Re: funny capacitor

[Bob Sciamanda <trebor@VELOCITY.NET>]

I have no idea what this means!
Perhaps you are reading c as the speed of light?
Here, c was defined as the radius of the largest spherical shell in a
system of three concentric, conducting shells (ie; a length).

Bob Sciamanda
Physics, Edinboro Univ of PA (em)
trebor@velocity.net
http://www.velocity.net/~trebor
----- Original Message -----
From: "John S. Denker" <jsd@MONMOUTH.COM>
To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
Sent: Saturday, March 10, 2001 02:01 PM
Subject: Re: funny capacitor


> At 01:43 PM 3/10/01 -0500, Bob Sciamanda wrote:
> > Perhaps more to the point:
> > Note that the only way to force V3 to always be zero, regardless of the
Q
> > values, is to let c=> infinity.
>
> I have no idea what this means.
>
> Until this instant, I was under the impression that every word of this
> entire thread has been restricted to electrostatics... in which case c
> doesn't appear in any of the equations.  So adjusting its value can't
> possibly change any of the conclusions.
>
> =======
>
> Also a nit-pick:  constants of nature are not variables to be
arbitrarily
> adjusted.  A better way to proceed is to say that electrostatics
involves
> long time-scales tau and short length scales lambda, such that
lambda/tau << c.
> This is an important idea;  the only reason I call it a nit-pick is that
> most people know how to translate from the sloppy c --> infinity
language
> to the proper lambda/tau << c language, so the potential for real
confusion
> is limited.
>
> So to restate my puzzlement:  The whole thread has been assuming the
> lambda/tau << c limit, so I cannot understand how making lambda smaller
or
> tau larger is going to change anything.