force from an electrically neutral current carrying wire (because there was never an electric force). I don't know if the author of this part was trying to explain the Lorentz transformation of the EM field but I think the way it is written is very misleading. Achoo5000 04:49, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Magnetic force

message: The following was just added:
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Although Maxwell equation do not support monopoles J. Garcia suggested that if the radial part of the Magnetic field : B=a/(r-d)^{2}  where d is somehow a distance from the origin to a point (a,b,c) on R^{3} for r=d the magnetic field goes to inifnite, if we take the equation
:\nabla \times \mathbf{E} = -\frac{\partial \mathbf{B}} {\partial t}
and integrate over a surface : T=S+S(\epsilon)  where epsilon is the surface of a sphere with center in (a,b,c) the volume enclosed by this surface avoids the singularity at r=d so the volume of integration would be  : V-V(\epsilon)  we have that B comes from a rotational (curl) so div(rot(E))=0 but we had that:
: \iint_{S}dsRot(E)-\iint_{S(\epsilon)}Rot(E)ds= 0  (divergence theorem),the Rot(E)=-dB/dt and the integral over the sphere making epsilon tends to 0 is equal to  : 4\pi{B(d,t)}  so we can associate a "magnetic charge" to the point where singularity for B occurs in the form:
: divB=Q_{m}=-4\pi{\int_{a}^{t}{duB(d,u)}} 
to make this valid the radial part of the magnetid field should depend only on the variable r and t but not on the angles : \Omega , every time there is a singularity of the magnetic field, there is also a magnetic charge associated to this, if we are integrating over the surface of an sphere, its normal vector is n(r) and the integral is equal to : \int_{0}^{R}f(r+d)4\pi{r^{2}}dr  so the quadratic singularity cancels, making the radius tend to 0 we get the value f(d) being d the distance from the origin to the center of the sphere.
----
I've removed it as original research. Melchoir 18:31, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Apr 06 removal 

message: The two articles discuss aspects of the same general idea, so I'd suggest merging them. Yevgeny Kats 03:06, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. Yevgeny Kats 16:48, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge [[Dirac monopole]] into this article

message: Would it be better to write Maxwell's Equations in such a way that does not assume the medium is free space? For example, writing Gauss' Law of Electric Charge as Div(D) = Pe rather than Div(E) = Pe/epsilon? This would allow any medium (including anisotropic and non-linear mediums) to be represented. Also, what are the units of the magnetic charge density variable? When I do the calculations, I am getting Coulombs per cubic meter. Shouldn't the magnetic charge density be in units of webers per cubic meter? Can someone please give a second opinion on this? Nlalic 09:47, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I haven't heard any response, so I've made the changes outlined above Nlalic 08:09, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: General observations

message: A. R. Hadjesfandiari's article on arXiv is not a reliable source, since it is self-published. Whenever you see an article on arXiv under "General Physics" without a journal ref, those should both be red flags. Melchoir 05:32, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems that the articles on arxiv.org are also moderated and can not be self-published easily.  Hadjesfandiari's second article on arxiv.org has been rejected. -Mohseng 04:24, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Being kicked off of arXhiv, which accepts papers before they have been reviewed by journals, can hardly qualify the author as a reliable source. Every now and then an author whose work was rejected everywhere proves to be correct and their work is eventually accepted. Wikipedia, however does not have a place for such authors until that acceptance takes place. See WP:V.--agr 06:51, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  You must be kidding. Being on arXiv does not qualify a person let alone being kicked out of it!  I was responding to Melchoir after he said (I hope you fully read it) 'the articles on arXiv are "self-published"' by explaining to him that THEY ARE NOT because they have moderators and they intervene, apparently as Hadjesfandiari claims so. that's all. In contrast, if I publish my paper on my own website, that's called self-publishing. phew..  Now, if the paper is not worthy in their opinion or if there is something in the paper that they do not like, I am not sure.  The paper is anyway available in his webpage if somebody wants to read it.  I suggest to Hadjesfandiari, if he reads these: talk to the moderators at arXiv or find forums over the net and discuss this. Also we would be happy if he could discuss over here. -Mohseng 21:46, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Melchoir is correct. Posting a paper on arXhiv is considered self-publishing. The fact that they have some limits as to what can go up there doesn't change that fact. It's simply not a reliable source for Wikipedia. What Dr. Hadjesfandiari is doing is considered original research. Original research is a good thing, but Wikipedia does not offer a home for it, even on the talk pages. So, no, he is not welome to discuss it here. Please read WP:NOR.--agr 10:28, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A. R. Hadjesfandiari 

message: Criticism
There are, at this article and linked articles, arguments for another point of view, where Magnetic monopole assumptions are non-relevant:
# Background: all observed magnetic fields and magnetic effects are explained in terms of the motion of charged particles.
# Theoretical models and explanation (see Lorentz transformations): the Electromagnetism theory and Relativity theory suggest that, even in thought experiments, "only electric charges" make sense.
# Symmetry and aesthetic principles supply good clues on Physics, but, only it, not provide a sufficient argument for a Reality explanation.
# Magnetic_monopole#Background: "The modern understanding of magnetism posits that all magnetic effects are actually due to the motion of charged particles; that is, all magnets are in fact electromagnets". And at Magnetic_monopole#Maxwell.27s_Equations: "... the empirical background and usual models of matter: on Earth, at this days, all observed magnetic fields, and all magnetic effects, are actually due to the motion of charged particles, and can explained in terms of 'electric charges dynamics'".
# Magnetic_monopole#Maxwell.27s_Equations and Lorentz_transformation#Special_relativity: "Lorentz transformations can also be used to prove that magnetic and electric fields are simply different aspects of the same force — the electromagnetic force. If we have one charge or a collection of charges which are all stationary with respect to each other, we can observe the system in a frame in which there is no motion of the charges".
# ...
To delete Criticism section need first (to be consistent) rewrite Wikipedia articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.81.178.200 (talk • contribs) 23:52, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, you're still not citing any reliable sources, as was requested above. That being the case, I can't support this. Please find some sources to back up your claims. – Luna Santin (talk) 00:01, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  See what is write (a copy/paste from SOURCED WIKIPEDIA ARTICLES) and what you writing... please IT NEED LOGIC CONSISTENCE: if you delete a section by "find some sources" justification, need DELETE ALL ARTICLES!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.6.11.70 (talk • contribs) 17:41, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reasons to the Criticism are here! 

message: What we have here is an edit war. The user or users using IP 201.83.166.62, IP 200.153.155.232, and name User:Lixo2, adamantly insist that their "criticisms" of the notion of a magnetic monopole must be in the article; others, including at least me and User:Yevgeny Kats, consider those criticisms out of place, ill-expressed and dubiously coherent, and generally not appropriate for an encyclopaedia article.
No actual response has been offered to the specific and clear reasons I gave above for thinking that the "criticisms" section doesn't belong in the article, only a lot of bluster. Let me once more summarize the position as I see it.
* The "criticisms" section purports to argue for "another point of view, where 'magnetic monopole' assumptions are non-relevant".
* There's no explanation ...
** ... of what point of view that is
** ... of just what point of view it's an alternative to (belief in magnetic monopoles? belief that there might be magnetic monopoles? or what?)
** ... of what "assumptions" are being criticized (that there are magnetic monopoles? but no one assumes that; that there might be magnetic monopoles? but the "criticisms" offer no grounds for denying that; that it might be worth thinking about magnetic monopoles? but, again, the "criticisms" don't offer grounds for denying that)
** ... of what is meant by "non-relevant" (not relevant to what? or is this just an obscure way of saying "wrong"?).
* The criticisms themselves are unclearly expressed; this is partly because of the authors' imperfect command of English (fair enough; it's far better than my Portuguese) but also, I suspect, because the ideas being expressed aren't themselves entirely coherent.
** The authors' response to having that pointed out is to suggest that those of us arguing against the "Criticism" section should rewrite them to be clearer. But (1) we can't do that when it's far from clear what they actually mean, and (2) we think the section shouldn't be there at all, so why should we have to expend effort improving it?
* The authors claim that this section is necessary for the sake of some kind of balance. But the article already mentions (right up at the top, in the very first section) that as far as we currently know it's possible to explain all electromagnetic phenomena in terms of moving electric charges, and that it's possible that magnetic monopoles couldn't exist. If there's anything more to the authors' "other point of view" than that, then it's entirely unclear what. And if there isn't, it's hard to see how that point of view can need to be given more prominence in the article than it already has.
201.83.166.62/200.153.155.232/Lixo2, please stop scribbling your ill-considered, ill-expressed, ill-mannered criticisms over this article until you can explain, clearly, on the talk page:
* just what you're objecting to;
* just what the alternative view is that you want notice of here in Wikipedia;
* just why what the article already says doesn't already express your objections adequately;
* just what reliable sources you can offer for your alternative view.
Thank you.
I shan't delete your criticisms again right now, because on past form it seems likely that you'll just put them straight back in again, and revert wars are boring, boring, boring. But if you want them to stay in in the longer term, you'll be well advised to give clear answers to those questions.
(A point of style: please don't answer by interpolating responses between every pair of successive sentences, as you did above. That works quite well for e-mail and Usenet, where the earlier non-split-up text is readily available, but here it just makes the discussion extremely hard to follow. It will be easier for everyone if you leave what others have written intact, and add your own comments as a unit. Thanks.)
Gareth McCaughan 21:16, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The IP user is apparently unwilling to cooperate or discuss this issue at all, much less provide anything which even resembles a source. Instead, they apparently plan to revert war until we give up. That poses a problem. – Luna Santin (talk) 02:50, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have semi-protected as provisional measure. I also added a comment at Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-01-26 Magnetic Monopole NPOV. --Pjacobi 07:34, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Please add me to the list who think the criticisms make much more sense than the speculative innuendos implying the existence of monopoles.  There is not even any such thing as dipole magnets, let alone monopoles.  This article is based on the lack of proof that monopoles do not exist. John 04:27, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ongoing edit war 

message: Sorry if this comment is misplaced, I could not find an add comment button.
Can someone please clarify the units in the following statement: "qe qm (element of) Z" ?  This is certainly not true in Gaussian units.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.36.29.99 (talk • contribs) 23:08, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarify units 

message: So... why aren't protons and electrons considered to be monopoles? Titanium Dragon 10:32, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: They are. But they are electric, not magnetic monopoles.--193.198.16.211 17:34, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why aren't protons and electrons monopoles? 

message: "Note: the Bivector notation embody the sign swap, and this four equations can be written as only one equation." What is the one equation? -- SurrealWarrior 21:00, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  One equation? 

message: The end of section "Maxwell's equations" included the following text:
:So, classically, the question is "Why does the magnetic charge always seem to be zero?" Nothing in Maxwell's equations suggests that it has to be, nor has any other development based on these original formulations. This has been a curiosity for a long time, but it has become more of a problem in recent years, when new particle theories of Physics seem to predict the existence of magnetic monopoles.
:The suggestion was "only" the empirical background and usual models of matter: on Earth, at this days, all observed magnetic fields, and all magnetic effects, are actually due to the motion of charged particles, and can explained in terms of "electric charges dynamics".
:For "usual Physics", like on Electromagnetism and Relativity theories, the Lorentz transformations can be used to prove that magnetic and electric fields are simply different aspects of the same force — the electromagnetic force. From this point of view, the magnetic monopole is only a "relativistic manifestation" of the electric field and electric charges.
I corrected the last sentence of the first paragraph to:
:This fact can only be explained by theories of elementary particles.
The sentence was incorrect the way it was written. First, nothing changed in the recent years. Theories of magnetic monopoles existed for many decades. Second, theories of elementary particles give perfect answers to why we don't usually observe magnetic monopoles. (Depending on the exact question under consideration, the answer has to do with the electroweak unification, with the huge masses predicted for the magnetic monopoles, etc.)
I removed the second paragraph for two reasons:
1. It's unclear what is meant by the words "empirical" and "background". The sentence doesn't make any sense.
2. The second part of the sentence, that all magnetic phenomena on Earth can be attributed to electric charges, already appears in the article.
I removed the third paragraph because it doesn't explain what exactly it means by saying that Lorentz transformations disprove the existence of magnetic monopoles (in fact, I know they don't. It's true that electric and magnetic fields mix up in Lorentz transformation, but magnetic charge density, if exists, cannot be eliminated). The paragraph doesn't cite sources.
Yevgeny Kats 04:34, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Cleaned up a bit

message: Should the article about magnetic photon be merged into this article about magnetic monopoles? Or are they two different things? Reko 21:35, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: They are two different things. Urvabara 18:20, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Magnetic Photon

message: I removed the following dubious claim:
:Nothing in Maxwell's equations suggests that it has to be, nor has any other development based on these original formulations. This fact can only be explained by theories of elementary particles.
The article Maxwell's equations shows the Modern Heaviside Versions, which are what are commonly taught in college physics classes.  The equation \vec{\nabla}\cdot\vec{B} = 0 can be summarized "no magnetic monopoles", which seems to directly contradict the above claim.  If there is some complicated reason why there is no contradiction here, someone should explain it in more detail and also supply a reference to a reliable source.  Thanks, Beland 04:46, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Setting \vec{\nabla}\cdot\vec{B} to zero is a statement of an experimental fact. There is no mathematical necessity for doing so. Symmetry suggests \vec{\nabla}\cdot\vec{B} should equal the net magnetic charge. I've tried to clarify the article on this point and added a cite. --agr 14:28, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  But there would still be asymetry between electric field and magnetic field - electric field is vector field while magnetic field is pseudovector field. This also means that magnetic charge of magnetic monopoles (if they exist (if their existence is mathematicly consistent)) would be pseudoscalar quantities. Simpler Maxwell's equations doesn't necessary have to imply simpler laws of nature. --78.0.28.41 19:26, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  The point is Maxwell's equations can easily accommodate a magnetic charge. Symmetries in equations have been very reliable predictors of laws of nature. Much of modern physics is built on this idea. So the failure to detect monopoles is a problem. --agr 20:32, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Maxwell's equations 

message: This article is currently the subject of an active Mediation Cabal case. However, the issues seems to be largely resolved. If this is not the case, please add your comments on what issues are outstanding so they can be looked into further. Cheers, Thewinchester (talk) 18:46, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Mediation Cabal case - move for closure

message: A case for this article is open at the Mediation Cabal - Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-01-26 Magnetic Monopole NPOV. It appears that none of the editors of this article have participated in the case since March. If there are still issues that need to be resolved and the editors involved are still interested in mediation, please update the case with this information. The case will be closed after a week if there is no response. Thank you! Shell babelfish 04:16, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  MedCab Case 

message: "The majority of particles appearing in any quantum field theory are unstable, and decay into other particles in a variety of reactions that have to conserve various values. Stable particles are stable because there are no lighter particles to decay into that still conserve these values. For instance, the electron has a lepton number of 1 and an electric charge of 1, and there are no lighter particles that conserve these values. On the other hand, the muon, essentially a heavy electron, can decay into the electron and is therefore not stable."
If we accept the premise that the only reason a particle won't decay is because there is nothing lighter to decay to that still conserves all appropriate values then protons should be decaying into their constituent quarks and stable elements such as Carbon 12 or Helium 4 should be undergoing decay as well. The facts are that decay is not governed by whether or not there is something smaller to decay to so much as whether or not the energy of the system is larger than the binding energy (or at least large enough energies to quantum tunnel out of the barrier posed by the binding energy). Yes it is a necessary condition that there be suitable particles to decay to, but it is not a sufficient condition.  Fatal shadow 23:01, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Particle decay statement in the grand unified theory secton 

message: The following was added, and then reverted with the comment "rm POV/misinterpreted_ref".
:In 2003, a group of people observed indirect evidence for magnetic monopoles.< ref >< /ref >
I'm reluctant to add it back without knowing more about this subject, but it seems to have at least something in common with the subject of this article (a short excerpt from the abstract is "the magnetic monopole in real space have been made in cosmic rays and in particle accelerators, but there has not yet been any firm evidence for its existence because of its very heavy mass, ~10^16 giga–electron volts").  If Zhong et al are wrong, it might still be worth mentioning (we might find another WP:RS saying they are wrong).  Although that might kind of depend on what the situation is. Kingdon 22:33, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: [I'm sure this wasn't intentional, but that "short excerpt from the abstract" is grossly out of context: the full quote is "Efforts to find the magnetic monopole in real space have been made in cosmic rays and in particle accelerators...".] More importantly, the paper is about a collective phenomenon in condensed-matter physics which is mathematically analogous to magnetic monopoles. The paper does not at all imply that there's anything in the solid other than nuclei and electrons, or that the microscopic B-field is not divergenceless. Of course, they play up the connection to real monopoles in the abstract, but don't be fooled, that's just for publicity...be sure that if a paper in Science had evidence for a "real" monopole, they would trumpet that fact, and it would have gotten a lot more press. --Steve 04:38, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah yes, thanks.  I didn't fully appreciate the strange wording about "in real space" versus "in the crystal momentum space".  (And no, my "short excerpt" was not intended to stand alone, just to point out what part of the abstract was eye-catching; thanks for assuming good faith). Agreed that the connection to this article is pretty distant, and if it isn't notable enough to mention some place like Hall effect, it certainly doesn't belong here. Kingdon 17:47, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fang Zhong et al 2003 paper 

message: Needs references Snailwalker | talk 00:13, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Archived from /Comments page