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Re: non-potential voltages vs. Kirchhoff's laws



Hi --

At 08:42 AM 4/15/99 -0400, Michael N. Monce wrote:
3) If you can't tell me the voltage as a function of position, it is not
possible to take the gradient thereof. The question of whether this
non-existent gradient should be called an electric field is moot.

I think it is still an E-field.

Call it whatever you like. It still doesn't exist.

...
E = -grad V - dA/dt , otherwise known as the 4-vector
potential.

Calling it a 4-vector potential is a bad idea. The problem is that it is
not a potential, under any reasonable definition of potential. A potential
has the property that the potential difference between point A and point B
is independent of the path you take from A to B. You might *wish* that the
electromagnetic field had this property, but in the presence of changing
magnetic fields it doesn't.

Cheers --- jsd