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Re: Let's start a new convention Teaching Magnetism



Would the HEAD/TAIL pair be better? It does refer
to an arrow pointing along the field direction.

On Tuesday, Jul 8, 2003, at 11:27 US/Eastern, John Mallinckrodt wrote:

I propose (seriously - for once) that we retain the pole concept (for
historical, pedagogical reasons) but refer to the poles as the 'In'
pole and the 'Out' pole. Then the direction of the field is just the
direction of whatever it is that is pointing in or out.

...

Anybody see any problems with this convention? It seems much more
useful that choosing OTHER opposite words suggested like up/down,
light/dark etc.

I have some sympathy for the idea, but I'd point out that just as
many field lines (or, more properly, lines of magnetic induction) go
"into a magnetic pole" as come out of it. You might end up trading a
more robust connection of pole ID to field direction for some
significant cognitive dissonance when it comes time to talk about
Gauss' Law.