Re: Inductance

[Ken Caviness <caviness@SOUTHERN.EDU>]

Leigh Palmer wrote:

> At 5:53 AM -0700 4/13/00, Lemmerhirt, Fred wrote:
>
> > Could you elaborate (briefly) on this objection?
>
> I was merely asserting a matter of personal taste here. I hold
> that the term "potential" (or "potential difference") pertains
> implicitly to a quantity in a conservative field, most commonly
> electrical or gravitational. I only use it in an appropriate
> context. "Voltage" would be quite satisfactory, but in the case
> of an inductor I prefer "emf" or even "back emf". It is hard to
> understate the difficulty encountered by the average student
> when he first encounters this concept. I like to make it as
> easy as I can for him to recognize that this is different from
> the electrostatic potential case.

I wholeheartedly agree with this last statement, but from my point of
view "emf" (electromotive force) is about as confusing a term as has
ever been foisted upon us.  After our students are finally comfortable
with the word "force" (and may even have stopped confusing it with
pressure), I do _not_ want them to get the idea that voltage is a force!

Ken
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