Re: Magnetic N and S poles

[kowalskil <kowalskil@MAIL.MONTCLAIR.EDU>]

John Denker wrote:

> Physics does not have, and has never had, a structure
> analogous to Euclidean geometry, where everything is
> derived from a handful of axioms and definitions.

That is true; in the final analysis what really happens
decides which theory is valid and which is not. This is
not the same as validations based on logical deductions
from the already accepted theorems. But we also say that
mathematics is the language of physics. Many discoveries
were made by the way of mathematics. That is why, I think,
many physics texts try to present formal definitions of
basic concepts. Each physical quantity must be defined,
one way or another, before it becomes part of our
vocabulary. Mathematical derivations are common.

Last weekend I wrote:
> > Many textbooks published in last century still presented
> > magnetostatic in the same way in which they presented
> > electrostatics. The only difference was the recognition
> > that a magnetic dipole [unlike an electric dipole] could
not be cut into two monopoles.

I was primarily interested in the evolution of the way of
explaining magnetism in the first physics course, not in what
is wrong or what is right. An old textbook shows that H used
to be introduced to students via the Coulomb law for magnetic
charges. Today's textbooks do not follow this approach.

When did the transition occur? Which introductory textbook
was the first to use the Lorentz force law (F = q v cross B)
as the definition of B?
Ludwik Kowalski