Talk:Magnetic potential
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Physics, which collaborates on articles related to physics. |
| ??? | This article has not yet received a rating on the assessment scale. [FAQ] |
| ??? | This article has not yet received an importance rating within physics. |
|
Comments:
|
|
I've never heard of "magnetic potential" as defined in the opening paragraph of this article, sounds very dubious. The vector and scalar magnetic potential formulations seem correct, but the article also lacks sources and is written in an informal tone. Let's clean it up and get an expert on this page. RyanC. 12:05, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
I had never either but it is used in the literature. e.g. Nonlinear dynamics of the firehose insatbility in a mangetic dipole geotail, W.Horton et al, Journal of Geophysical Reasearch, Vol 109, A09216, 2004. Paragraph 23. M.Rosin
The magnetic potential is real, and it is equal to the curl of B, as claimed. The talk about gauge choices is sensible as well. I've never heard of a magnetic scalar potential, though. It sounds weird, but the cut explanation seems to work. I think this article is accurate enough, but it could use some references. Dpeldon 05:28, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Added my undergrad electromagnetics book as a reference. Omnispace 04:10, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
(Almost) Everything in this article is correct. However, the explanation could use work, I will try to add more explanations. As for references, I agree that that more E&M textbooks should be listed. 74.102.181.37 07:20, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
I've added references to Jackson and Duffin which are both well known EM texts. I would agree with the above both the magnetic vector and scalar potential exist in the literature. Unfortunately I don't have access to textbooks to give pages numbers. Christopherlumb
[edit] Too much material
More explanation is good and more references are good, but 74.102.181.37 has added lots of new material including new concepts such as Decoupling Maxwell's Equations and four-dimensional potentials. This makes an already difficult subject, even more difficult to understand. My suggestion is that anything four dimensional should be given a separate article. Also, this is about the MAGNETIC potential so any reference to the ELECTRIC field should be minimal. Some simple magnetostatic examples using the magnetic vector and magnetic scalar potential would be nice (with diagrams even). Yes, there's more to life than magnetostatics but a reader is unable to learn the whole of physics in a single sitting... an article must be simple enough to be approachable and ultimately that implies deferring more complex concepts to other articles.
Possibly some references from the Maxwell's Equations page could be used here. Possibly also the material on the Maxwell's Equations page could benefit from being better organised. There must be text books covering magnetostatics surely?
- I think you're right. The part on "Decoupling Maxwell's Equation" may be better moved - though it's one main motivation for using the magnetic potential. The magnetic field B is more intuitive, but harder to deal with mathematically, that's why A is used. The stuff on "Four Dimensional potential" seems like it should also be moved off to electromagnetic potential. And "Reality of potential fields" needs to be improved/removed. 74.102.181.37 02:15, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Aharonov-Bohm effect
Perhaps someone should add a description of the A-B effect and the consequences on the understanding of the vector potential. Or at least a link to the article on the effect. I don't feel confident to describe the effect myself.
