Re: magnetic north and south

[William Beaty <billb@eskimo.com>]

On Tue, 5 May 1998, Zach Wolff wrote:

> I'll be the first to admit that my knowledge of em and is only at a
> high school level and I may be missing something far deeper.  Please
> correct anything in error here.  With that said, isn't this discussion
> of North and South somewhat ridiculous?  Aren't these names merely
> artifacts of geography?  It seems to me that with the failure of all
> efforts to identify a magnetic monopole switching the names on the
> poles would have no effect on the underlying laws.

It would be very similar to deciding that electrons are positive.  If
Marilyn Vos Savant told her readers that electrons are positive and
protons negative, should we complain?  As with the polarity of magnetism,
the polarity of "electricism" is just an artifact of history, and Ben
Franklin could easily have chosen the opposite signs as designators of the
"vitreous" and "resinous" kinds of charge imbalance.  

I think that because "north" is a physics standard, it is "real", and
there are grave problem which arise if we try to question it.  If we are
allowed to choose what "north" means, then we can also change the polarity
of charge, change the length of the "meter" and alter the duration of the
"second," and all these changes have similar consequences.  None of them
affect physics theory, they just alter some coefficients in some obscure
equations.


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