Re: electric charge

[Robert Cohen <Robert.Cohen@PO-BOX.ESU.EDU>]

Hmmm...

I've encountered people (not really - I'm just making a point) who think
that water current (volume per time) is "real" and that volume is just an
abstract concept.  The flow rate of a substance is more real than the
substance that flows?

Is the implication of the above statement that volume is a substance?

--------------------------------------------
Robert Cohen           rcohen@po-box.esu.edu
570-422-3428         http://www.esu.edu/~bbq
Department of Physics
East Stroudsburg University
East Stroudsburg, PA  18301
--------------------------------------------

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Larry Cartwright [mailto:exit60@CABLESPEED.COM]
> Sent: Friday, December 21, 2001 4:07 PM
>
> William Beaty wrote:
> > I've encountered people who think that electric current is
> "real", and
> > that electric charge is just an abstract concept.   Very
> weird.  (The flow
> > rate of a substance is more real than the substance which flows?!!!)
>
> I'm probably getting in over my head here, (and I'm praying
> that someone
> more highly informed and articulate will snatch up my banner and carry
> it victorious to the finish line) but I am compelled to object to the
> 19th century characterization of electrical charge as a
> "substance".  Is
> not electrical charge a *property* of the elementary particles which
> make up what we call substance, the quarks and leptons and
> bosons, etc?
> To me, calling charge a substance is like insisting that blue is a
> substance, or foul-smelling is a substance or strangeness is a
> substance.  How have I erred in my conceptualization of the sub-atomic
> structure of the Universe?