I am trying to follow the discussion of ions and potentials
and so forth, but am getting tripped up by a definition.
Does "electrostatics" refer to fixed distributions of charge
(that is, every charge source is glued in place, if you
will) or that there is no time dependence to the
distribution?
While I admit the difference seems subtle, I think the
difference is everything. Frankly, who cares about glued
charge distributions, since there is no real physical analog
and it simply seems to be a reduction of physics to a math
game. In many of the situations being described (ions,
plates becoming sphere, the interior of conducting shells),
the charges respond to external factors so that the
potential at a distance remains a constant? Or am I
starting to lose my edge while teaching too much high school
physics?