Hi Ratch,

What do G. Ohm, J. Maxwell, N. Tesla, J. Watt, Coulomb, Hertz, ...
all have in common?

They were dead and buried before the various engineering and physical
societies named equations and constants in their honor.

Tesla's body of work far exceeded the study of static magnetic fields;
Watt worked on steam engines, and developed the horsepower, he knew
nothing of electricity, and the metric system; Hertz was way more than
a cycle per second; and Ohm worked on more than that one equation
for resistivity.

These men were honored by various societies for their work in the
sciences. It is quite natural that the physicists and engineers
would honor different parts of these guys lifes works.

If you ask engineers what is Ohm's law, they will say E = iR,
if you ask physicists, they will give a long boring diatribe about
bulk resistivity, and cross sectional areas. If you asked George's
wife and children, they would come up with yet another entirely
different answer.

This is not the first time engineers and physicists have differed
in their approaches to academic study. Just think of the different
meanings of E and V, i and i and j, ....

So, just as you can quote a couple of physics text books and "prove"
that ohm's law is one thing, I can quote an equal number of
engineering text books that say otherwise.

-Chuck

Ratch wrote:

No matter what you call V = I*R, circuits will still get designed and
analyzed, and science will still progress. In any case, be aware that V =
I*R is not Ohm's law, but the V vs. I linearity, if present, is the law.