DISCONTINUOUS MOTION OF AN ELECTRIC PARTICLE

Abstract

At the outset this paper deals with a world-track which consists of a discrete series of events at which the particle may be found. The electric potential may change very rapidly in the vicinity of the null-cone with its vertex at the point–instant singularity, without requiring the usual electric current to sustain the wave of potential, provided that the electromagnetic field tensor is revised in accordance with equations previously proposed (5) to represent the non-optical radiation of energy and momentum. Such forms of potential represent the switching on and off of charge. Inertial mass, energy, and momentum are associated with the wave. Different possibilities for discontinuous motion of an electric particle occur, depending on the modes of its successive creations and annihilations.The model discussed exhibits the essential separation of space–time into two regions, in one of which the field is static and in the other it vanishes, and leads to new insight into the structure of electromagnetic field singularities as boundaries of the field which we may think of as propagated like electromagnetic waves in a wave-guide.Connection of these ideas with quantum theory is briefly discussed.