Old drawings (three in one image) that I made in 2003:
It was an attempt (and a poor one) to show how electrons are deflected in the MAGVID.
Actually I think it communicates the idea well Mathias. For me the issue isn't understanding the diagrams which are quite clear and descriptive, and their simplicity is probably a benefit.
It just happens that I dug out the printed copy I made when you posted your link and so today I was going back over it with a fine comb. There are a number of issues which could use clarification for people like myself, otherwise it's fairly descent and communicates the ideas well. There may be some leaps in logic which need to be filled in but generally I think the whole thing is well done.
What I'm trying to make sense of is how this all begins to take place by a physical means. In another words, beginning with one issue is; where are the these electrons coming from? In nature the air is composed of molecules. Free electrons are caused by radiation from space that liberate electrons by striking individual atoms in the ionic air molecules, and it does this at a steady rate. Now in the MMD Magvid, how are these free electrons being liberated? I'm having trouble understanding this process.
The process of liberating electrons from the atoms of ionic air molecules is visible in the tornado model, but here you have a virtual bar magnet spinning which is said to be causing an effect upon "Electrons," and the question is where are these
free electrons coming from, or how are they being generated, because while similar in theory to how a tornado works, what I'm not gathering is where is the free electron generator? That's what a tornado really is. It's a free electron generator. So where are these coming from in the Magvid?
Do you understand? I'm sure it's just me but with a tornado it's these counter spiraling sheets of air bringing ionic particles in to collision which release the electrons via collisions with one another. Once the atmosphere creates a central tube of negatively charged ions which fall to the earth in a thread, then the resultant is an upwards positively charged ionic field that layers the surface. The positively charged ions will climb the downwards falling negatively charged ions as they build atop every repelled positive ion that is carried backwards on the falling ions, and then begin leap frogging over each other to contact the negatively charged ions, and so on until they reach the plateau where the negatively charged ionic field is held.
So I can understand how a tornado creates liberated electrons via a Townsend Cascade, and brought on by the two counter rotating high speed vortex tubes which bring about a collision of atmospheric ions, but I'm having trouble seeing the mode of operation here in the MAGVID or MMD, but maybe this will clear up in due course.
* This is a little nit picking but might be significant;
The one thing which I've encountered is confusion caused by non~standard terminology which isn't precise in it's application by sources describing what constitutes the difference between an atom and a particle.
The most logical sense of the issue is that particles are compounds of atoms, and that it's imprecise to refer to a single atom as a particle, though this seems to be a case where there's almost complete interchangeability leaving one to wonder what exactly is the difference between a particle and an atom? So that's a pain because this is simply not clearly defined and consequently not uniformly applied. As far as I can tell an atoms is one thing, and particles are the plurality of atoms, meaning more than one atom, but maybe MIT can make this clear: I doubt it though.
That all may seem like a lame point but I found this lack of specific universal understanding has sources saying particles and then another saying atoms when they are referring to the same thing, and then again when they are talking about ions and then they go on to say that a ion is an atom. Christ sake's can it be made more confusing or what? Just how hard is it to decide to call one thing by one name? This is like calling a rock by five different names all meaning a single rock!
I've concluded that all physics publications should not be allowed to publish anything, otherwise we will soon all know nothing to do incompetence and stupidity in their evident free for all usage of descriptive words. Everything having anything remotely associated with physical sciences, and probably computers as well, should have to pass through some kind national review board to assure some standard of descriptive meaning.
This confusion brought on by imprecision is somewhat critical. You start using these terms like ions, atoms, and particles as all meaning one thing and before you know it you have no idea what the hell they are trying to tell you, or if they actually are trying to communicate or just shoving a load out to make it seem like they know what they are talking about. As a result I almost have to write my own definition of meaning~!
Ions are particles which carry an electrical polarity. In the atmosphere the air's ionic structure is primarily neutral, or self canceling, because these ionic particles are formed by unlike charged atoms attracting one another and joining together to form an single ion molecule and it is these ion molecules that are then referred to as particles, and because they have so joined their nature is to cancel out a predominate charge in any one single particle of ionic air molecules.
These atoms have joined to each other on the supposed basis of which magnets operate on: A positive attracts a negative: A Cation is a positive charged particle and an Anion a negative charged particle. The basis behind the theory is an atom has gained or lost an electron.
Charge polarity in an atmospheric ion is said to be caused when energies from space knock an electron out of a single atom and which is itself just one of several atoms that make up an atmospheric ionic particle, and that particle is made up of molecules made from atoms.
Any free or liberated electrons will naturally seek to bind itself with any other atoms that are minus an electron. No knows why free electrons go looking for new homes evidently but that's the theory, and so the whole is that the atmosphere is generally neutral charged most of the time since these free electrons only desire to become slaves in atomic homes that lack enough slaves, or so they claim, and so despite there being a constant abundance of free electrons running round looking for new homes all the time, there is also an abundance of available new homes and we end up with an atmosphere that is basically neutral most of the time: It's all musical chairs out there.