Photon Motion, the Poynting Vector, and Field Collapse – Part 2

Introduction

To my surprise, I’ve come to see that Poynting made a much more valuable contribution than I initially thought. Early on, I was critical of his work — not because his equations were wrong, but because of the way they’ve been interpreted and applied in some modern explanations. But through this investigation, I’ve learned an important lesson: never underestimate someone else’s point of view. Poynting’s vector, when properly understood, is far more than a mathematical expression. It describes how energy really moves through space.

This article builds on Part 1 and dives deeper into what happens when electromagnetic fields collapse and regenerate — not just mathematically, but physically. Using the Poynting vector as a guide, I’ve found something fascinating: the collapse of a magnetic field induces a circulating electric field. That idea becomes a cornerstone in what follows.

The Circulating Electric Field as a Driving Mechanism

Let’s imagine a simple case: a photon moving through space. It has an electric phase and a magnetic phase. But these aren't static — they alternate in time. When the electric field collapses, it induces a magnetic field. And when the magnetic field collapses, it induces a new electric field.

According to Faraday’s law, a collapsing magnetic field creates a circular electric field — a ring of energy that loops around the axis of the changing field. This induced electric field doesn't have a beginning or end; it forms a closed loop, and it’s real — it’s not just an abstract consequence of field equations.

Now here’s the turning point: that circulating electric field may not just be a side effect. It may be how the photon moves forward — not in a continuous flow, but in discrete, stepwise pulses, like a rotating engine pushing itself through field space.

Turning the Idea Inside-Out: Magnetism as a Rotating Electric Field

This leads to a radical yet intuitive realization: the magnetic field may not be a separate thing at all. It may simply be what an electric field looks like when it’s rotating in space or in time.

That means:

• A magnetic field is a geometrical twist of an electric field.
• When you see a magnetic field, you’re actually seeing a rotated version of an electric field, turned 90 degrees in both direction and phase.
• The entire structure of electromagnetic waves could be understood as rotating electric energy.

This rotation creates the oscillating pattern that allows the photon to sustain itself — each phase regenerates the next by rotating through space and field time.

Three Key Consequences of the Model

If magnetism is a rotating electric field, and if particles move through field space in this alternating, curling fashion, then several big mysteries start to make sense:

1. The 720-Degree Rotation of Fermions

It’s long been known that spin-½ particles like electrons need to rotate twice (720°) to return to their original quantum state. In this model, one 360° rotation might occur in one field plane (say, X), and the second 360° in an orthogonal plane (say, Y), completing the full transformation.

2. Special Relativity

Time dilation and length contraction could be reinterpreted as distortions in rotational synchronization between fields. If a particle’s internal field rotation is slowed (due to motion), time slows down and space contracts — not because of spacetime geometry, but because of field dynamics.

The model also explains a famous relativistic effect:

When you move alongside an electron — that is, at the same speed — you see it as producing a static electric field. But when the electron is moving relative to you, part of that electric field appears to rotate — and this rotation is interpreted as a magnetic field.

This is not just a trick of motion — it reflects a 90-degree phase rotation in field space. In this view, a magnetic field is an electric field seen from a different angle in phase space. It’s not a separate field, but a transformed perspective of the same underlying structure.

3. Quantum Spin

Instead of seeing spin as an abstract quantum number, this model gives it a physical origin: Spin may be the result of rotational movement in field space, carried by the structure of the rotating electric field itself.

Conclusion

This new way of looking at things replaces the traditional "electric and magnetic fields as coexisting partners" with a simpler, deeper interpretation: there is only one field — the electric field — and magnetism is just what happens when it rotates.

From this, we get a physically meaningful mechanism for how photons move, how energy transfers across space, and even how particles exhibit properties like mass, spin, and inertia.

The next step is to explore how this rotational field picture links to charge, vacuum structure, and the idea of memory in the field — continuing the path laid out by the Tugboat Theory.

Continue reading Part 3