Roy Lewallen wrote:
I don't want to add ammunition to support Art's gibberish, but it's
interesting and not widely known that current *does* flow in the
opposite direction to the main flow, at certain depths in a homogeneous
conductor.

In a solid conductor, the current density does, of course, decrease
exponentially with depth. The depth at which it's decayed to 1/e (about
37%) of the surface density is the "skin depth". This is why a hollow
tube is just as good a conductor as a solid one, providing only that the
tube wall is at least several skin depths thick.

But the *phase* of the current changes with depth, too, quite
dramatically. As you go each skin depth deeper below the surface, the
phase becomes one radian (about 57 degrees) more lagging. So at pi skin
depths below the surface, the current is completely out of phase with
the surface current, i.e., it's flowing in the opposite direction. Of
course, the current density at this point is very small, only 1/e^pi ~
4% of the surface density, so only a small fraction of the total current
flows completely backward. (Good thing!) At two pi skin depths, the
current is again in phase with the surface current, but its magnitude is
only 1/e^(2*pi) ~ 1/500 of the surface density. And so forth.

This isn't of much immediate practical use, and it's certainly not
offered as supporting in any way Art's fanciful theories (whatever they
might be). But it is an interesting fact.


I wonder if one could set up some sort of interesting demonstration of
this. If you could, for instance, have a 1 foot diameter conductor with
skin depth of an inch or so, and some (probably not feasible) way to
indicate current flow. (yes, in order for this to happen it has to be
AC, etc.)