Has anyone here actually read Hall's original paper? (Am J Math, volume 2,
287 - 292, (1879) On a New Action of the Magnet on Electric Currents. The
journal is still housed at Johns Hopkins)
Hall was actually intrigued concerning the very question Leon asked.
The paper is very interesting. Electricity in a time when the issue of two
types of charge was not necessarily settled, electrons did not exist, and
the were unsure even of the direction of the current... Hmmm....
Does the Hall effect establish that there are charged particles carrying
charge or that there are two types of charge?
Just some "How do we know? Why do we believe?" questions...
Dewey
(Please note the e-mail address change, valid as of 8/7/99.)
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Dewey I. Dykstra, Jr. Phone: (208)426-3105
Professor of Physics Dept: (208)426-3775
Department of Physics/MCF421/418 Fax: (208)426-4330
Boise State University dykstrad@email.boisestate.edu
1910 University Drive Boise Highlanders
Boise, ID 83725-1570 novice piper: GHB, Uilleann
"Physical concepts are the free creations of the human mind and
are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external
world."--A. Einstein in The Evolution of Physics with L. Infeld,
1938.
"Every [person's] world picture is and always remains a construct
of [her or his] mind and cannot be proved to have any other existence."
--E. Schrodinger in Mind and Matter, 1958.
"Don't mistake your watermelon for the universe." --K. Amdahl in
There Are No Electrons, 1991.
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