Talk:Electrostatic force

Is it Coulomb's Law or the Electrostatic Law?

Should mention that the equation is Coulomb's Law. Additionally, the electrostatic force is also known as the Coulomb force. --Originally unsigned comment by User:Scorpiuss

This is a play on words. It serves no purpose to argue over terminology. I have studied physics for many years and have been teaching intro college physics for almost as long. The term "electrostatic" was used in my classes once back in the 80's and never again.

The solution is to setup a link for "electrostatic force" which points to the page "Coulomb's Law." The fact that the force is electrostatic in nature is subordinate to learning that it is the Coulomb law which is true in general.

-sweet

Being the devil's advocate for a moment. Why is Coulomb's Law a better name for this equation? I think electrostatic law is a better name, as it is somewhat descriptive. Coulomb is just some guy's name. Maybe it's my aversion to naming things after people, rather than what they actually are. Ed Sanville 19:42, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I am sorry that you have an aversion to naming scientific laws after people rather than what they actually are. Unfortunately for you, it is a very common, although not universal, convention to name scientific laws after the person who first discovered (or popularized) a new physical principle. There are dozens of examples: Faraday's law, Gauss' law, Ampere's law, Ohm's law, Newton's first law, Newton's second law, Newton's third law, Wien's law, Kirchoff's current law, Kirchoff's voltage law, Hubble's law, Fermat's principle, Huygens' principle, Pauli exclusion principle, Heisenberg uncertainty principle, Claussius inequality, Maxwell's equations, etc. etc. And yes -- Coulomb's law. I am sorry to say, but the correct name of the law in question is in fact Coulomb's law and not the Electrostatic law. You may not like it, but that does not change it. It is not even a question of whether it is a good name, or not a good name. It is the name that the scientific community has chosen. Facts are stubborn things. -- Metacomet 05:03, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I am sorry for you that you didn't recognize that I'm aware of everything you said. In case you didn't read my devil's advocacy question here it is again: "Why is Coulomb's Law a better name for this equation?" I didn't ask what the accepted scientific name for the law is, because I'm aware it's called Coulomb's Law in the literature. In any case, I support a redirect of electrostatic force to Coulomb's Law, and always have. I'm sorry that your cute little attempt to seem superior has failed! Whatever happened to simple courtesy and civility? Oh well, I guess this is the internet. Ed Sanville 16:24, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry. I guess I misunderstood your comment. My fault. I didn't mean to be harsh, but I didn't understand why it matters whether the Electrostatic Law is a better name for this equation than Coulomb's Law. Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia, and the name of this law is already established. So while it might make sense to debate the best way to present the law, it doesn't make much sense to me why we should be discussing the relative (subjective) merits of different names for a law that already has a name. -- Metacomet 23:15, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, I'm sorry you were offended by such an innocent, random thought I had one day. I accept your apology. But, if everybody accepted the "standard" names and notation for everything without ever considering reorganization and change, the vocabulary of science would have become hopelessly jumbled by now, IMHO. Consider IUPAC standardization for salts in chemistry, for example, or Dirac notation instead of longhand integrals all the time in quantum physics. Or Einstein notation to cut down on writing indices in summations. All I'm saying is that sometimes it pays to stand back and ask, "why do we call this that and write this that way?" If nothing comes of it, then so be it. This is just a "talk" page, it's not the end of the world. Ed Sanville 01:24, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Point well taken. In many cases, it does make sense to challenge the conventional wisdom. Most of the time, I think what passes for conventional wisdom is what Eli Goldratt calls common nonesense. Anyway, I am sorry for flying off the handle. As you indicated, it is easy to abandom common courtesy and civility when posting anonymous messages to people you don't know and can't see. I will try to do better in the future. -- Metacomet 02:43, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Very true, I've done it myself, so I know. One of the reasons I post with my real name these days. Ed Sanville 03:54, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Wording of the Definition

should not the definition of coulomb's law state that it is directly proportional to THE PRODUCT OF the magnitudes of the charges and inversely prop. to the square of the distance between them? 'the product of'is missing from the definition.

To merge or not to merge?

I think we should merge the two pages. I like Coulomb's Law, since that's what I've known it by before. Alternatively we could sit on the fence and called it "Coulomb's Law of Electrostatics" or something that uses both words. Peter

I disagree, this page should continue to describe the Electrostatic forces in full, and the Coulomb's Law page should describe the law in depth, as well as its applications and similar formulae. --tonsofpcs _(Talk) 04:34, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, there is no information in the Electrostatic Force article that is not already contained in the Coulomb's Law article, but the converse is not true. In other words, the Electrostatic Force article is superfluous and unnecessary (not to be redundant and repetitive). You could simply delete the Electrostatic Force article completely and replace it with a REDIRECT to Coulomb's Law and I don't think it would create any problems whatsoever. -- Metacomet 12:16, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

As a person with a University physics exam tomorrow morning, I'd prefer to read about this in the general sense of Electrostatic Force. I know that it is Coulomb's law and all, but its nice to have. That's my angle as a reader (desperately preparing) and not a writer. Which begs the question, who are you writing for? --Hampton 22:32, 7 December 2005 (UTC)