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Re: definition of "electrostatic"



On Mon, 5 Oct 1998, Bob Sciamanda wrote:

I guess I have to object, Bill.
The snapshot will not give you velocities and accelerations; it only
shows positions.
A snapshot of a charge system still on its way to equilibrium will show
neither a dynamically nor an electrically "static" situation. The
snapshot will not show that things are moving/accelerating.

Very true. Yet if we define "electrostatics" as "the study of electric
potential, force, and charge distributions", then electrostatics does
apply to dynamic phenomena. Electrostatics then is not about "unmoving
charge" so much as it is about "charge".

I take this position as a result of encountering people who stoutly deny
that "static electricity" has anything to do with simple circuits. After
all, the charge distributions on the surface of a closed circuit are
participating in the electric current. Therefor they are not "static",
therefor "electrostatic charge", "electrostatic forces", and
"electrostatic field" does not apply to circuits? What?!

I see this as a misconception which is created when people take the word
"static" too literally. And so I try to re-engineer the terminology by
saying that "static" does not necessarily mean "still". If I examine one
time-slice of an electrical phenomenon, then in part it is
"electrostatic", and I can make predictions based on investigation of
charges and fields. Obviously there are other issues involved
simultaneously. But this does not mean that the "electrostatic" concepts
must all be discarded as soon as electric currents, induction, radiation,
etc. arise. "Dynamics" does not erase "statics", it merely extends it.


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