borrowing from tomorrow

[kowalskil@alpha.montclair.edu]

On February 19 Roger A. Pruitt wrote:

> ... you say that logical continuity "does not allow us to explain something 
> today in terms of what is going to be explained tomorrow." 

It is not "logical coninuity" that forces us to borrow from tomorrow. It is
the practice of defining Coulomb before defining Ampere. Do you agree that SI
is not compatible with the sequence we use to teach electricity? People who
introduced SI created a problem which we should recognize. Using 4*Pi*eps
(or 9*10^9, for that matter) is antipedagogical. I know it will not be easy
to create a better sequence but somebody should try. Recognizing need for a
change, and expressing it loudly, is useful. It is our physics.

> When I started to study physics in the 50's esu's, emu's, statcoulombs, 
> abcoulombs, rationalized units, unrationalized units, etc. were still part 
> of the lingo. I'm thankful for SI units.
                                               Me too, Ludwik Kowalski