Not really. The problem is that we have sort of an "electron abstraction" which is incorrect in the Heaviside-Hertz pedagogy when fields start to store energy. I recommend "Collective Electrodynamics" by Carver Mead as a modern formulation without the silliness of an Aether: https://www.amazon.com/Collective-Electrodynamics-Quantum-Fo...
> I only brought up ground (in the Earth ground sense) because I've heard people think that antennas in general work by using the Earth as a second conductor, with EM radiation as the first.
Really? Most of the time I describe antennas as sort of really long range transformers. And, while you need each side of the transformer to be a circuit, the two sides of the transformer don't have to interact other than through a field.
> My previous comment was written out of a reasonably common conception of a closed circuit being a loop with constant current flow, but capacitors break such a circuit.
Yes and no. Capacitors have the hand wavy notion of "displacement current" in classical electrodynamics--but most of the issue is with the fact that we use the Heaviside-Hertz pedagogy which was formulated back when everybody believed in the Aether.
The real issue is that to deal with capacitors you must deal with fields rather than just the notion of electrons. However, if we kind of squint and wave our hands the "electron formulation" can be kinda sorta made to work. (Side note: Capacitive dividers are even more annoying and you have to be really careful.)
Classical Heaviside-Hertz electrodynamics also has a lot of issues dealing with motors and generators, as well. Again, the key is that an "electron formulation" isn't really enough when fields start holding an appreciable amount of energy.
The problem is that because of trying to cram a degree into 4 years, you wind up having a class on electromagnetics without any understanding of vector fields.
Electrical engineering is particularly bad about this. You never get exposed to the Hamiltonian formulations of classical mechanics, and you never get exposed to vector analysis. Consequently, you are stuck with the Heaviside-Hertz pedagogy with silly things like "displacement current" and stupid, weird-ass integration contours (which don't work in motors, LOL)--and the attendant difficulty in understanding Maxwell's theory.
However, if you have vector analysis and fields, then you can understand formulations like Carver Mead's "Collective Electrodynamics": https://www.amazon.com/Collective-Electrodynamics-Quantum-Fo...
Suddenly, emag is a whole lot more straightforward to understand. It's not EASY as it's very math heavy, but it has a lot fewer weird things that are just "we say it works."