Re: [Phys-l] Teaching Special Relativity

[chuck britton <cvbritton@embarqmail.com>]

As JD has now so clearly elucidated - I have been, once again,  
totally swept up in the addictive prose of the Feynmann Lectures.
Not realizing that some minor nuances have been left unexplicated.
But those books DID get me thru my qualifiers (barely).

A thousand pardons to any who have been offended by my rash  
invocation of the name of one of my all time heros.

(I have warned my students many times to be wary of his prose.
It is often not as clear in the morning as it was when first read in  
the dead of night.)



On Jul 6, 2009, at Jul 6(Mon) 6:09 , Jack Uretsky wrote:

> Looking to authority is - or shoulde be - unpersuasive to real  
> physicists.
> If you doubt the truth of my comment, then pls exhibit the
> L-transformation that converts a pure elecctric field into a field  
> that is
> ;urely magnetic.
>  				Regards,
>  				Jack
>
> On Mon, 6 Jul 2009, chuck britton wrote:
>
> > On Jul 6, 2009, at Jul 6(Mon) 1:43 , Jack Uretsky wrote:
> >
> > > Strictly speaking, there is no magnetic-electric equivalence.  A
> > > field that is purely magnetic in some reference frame can never be
> > > transforme ( by a L-transformation into one that is purely
> > > electric, and vice-versa.
> > > 					Regards,
> > > 						Jack
> >
> > Feynmann certainly leaves the impression that one can.
> >
> > But I'll be the first to admit (proclaim) that EVERYTHING that
> > Feynmann writes is perfectly clear on first reading
> > 			but much less so upon further contemplation!!