Re: Conserving Q ?

[Ludwik Kowalski <kowalskiL@MAIL.MONTCLAIR.EDU>]

Brian Whatcott wrote:

> In my view, Ludwik has rediscovered a physical effect that is
> mentioned in Faraday's Researches... but in very few other places.

I did not rediscover the effect; I learned about it from Faraday.
I was so excited that I actually typed extracts from his published
report into one of my messages (the IONS/dielectrics thread).
It feels good to follow footprints of the prince of princes of
laboratory science.

Did you know that the unit of charge which Faraday used was
a degree? He constructed a torsion balance, similar to that of
Coulomb, and used a screw to turn the ribbon. The amount of
turning, for example 400 degrees, needed to compensate the
electric force, was a measure of Q. Today this would be labeled
as "arbitrary units" (on the assumption that the relation is linear).
Faraday did not suspect that a unit of charge, still used by
chemists, will be named after him. That unit should not be
confused with the unit of capacitance which physicists named
after Faraday.

Ludwik Kowalski