Re: corrupting the youth

[paul o johnson <pojhome@SWBELL.NET>]

You were kind enough to give references to Clifford Algebra, which I had
never heard of. But now you introduce chiral belts, which I also have never
heard of. It is not listed in my Funk and Wagnall's, nor was I exposed to it
while earning one degree in math and two in physics.

poj

----- Original Message -----
From: "John S. Denker" <jsd@MONMOUTH.COM>
To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
Sent: Sunday, September 01, 2002 6:54 PM
Subject: Re: corrupting the youth
> Compass needles are not one-dimensional abstractions.
> In effect they have chiral belts around their fat
> middles, and the markings on the belts say "my magnetic
> bivector circulates that-a-way".
>
> If you don't visualize this belt, you will misunderstand
> the symmetry of the system.  You'll have a paradox on
> your hands.  (If you don't see the original (mis)statement
> of the problem to be paradoxical, i.e. if you really
> think the set-up has reflection symmetry in the plane,
> then you really don't understand the symmetry of the
> physics of electromagnetism.)
>
> If you do visualize this belt, you can add the magnetic
> bivector of the macroscopic current loop (which lies in
> the plane) to the bivector of the belt (which is not in
> the plane) using geometric and physical techniques as
> illustrated in this figure
>   http://www.monmouth.com/~jsd/physics/gif48/add-bivectors.gif
> or the equivalent mathematics (Clifford Algebra).