Re: non-potential voltages vs. Kirchhoff's laws

[John Denker <jsd@MONMOUTH.COM>]

Hi --

At 08:42 AM 4/15/99 -0400, Michael N. Monce wrote:
> > 3) If you can't tell me the voltage as a function of position, it is not
> > possible to take the gradient thereof.  The question of whether this
> > non-existent gradient should be called an electric field is moot.
>
>        I think it is still an E-field.

Call it whatever you like.  It still doesn't exist.

...
>                E = -grad V - dA/dt , otherwise known as the 4-vector
> potential.

Calling it a 4-vector potential is a bad idea.  The problem is that it is
not a potential, under any reasonable definition of potential.  A potential
has the property that the potential difference between point A and point B
is independent of the path you take from A to B.  You might *wish* that the
electromagnetic field had this property, but in the presence of changing
magnetic fields it doesn't.

Cheers --- jsd