Re: Thermodynamics and Lenz's Law

[Doug Craigen <dcc@ESCAPE.CA>]

"John S. Denker" wrote:
> Chuck Britton wrote:
>
>  >         Some kids latch on to the connection of Lenz's Law (the
>  > negative sign) and the chemistry class talking about LaChatlier's
>  > Principle.
>
> It's a rather unhelpful analogy.
> ...

I would add one thing to John's points.  LaChatlier's principle is about
equilibrium and is in some ways a "no-brainer".  If you take something
which has a prefered state (stable or metastable equilibrium) and remove
it slightly from that prefered state, then it seems pretty obvious that
forces will come into play to restore it to the prefered state - else
the state wouldn't be prefered.

Lenz's Law has nothing to do with the configuration being any kind of
equilibrium state.

\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\

Doug Craigen
          http://www.dctech.com/physics/about_dc.html