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TC Electrostatics Revisited I




From: 	Richard Wayne Wall[SMTP:rwall-at-ix-dot-netcom-dot-com]
Sent: 	Wednesday, September 10, 1997 1:23 PM
To: 	tesla-at-poodle.pupman-dot-com
Subject: 	TC Electrostatics Revisited I

Date: Tue, 3 Dec 1996 05:40:53 -0800
From: Richard Wayne Wall <rwall-at-ix-dot-netcom-dot-com>
To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Re: TC Electrostatics

You wrote: 

snip

>
>  My physics book says that one coulomb equals about 6 x 10^18 
>electrons, all negative charges. So how do you explain the positive 
>charges? Tesla made several remarks in the CSNotes about the situation 
>mentioned above.
>
>Jack Couture
>

12/3/96

The unit of charge is the coulomb.  Following Henry Cavendish's (should 
be Coulomb's)original torsional balance measurements of electrical 
charge, Charles Coulomb in 1785 summarized the results into a single 
statement.         

F = k[qq'/r^2].  

Eventually Ben Franklin proposed that electric charge 
was a single fluid (later proven incorrect) and assigned positive and 
negative charges corresponding to surplus (+) fluid and deficit (-) 
fluid.  The terms positive and negative are derived from Franklin's 
discription of his original electrostatic experiments.  Franklin also 
hypothesized that electric fluid was conserved in a closed system and 
conservation of charge remains remains one of the fundamental laws of 
physics.

The unit of charge is the coulomb.  Experimentally, it is easier to 
define the coulomb (C) as the amount of charge per second passing 
through a cross section of wire carrying a constant current of one 
ampere.  Experimentally, the charge on a single electron may be 
calculated as e = 1.602 x 10^-19 C.  This was the smallest electrical 
charge found on any partical.  Note also it is equal to the positive 
charge on a single proton.  The charges on these particals are measured 
experimentally in in terms of fractions of the original Coulombic unit 
which is experimentally connected to the SI unit for force, Newton (N). 

It is equally correct to express a positive coulombic charge residing 
on a proton or a positron.

snip

Back on point, could you or R. Hull elaborate on Tesla's CSN thoughts 
on charges produced by TCs?

RWW