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-----Original Message-----What is being plotted here? In particular what do the horizontal axes represent? Are we talking about a straight current-carrying wire whose ends are held at two constant values of potential for three different cases of the two values of potential? Is the entire apparatus placed in a region of space in which the electric field was uniform prior to the introduction of the wire and the circuit used to hold the ends at the two values of potential?
From: Phys-l [mailto:phys-l-bounces@phys-l.org] On Behalf Of John
Mallinckrodt
Sent: Saturday, November 30, 2013 2:11 PM
To: Phys-L@Phys-L.org
Subject: Re: [Phys-L] circular definition of "success" .... was: standard DC
circuits
The "grounding" part is potentially (pun virtually unavoidable) problematic
because we don't know HOW it is grounded, i.e., what OTHER conductors
might be involved. Better simply to say that we will ensure that it carries an
appropriate amount of charge to BE at whatever potential we are calling
"ground" potential. Then, all one needs to do is understand that the wire
WILL come to some constant potential along its length by distributing
whatever charge it has so as to accomplish that result. Clearly there will be
no field IN the wire because it's a conductor. You can quickly visualize what
the filed must look like simply by imagining a downward sloping sheet with a
linear section of it distorted into a constant horizontal level.
I made some images using a spreadsheet I put together long time ago to
solve Poisson's law problems using the relaxation method. You can look at
the results here.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/409806/WireInUniformField.pdf