<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>[Jeremy]: Atoms move very rapidly in relation to each other but the propagation of electromagnetism is much closer to their average motion speed.<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>
This is why I have commented that the word "electromagnetism", as in "electromagnetic spectrum", is inappropriate. Obviously, light of all wavelengths propagates at speed c. But light has nothing to do with either electrical (Coulomb) forces or with magnetism, inasmuch as photons have neither charge nor magnetic fields. "Virtual photons" (the hypothetical force carriers) have no known properties in common with photons (certainly not propagation speed), and are therefore also inappropriately named.
Experimentally, the speeds of the forces associated with charge and magnetism are necessarily much faster than light. We cannot yet bound these speeds away from instantaneous by using existing experiments.
So the conclusion you drew by assuming these forces propagated at the speed of light is invalid. -|Tom|-
