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Catt anomaly?



Hello,

I learnt from my ex-student in the University of Cambridge about the Catt anomaly. He wrote on 15th November 2001 (excerpt from http://www.bluesci.com/~rpaju/):

”Tonight's evening lecture was at the Engineering Department, by Ivor Catt on the 'Catt Question' of electromagnetism. What he calls an anomaly, is a basic question about transmission lines: when a pulse is sent down a simple cable (e.g. coaxial), the edge of the electric field is moving at c. Because field lines start and end on charges, there must be charges accumulating on the conductors as the field moves on. Where do the charges come from? The essential problem is that the charges, which are massive, must be moving at c as well, which violates special relativity.”

Catt explains his question and attempts to answer it in
<http://www.electromagnetism.demon.co.uk/w99anbk2.htm>.

I have no competence to decide if the Catt anomaly is a real problem or not. Any comments?

Regards,

Antti Savinainen
Kuopion Lyseo High School
Finland

Homepage: <http://personal.inet.fi/tiede/physics/>