magnetic

[Mark Kohut]

Here's another of those generaliztions which annoys some plisters, so it is imho, sorry, that is not starkly but associateively true, but for P,
in his fiction, magnetism has a positive charge, so to speak and electricity a negative one. 

From: Prashant Kumar <siva.prashant.kumar at gmail.com>
To: Madeleine Maudlin <madeleinemaudlin at gmail.com> 
Cc: P-list <pynchon-l at waste.org> 
Sent: Thursday, August 2, 2012 11:40 PM
Subject: Re: magnetic


Electromagnetic radiation is carried by photons. The wave is the "motion" of these photons. In the most general form of quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, photons are excitations (little lumpy bits) in the EM field (w.l.o.g. a rubber sheet).  

A plasma is a collection of charged interacting particles: ions, electrons, quarks and gluons etc. Magnetism? Forgetaboutit. There's this video, which is my favourite "explanation" of magnetism to non-physicists. 

http://kottke.org/10/02/richard-feynman-explains-magnets-sort-of

P.

On Friday, 3 August 2012, Madeleine Maudlin wrote:

I was looking into plasma.  Who knew about plasma?  I don't think it was ever in school.  Must be new.  Who knew that you could have immense storms of free unattached electrons?  Skies the limit.  Imagine this entire solar system once being in a magnificent plasma cloud.  Badda-bing, badda-boom, you'd get things done.  Might explain how Mars has obviously been blitzkrieged by unholy balls of lightning somewhere in its past. 
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>Anyway I felt dumb so I decided on a refresher course on the basics, and if you want basic common "undisputed" knowledge then you go to wiki.  I wikied magnetic, always kind of a mystery to me, and it's one of the biggies (my mission is to know what, say, a radiation wave consists of, what the wave is, if it comes from an electron, is it a different substance, I can handle an electron, it's a tiny blob in space, but one electron creates a million hertz wave or more? etc.  On wiki Magnetic redirects to Magnetism.  Check it out: I read the first eight paragraphs, and not one sentence does not use the base term magnetic.  All simple sentences, and some even record magnetic twice...
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>That doesn't help my dumbness.
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