Between 2011 and 2012, Massimo/ Massimiliano Pieraccini came up with the answer to “The Catt Question”. http://www.ivorcatt.co.uk/cattq.htm

“Catt’s Anomaly”

“L’anomalia (di Catt)” by Massimiliano Pieraccini, pub. Rizzoli 2011. In Italian.

A novel. http://www.ivorcatt.co.uk/x5a31.htm

.... ....

M «Are you kidding?» “Nobody with an ounce of common sense would risk their career and scientific reputation to study the Catt anomaly” Massimo thought, “and even if they were spending time on this, they wouldn’t be telling people about it”.

M «It’s an unresolved paradox of classical electromagnetism» Massimo cut it short.

A «Obviously you won’t find the Catt anomaly in university textbooks» Alexander pointed out sarcastically. He felt like talking about it, and Fabio was getting curious.

F «But what’s your opinion?»

M «Science is not such a monolith as it looks in manuals» Massimo said, not answering the question directly. «It has rather a patchy structure: here and there, very well explained details give the impression of an extraordinary explanatory power, but all around them are huge gray areas that no one is willing to investigate, because everyone thinks there is nothing much there»

F «So isn’t the Catt anomaly interesting enough?»

[to give it five pages in a novel? Not mentioned in any peer reviewed journal for 30 years.]

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242 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine, Vol. 54, No. 6, December 2012

Catt’s Anomaly

Massimiliano Pieraccini and Stefano Selleri

http://www.ivorcatt.co.uk/x54c.pdf

“most of the answers agreed in considering the problem not to be an anomaly at all. They explained the phenomenon by resorting to the very high number of electrons in the metal, which can follow the TEM wave at a speed of c, generating an appropriate current, even if each single electron moved at a drift velocity much smaller than c. Indeed, what the theory requires is an appropriate current. However, current is the product of charge density and speed: where there is a high charge density, the speed could also be very slow. Physic ally, a current follows the field traveling at the speed c, but this current is due to a great number of slowly moving electrons”

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As to the article in “Physics Education”, below, the Editor Gary Williams first rejected my reply, and then refused even to publish 30 words giving a hyperlink to the web page with my reply. This is in spite of the fact that his journal has a “letters” section. This is of course totally unconscionable behaviour. Ivor Catt, 13 April 2016.

718 PHYSICS EDUCATION 48(6) 0031-9120/13/060718+05$33.00 c 2013 IOP Publishing Lt

An apparent paradox: Catt’s anomaly

M Pieraccini and S Selleri

http://www.ivorcatt.co.uk/x5as2.pdf

“it has a clear and satisfactory solution and it can be considered indubitably just an apparent paradox.”

“The solution. The key idea of the explanation of this apparent paradox is related to the great number of electrons in metal. Although each single electron is not able to travel at the speed of light, a great number of slow electrons are able to produce a current as fast as an electromagnetic wave travelling at the speed of light in the conductor.”

“Conclusion. Catt’s anomaly is just an exercise that can be solved with the conceptual tools of basic electromagnetism”

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November 2013 PHYSICS EDUCATION 719

718 PHYSICS EDUCATION 48(6) 0031-9120/13/060718+05$33.00 c

2013 IOP Publishing Ltd

An apparent paradox: Catt’s anomaly

M Pieraccini and S Selleri

http://www.ivorcatt.co.uk/x5as2.pdf

pp720, 721

This incoming current lasts for a time interval ∆t and produces in the wire length ∆x an imbalance of charge ∆Q given by ∆Q=I∆ t=I∆ x⁄ c . (2)

“and produces in the wire length ∆x an imbalance of charge ∆Q”. This large amount of charge is not uniformly distributed in the section ∆x. It is all concentrated at the left hand end of that section, because it travelled slowly.

After ∆t has elapsed, the current starts to ﬂow out of our sampling volume and the charges entering from the left are balanced by those escaping towards the right.

“After ∆t has elapsed, the current starts to ﬂow out of our sampling volume” Not so, because the charge required to produce this current flowing out is far away at the left hand of ∆x. Before it could start to flow out of the section ∆x , some of it would have to traversed the length ∆x at the speed of light.

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What follows is the letter (answer) submitted to “Physics Education” on 14 December 2015.

I could not get through the submission protocol because I could not give and institution I belonged to, since I do not belong to an institution. I submitted it direct to the editor.

Origin of "The Catt Question" http://www.ivorcatt.co.uk/cattq.htm

Traditionally. when a TEM step (i.e. logic transition from low to high) ( Figures 3, 4, 5 from Electromagnetism 1 ) 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 i
- magnetic field, or flux, surrounding the conductors B
- electric charge on the surface of the conductors +q , -q
- electric field, or flux, in the vacuum terminating on the charge (Figure 2), D

The key to grasping the question is to concentrate on the electric charge -q 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 D (figure 2) which appear between the top (signal) conductor and the bottom conductor.

Since 1982 the question has been: Where does this new charge come from?
Sir Michael Pepper, Knighted "for services to Physics", privately writes that it comes from the south.

Nobel Prizewinner Professor Josephson privately writes that it comes from the west.

After being ignored by all peer reviewed journals for a third of a century, Massimiliano Pieraccini and Stefano Selleri published two replies, one being in this journal. They took a small section of the transmission line ∆x and discussed the charge entering and leaving it, concluding that there was no real paradox.

November 2013 PHYSICS EDUCATION 719

718 PHYSICS EDUCATION 48(6) 0031-9120/13/060718+05$33.00 c

2013 IOP Publishing Ltd

An apparent paradox: Catt’s anomaly

M Pieraccini and S Selleri

http://www.ivorcatt.co.uk/x5as2.pdf

pp719, 721

“The solution. The key idea of the explanation of this apparent paradox is related to the great number of electrons in metal. Although each single electron is not able to travel at the speed of light, a great number of slow electrons are able to produce a current as fast as an electromagnetic wave travelling at the speed of light in the conductor.”

In the race between the electrons and the TEM wave, or between the tortoise(s) and the hare, however we look at it, 100 or even 1,000 tortoises will fall further and further behind.

“This incoming current lasts for a time interval ∆t and produces in the wire length ∆x an imbalance of charge ∆Q given by ∆Q=I∆ t=I∆ x⁄ c . (2)”

“and produces in the wire length ∆x an imbalance of charge ∆Q”. This very large amount of charge is not uniformly distributed in the section ∆x. It is all concentrated at the left hand end of that section, ∆∆x, because it travelled slowly.

“After ∆t has elapsed, the current starts to ﬂow out of our sampling volume and the charges entering from the left are balanced by those escaping towards the right.”

“After ∆t has elapsed, the current starts to ﬂow out of our sampling volume” Not so, because the charge required to produce this current flowing out is far away at the left hand end of ∆x. Before it could start to flow out of the section ∆x, some of it would have to have traversed the length ∆x at the speed of light.

Ivor Catt 14 December 2015.

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