Re: peculiar constants in physical laws

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

John Denker wrote:

> At 01:50 PM 1/19/01 -0500, Ludwik Kowalski wrote:
> > 1) In old days, Coulomb's law was used for two purposes,
> > (a) to express the observed proportionality between F and
> > Q1*Q2/r^2 and (b) to define the unit of electric charge.
>
> Maybe the law was used that way, but such usage may not have been
> well justified.  I don't see how to justify it on practical grounds or
> historical grounds.  AFAIK the unit of charge has been (from early
> days until now) defined by integrating the current.  For a goodly part
> of the history, the integration was performed in an electrochemical cell.

If I recall correctly, the formal introduction was indeed followed
by a remark that such definition is not practical. But it was
conceptually useful, at least to me. I still think that teaching of
elementary e.m. should be made less dogmatic than it is, perhaps
by changing the sequence. This, however, is much harder than
by creating artificial units.
Ludwik Kowalski