Re: Electrostatic shielding

[David Bowman <David_Bowman@GEORGETOWNCOLLEGE.EDU>]

Regarding Joel's question:
> Bill wrote in part:
> > Perhaps I live in an abnormal conceptual world.  When I see a charged
> > object, I know that somewhere else there must be an OPPOSITLY charged
> > object, since the "flux lines" cannot just end abruptly.  I imagine that
> > all electric charge everywhere was "created" by being pulled away from an
> > opposite charge.
>
> Is this a proof that the universe was created with equal positive and
> negative charge??

Bill's imagination is in itself not a proof of the global charge
neutrality of the universe.  But *if* the spacelike sections of spacetime
are topologically compact (so that the universe is spatially closed) it
is a easily provable theorem that the universe must be charge-neutral
(for essentially the reason illustrated by Bill) because all electric
flux lines must stop & start on opposite charges and there is no
spatial infinity for any excess such lines to escape to.

David Bowman
David_Bowman@georgtowncollege.edu