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From: aephraim@garnet.berkeley.edu (Aephraim M. Steinberg)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics,sci.physics
Subject: Re: A violation of the law of conservation of energy
Keywords: paradox
Message-ID: <1989Sep28.013457.28172@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 28 Sep 89 01:34:57 GMT
References: <318@massey.ac.nz>
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Reply-To: aephraim@garnet.berkeley.edu (Aephraim M. Steinberg)
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A clear way of seeing that this calculation is faulty without even bothering
to complain about the impossibility of zero-resistance and zero-inductance
(it seems to me that the same error could be made as easily with a finite
R) is to ask why you multiply 1C by 1V.  When you start moving that coulomb,
there is not yet 1 volt of potential on the other side.  It ends up looking
like a triangle with base 1C and height 1V, whose area is of course 1/2.
By setting R=0, you are simply taking lim t-->0 of an integral, but that
doesn't give you the right to drop the integral and just multiply your
final values.