The Ivory Tower

This is a place for me to think out loud (or 'on paper') all things that are interesting me, and to comment on things I want to remember. Naming my blog the Ivory Tower is a joke on the popular notion that philosophy and intelligence are something beyond the common man, somehow above the 'mean' act of living as a human. Rand's refutation of this is what immediately drew me to her. Feel free to introduce yourself.

2.13.2006

Electric Field

I have been trying to figure out what exactly is meant by the term electric field. This is what I think so far:

A net/matrix of predictions over distance of the force exerted on a hypothetical particle, P2, by a particle, P1.

This is how my textbook (Matter and Interactions v.2 e.1.5 by Chabay) defines an electric field: Force2 (vector) = charge2 * electric field1 (vector)

Any thoughts; what is an electric field?

posted by Amanda Carlson @ 1:20 AM

2 Comments:

At Monday, February 20, 2006 2:11:00 AM, Blogger Amanda Carlson said...

I've refined and clarified my definition of an electric field:

A map predicting how any charge will interact with a given charge.

~Amanda

 
At Monday, February 20, 2006 2:45:00 AM, Blogger Amanda Carlson said...

There's only one more thing I don't quite like about my definition. It assumes that charges as such interact, when in fact the matter is interacting by virtue of it's attribute charge. It also, isn't completely clear in it's genus

So, the revised definition is:

A map of predictions depicting how an object of any charge will interact with an object of a given charge.

~Amanda

 

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