Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: [Phys-L] positive sign in Ohm's law ... or not



John,

I'd be curious for you to expand on your very last statement.

[:] <snip>
==========

I don't have any particularly brilliant constructive suggestions for how to deal with this. The ΔV=IR formulation is so deeply entrenched that I see little hope of overturning it anytime soon. Personally I tend to avoid it entirely, and write Va-Vb=IR ... but students need to know how to read ΔV=IR, and need to recognize it as being backwards from any sane definition of "Δ".

BTW, putting absolute value bars around one side or the other in Ohm's law is *not* an acceptable arrangement.
Believe it or not, I've seen that done.

_______________________________________________
Forum for Physics Educators
Phys-l@phys-l.org
http://www.phys-l.org/mailman/listinfo/phys-l