Re: inertia of 'electron stuff'

[brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>]

At 11:33 8/1/97 -0400, Chuck Britton wrote:

> I remember reading of an experiment done a century or so ago that spun a 
> coil of copper wire at high speed ...
>
> I propose that if this experiment is repeated with a wire composed of 
> zinc, beryllium, cadmium or other material with a POSITIVE Hall 
> coefficient, then the potential difference will be REVERSED, showing the 
> inertia (and 'reality') of 'holes'.
This evokes a distant memory of the genesis of the Hall discovery.

  If I recall, a research advisor threw out an offhand suggestion
as to transverse polarisation of current-carriers.
  Hall picked up and ran with the idea, so that his name is 
immortalized, much to the consternation of folks in the vicinity...
 (A sort of reverse Jocelyn Bell I suppose, who identified the first
pulsar as a research student, and whose director all but walked away 
with the academic prize.)

[All facts unverified]

Regards