THE TRANSMISSION-LINE VACUUM

The apparent dichotomy of force-at-a-distance and contact interaction via a medium has persisted since its early Greek origins. In the modem language of quantum field theory the coexistence of both transverse and longitudinal/scalar photons is essential to account for both far-field and near-field effects, long ago evidenced in antennas, waveguides, and transmission lines. In this paper we revisit an earlier study of the ''equations of telegraphy'' as analogs of the Lorentz transformations and vacuum propagation. Rainich duality transformations in the polarizable vacuum of quantum field theory account for the reactive elements induced by the wave, in the sense of de Broglie's ''double-solution,'' ''particle-wave coexistence. '' It is remarkable that there is quantitative agreement with other, recent research into the unified coupling constants, obtained from nothing but classical electromagnetostatics.