On Tue, 02 Sep 2003 01:59:17 GMT, CC wrote:

In article , Boris Mohar
wrote:

On 19 Aug 2003 18:46:30 -0700, (Jeff Root) wrote:

In another thread, George Dishman explained:

I think you understand my point of view here, that 'x' and 'y'
are conceptual while the paper that holds the dots apart is real.

Could you apply this same kind of wonderfully clear exegesis to
the term "magnetic lines of force"? I keep seeing intimations
that they have some kind of reality. Thank you!

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

There are no lines of force that manifest themselves physically in
time and space.

Really? Then there would be no such thing as flux, either, eh?
(neither magnetic nor electric).

It is just a dumb term for magnetic field that someone invented
when watching the lines of clumped iron filings.

And then a magnetic 'field' would be just dumb term someone invented
also, eh? After all, we can't really legitimately suppose that it is a
continuous structure because it only appears where there is matter or
some measuring apparatus. We have no data that suggests it might be at
places we haven't placed something akin to an instrument.


This has confused many people. Just ask yourself what is between
two lines of force or can you have a one half line of force.

Maybe you're the person who is confused. Perhaps you suppose that a
magnetic 'field' is a continuous structure. Perhaps that's your
religion? I mean, after all, it is only a belief and not something
that you can demonstrate by any experiment.

Maybe you can't grasp or manage to form a proper model in your mind
where the so called 'field' of, say, an elementary charged particle is
composed of a finite number of discrete subcomponents? Perhaps that's
your problem, Boris. No sight and no insight.

Charles Cagle

Nobody spreads as much darkness as one who has seen the light


--

Boris Mohar