Short explanation of this phenomenon: Electric field lines like to stay in water, which has high dielectric constant. Breaking the water bridge would force them to go through air, which is much more energetically costly.https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/992037745299206145 …
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Replying to @gravity_levity @GeneLinetsky
How does it know? A least-action principle at work on Maxwell equations I assume?
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Replying to @vgr @GeneLinetsky
This is not about least action; there is no real dynamics here. It's just straightforward energy minimization. "Electric field lines stay in water" just means that water molecules align in the presence of electric field. This alignment has the effect of focusing field lines.
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Replying to @gravity_levity @GeneLinetsky
What do you call the field evolution function if not dynamics? The del(f(x(gap),y(gap))/del(gap) thing? A wave?
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Replying to @vgr @GeneLinetsky
Not entirely sure what you mean by this. It's fair to call things like refraction "dynamic", since they involve time-varying electric and magnetic fields. But the "water bridge" arises only from static electric fields, with no time variation.
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Replying to @gravity_levity @GeneLinetsky
Well the gap is increasing in time! Something is pulling beakers apart. Human hands presumably.
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Replying to @vgr @GeneLinetsky
Ah, sure. But relative to the time scales of electric/magnetic field changes, everything is so slowly changing here as to be "static". So to understand what happens, you only need to think about static electric fields.
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Ok that makes sense
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