Re: Magnetic N and S poles

[Bob Sciamanda <trebor@VELOCITY.NET>]

In paragraph 373 of Maxwell's "A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism ":

"The ends of a long thin magnet are commonly called its Poles. . . .
Coulomb . . . succeeded in establishing the law of force between two like
magnetic poles : ' The repulsion between two like magnetic poles is in the
straight line joining them, and is numerically equal to the product of
their strengths of the poles divided by the square of the distance between
them.' . . ."  He goes on to define the unit pole strength, etc.

Bob Sciamanda (W3NLV)
Physics, Edinboro Univ of PA (em)
trebor@velocity.net
http://www.velocity.net/~trebor
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Cohen" <Robert.Cohen@PO-BOX.ESU.EDU>
To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
Sent: Saturday, December 15, 2001 3:27 PM
Subject: Re: Magnetic N and S poles


> I am likewise confused by this thread but not for the same reason, it
seems.
> > From LK's initial post, the question seemed to be: when did we change
from
> equating B with "F per unit pole" to "F per unit current element (Idl)"
or
> "F per qv".
>
> This doesn't seem like a misguided question to me.  It is on par with
asking
> why is E equivalent to "F per unit charge" and g equivalent to "F per
unit
> mass" but B is not "F per unit pole"?
>
> I think this is a good question.  Unfortunately, I don't know what "unit
> pole" means.  Consequently, it never seemed like an option.  If "they"
used
> to do this, I'd like to know how.  Maybe someone can define "unit pole"
for
> me?
>
> --------------------------------------------
> Robert Cohen           rcohen@po-box.esu.edu
> 570-422-3428         http://www.esu.edu/~bbq
> Department of Physics
> East Stroudsburg University
> East Stroudsburg, PA  18301