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Re: borrowing from tomorrow



On February 19 Roger A. Pruitt wrote:

... you say that logical continuity "does not allow us to explain something
today in terms of what is going to be explained tomorrow."

It is not "logical coninuity" that forces us to borrow from tomorrow. It is
the practice of defining Coulomb before defining Ampere. Do you agree that SI
is not compatible with the sequence we use to teach electricity? People who
introduced SI created a problem which we should recognize. Using 4*Pi*eps
(or 9*10^9, for that matter) is antipedagogical. I know it will not be easy
to create a better sequence but somebody should try. Recognizing need for a
change, and expressing it loudly, is useful. It is our physics.

Ludwik, it certainly is worth looking into. However, how do you plan on
introducing the Ampere without talking about charge per unit time and not
say anything about Coulombs? I'm interested in seeing how this would be
approached.

Roger Pruitt