Re: [Phys-L] circular definition of "success" .... was: standard DC circuits

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

On 11/30/2013 03:32 PM, Bruce Sherwood wrote:
> Maybe it cuts no ice, but it is John who speaks of our textbook connecting
> charge to potential, not our textbook. As an expert, he interprets it that
> way, but in our chapter 19 (fields in circuits) potential and potential
> difference don't get mentioned.

This is not about me.  Don't shoot the messenger.  Nothing 
anybody says to me or about me will change the words or diagrams 
in the book.  Nothing anybody says to me or about me will change 
the Maxwell equations.  The fact is, the words and diagrams are
not consistent with the Maxwell equations.  They could easily have
been made consistent, but they weren't.

The diagrams such as 19.17, 19.18, and 19.20 were /intended/ to 
depict charge proportional to voltage.  It does not take an 
"expert" to figure this out.

> in our chapter 19 (fields in circuits) potential and potential
> difference don't get mentioned.

Not true.  Approximately the third sentence in the chapter says:
«A battery maintains a charge separation and a potential difference.»
                                               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Later in the chapter, the words and diagrams invoke this "battery" 
concept and utterly depend upon it.





BTW that third sentence is silly, quite apart from the other silliness
in the chapter.  The defining property of an ideal battery is that it
maintains a constant voltage on its terminals *independent of charge*.

Add this to the list of ways in which the chapter tramples the 
distinction between charge and voltage.