The Catt Anomaly
|
Traditionally. when a TEM step (i.e. logic transition from low to high) travels through a vacuum from left to right, guided by two conductors (the signal line and the 0v line), there are four factors which make up the wave;
- electric current in the conductors
- magnetic field, or flux, surrounding the conductors
- electric charge on the surface of the conductors
- electric field, or flux, in the vacuum terminating on
the charge.
The key to grasping the anomaly is to concentrate on the electric charge on the bottom conductor. The step advances one foot per nanosecond. Extra negative charge appears on the surface of the bottom conductor to terminate the new lines (tubes) of electric flux which appear between the top (signal) conductor and the bottom conductor.
Since 1982 the question has been: Where does
this new charge come from?
Not from the upper conductor, because by definition, displacement current is
not the flow of real charge. Not from somewhere to the left, because such charge
would have to travel at the speed of light in a vacuum.
Conventional electromagnetic theory says that the drift velocity of electric
current is slower than the speed of light.
|
|
|
|||||||||
Signal wire
|
+5v ..0v |
||||||||||
Animation by Eugen Hockenjos
© :)0i 2000
|
|||||||||||
|