Dies the Magnet
- From: Mad Bad Rabbit <madbadrabbit@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 24 May 2008 19:52:27 -0700 (PDT)
According to a 1991 paper, "The Environmental impact of vacuum
decay" (abstract at: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1991AmJPh..59...25C
), it is possible that the electromagnetic force could spontaneously
break into separate short-range electric and magnetic forces.
According to the authors, this would not destroy the universe or blow
up the Sun or anything, but it would mean several bad things for
modern civilization:
1) Photon now has mass and moves slightly slower than c.
2) No more radio, microwaves, or other EM waves below a few hundred
GHz.
3) No magnetic or electric fields beyond 1 cm or so.
Assuming such a phase transaction occurred, though, what would happen
to the potential energy stored in electric and magnetic fields when
they vanished? Would it all be released as photons?
.
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