[Phys-L] Re: accelerating charge

[mungan at USNA.EDU (Carl E. Mungan)]

Sorry I'm always lagging behind the discussions a bit because I only
read the digest, but let me throw in my 2 cents again.

> I haven't had the time to sort out the various arguments presented, but I
> find the concept of a single stationary charge in a gravitational field
> spontaneously radiating energy rather unnerving.

Indeed, I assume that does NOT occur. If it did, wouldn't it easily
be measurable from all the billions and billions of charges sitting
around in stars, planets, etc? ie. Why restrict yourself to a single
charge?

> I note that the original question did not specify uniform
> acceleration or even straight-line acceleration

My bad. But it was in fact what I had in mind, as Mallinckrodt
correctly guessed.

> As for the case of hyperbolic motion, I will need to think
> about that some more.  I would expect classical electrodynamics
> to have an unambiguous prediction, one way or the other.

You're a very smart guy, so I'm all ears if you figure it out. At the
moment, I like the idea that radiation in general goes as the first *
third derivative, and only reduces to second * second for bounded
motion. Carl
--
Carl E. Mungan, Asst. Prof. of Physics  410-293-6680 (O) -3729 (F)
       U.S. Naval Academy, Stop 9C, Annapolis, MD 21402-5040
mailto:mungan@usna.edu       http://usna.edu/Users/physics/mungan/