Human illusion of field

The field appears strange to a human observer. It is entirely different from everything known to an ordinary person who thinks in categories of objects instead of fields.

A human being tends to use and think in such categories because they are “better understandable” for humans. For example, the human body has physical properties like size, mass, etc. As a result, those properties are reflected in categories “familiar” for humans. It looks pretty “obvious” that another object has a similar set of attributes (see ref. X). For example, an apple shows the same attributes, like size and mass. Therefore, the human mind “comprehends the same set of attributes” in the apple category, making both categories thinkable the same way.

However, other things have a lot of noumena (see ref. X) that cannot be “felt” or reduced to categories with “easily understandable attributes.” Strictly speaking, such categories come to the human mind and become more or less thinkable only through progress in measuring instruments. Those instruments measure given values like mass, force, electrical current, etc.

Moreover, some values can be measured and comprehended by a human being and by a specific measuring instrument. A scale is a good example because the mass of an object can be measured roughly by a person and precisely by a scale.

However, some properties cannot be measured even by a specific measuring instrument. Usually, that happens when a measuring aspect does not have any direct interaction with a measuring instrument. In that case, the presence or absence of such a thing can be detected only by indirect measurement.

The biggest question of indirect measurement is the relationship between a given value and the measuring value. That relationship often comes from the researcher's explanation. Therefore, the human mind becomes involved in all indirect measurements because it uses some categories and their attributes that "explain such relationship." Human mistakes in creating those categories lead to huge mistakes in interpreting and explaining the results of physical tests. In other words,

One such illusion comes from the category of field. Fields appeared in science when it became possible to separate electrical charges. According to available information, there are two types of charges: positive and negative. Those properties mean nothing “specific.” They were used to distinguish charges. If they found four charges, they could mark them as charges A, B, C, and D. However, they found only two distinguished charges. Therefore, they reduced the distinction of charges for symbols “+” and “-” or positive and negative charges.

How did they were discovered? The discovery has a long story. Humankind noticed “something strange” when people rub some things against each other. As a result of such action, both things become “magically charged.” It appears as some activity of those things to attract or repel other things, especially the little one. That aspect became the fundamental one in the description of electrical charges.

Electrical force example

The electrical field cannot be detected directly. Its presence can be detected only by indirect experiment or measurement by a test charge. That charge can be put at any location to detect an electrical field. The presence of that field can be detected by force applied to the test charge. In other words,

1. The electrical field does exist by itself.

2. That field interacts with a test charge.

3. The result of interaction appears as the physical force applied to the test charge.

4. That force is detectable by the measuring instrument.

5. The measuring instrument detects that force and shows some indication.

6. The researcher reads that indication and comprehends the presence of an electrical field at the point of measurement.

As you can see, it takes a long time to transform aspects from a directly undetectable field to an indication of the measuring instrument. Failure at any step leads to measurement failure and, consequently, to a wrong comprehension of the field in the researcher's mind.

The figure shows “a classical” way of field detection. The body CA (the charged body “A”) has a positive charge. That means the body has a more significant number of positive charges than negative charges. It would help if you did not think that “a positively charged body” has only positive charges. It has positive and negative charges, but it has more positive charges. The test charge is also charged positively and keeps two types of charges.

The test charge was consequently placed at points 1 and 2. At the location C1 (test charge located at point “1”), the measuring instrument detects force F1. Force has some magnitude and direction because it is a vector. The direction of the force lies in the extension of the straight line that connects the charged object and the test charge.

A similar measurement at point 2 results in a greater magnitude of the force (F2) and some change in its direction. However, the direction of force follows the same law. It lies on the straight-line extension that connects the charged object and the test charge. By making such measurements repeatedly at many points around the charged body, the researcher comes to some ideas.

1. The electrical field does exist around the charged object.

2. That field produces some force around the charged body at any point in space.

3. The direction of the force lies in the extension of the straight line that connects the charged object and the test charge.

4. The magnitude of the force is inversely proportional to the distance that separates the charged body and the test charge.

Everything looks fine here until a researcher uses one more charged body and makes a similar test again.