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Re: Current Flow (shouldn't it be "charge flow?")



At 11:02 -0600 4/20/02, Jim Green wrote:
>
>I, for one, don't believe so. Electrons have the property of mass and
charge. Electrons flow through the wire.

Brian McInnes

Right you are, Brian, and praise to you for pointing this out -- but we
physicists -- well, some of us -- insist on reifying properties. It is a
disappointing habit -- which competent physics teachers should persist in
trying to obliterate.

Just what is an electron if not the sum of its properties? And what
is reality? Reification gets decried, but just what is reification if
we don't even know what reality is? I don't see how we can talk about
electrons or anything else except in terms of its properties, be they
permanent or temporary.

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto://haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto://hhaskell@mindspring.com>

(919) 467-7610

Let's face it. People use a Mac because they want to, Windows because they
have to..
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