Talk:Electric field

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Clarification please[edit]

An anonymous editor added some text [1] including the words:

The above paragraph is perhaps misleading ...

This gives the impression that the article is arguing with itself. Can anyone think of a better way of putting it? The wording of that whole edit could be clearer. Thanks. --Heron 22:36, 2 July 2005 (UTC)

Field strength or field intensity?[edit]

Field intensity is not mentioned in the article. Does that mean they are the same? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Koitus~nlwiki (talk • contribs) 16:52, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

An over written mess[edit]

Although MUCH better in its introduction and general organization than than the Wikipedia article "Magnetic Field," this Wikipedia article Electric Field can only be understood (and that only maybe) by someone who already has a PhD in physics. It is worthless to the uninitiated, yet the uninitiated are those who you want to use Wikipedia as an encyclopedic information source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.36.71.119 (talk) 23:05, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback! I pretty much agree with you, and I wrote some of the stuff you are complaining about. A good part of the article inevitably has to be mathematical, because that is how the electric field is defined and used. But most people coming to this page will be general readers who want a nontechnical explanation, and as you say they are the ones Wikipedia should be written for. I suggest as a first step, the technical "Definition" section should not be the first section of the article. There should be some kind of descriptive or overview section explaining electric fields and their importance in ordinary language. Do you think that would help? --ChetvornoTALK 15:57, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
Hi:I mot=re than realize that the subject of fields is difficult to understand, let alone to explain. But a teacher must initially place himself outside his box of "I've been doing this for years thus I toss terms around (lines of force, webers)  like they are known by everyone" knowledge base in which he makes bad assumptions about the ability of those he is talking to. In my University of Delaware second semester sophomore year (the 21 unit nightmare "weeder" semester) course on Electricity and Magnetism (it got worse with the next course: Electromagnetic Radiation: UHF, VHF.) the instructor opened first day, first minute with a statement about the magnetic field being a force field. He was immediately stopped by someone asking, in effect, what the heck is a FORCE field? He was startled, but then backed up to explain that "a thing" can be in an environment where the "thing" has a push on it. That makes it want to move. Like an elephant with a wind pushing its side. A wind field. Now, he said,  take an electron, a charge, sitting in an electric field or moving in a magnetic field. An then he explained how those fields were created, the magnetic one being an easier to mentally image than the electric field. The elephant thing, though ridiculous, immediately provided a mental image to us students, and with that, he was able to build upon how a magnetic field can produce a push on a charge within its field. And begin to add in the math. Terribly simplistic, an elephant, but it was a start for a bunch of 20 year old novices to this strange can't-be-seen new world. Our physics for engineers course hadn't introduced us to force fields nor any discussion of atomic physics and "charges" let alone "forces on charges" and then Coulomb's Law. I only got that stuff in graduate school at UCLA, and it was a learning step function there. (My engineering physics course concentrated on ladders leaning against walls, and optics.) I'm just saying that a Wikipedia article must start small and build. PhDs arguing technical semantics and trying to show off their brilliance really mess things up with their article changes for the uninitiated. But, I agree, this is one tough subject to explain.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.36.71.119 (talk) 23:55, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

My sugestion would be tat teintroductoryparagrap be much briefer. Maybe just a few sentences. Then the next heading be "What is a force field" A few sentences to explain this. Then the next "What is a charge." Then "What is a magnetic field (and also an Electric Field) even though yoone can't see it." That is the probem to the uninitiated: this subject can't be seen, can't be felt unless one has iron fillings in their mouth (ha!) , but it must be conceptualized if to be understood well while being taught. Equations provide no mind conceptualization ecept to the math major or the physics major I realize tyat I am not making a whole lot of sense here. Mabye an opening paragraph should be "Magnetic Fields for Dummies." J Devore, Doylestown PA. retired antenna designer still trying to fully grasp the subject! (I once told a colleague that a flashlight was an electromagnetic radiation antenna device and got an argument that tapered off as he thought more about it. Yeah, we can SEE the stuff in one part of the EM spectrum. Thus extrapolate what we see into the spectrum we can't see where we are trying to pat down those projections in the antenna's radiation pattern to get all of the power forward for efficiency and also for reducing to the side detection by opposition forces.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.81.156.48 (talk) 14:05, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm afraid that we couldn't take up a lot of your suggestions. This is how a textbook might be written but our guideline, Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not explicitly says Wikipedia is not a textbook, and it is not our mission to teach a subject. In particular, headings should not be phrased as questions and "Magnetic Fields for Dummies" is definitely out. Our mission is to provide the facts, not teach the subject.
That's not to say the article should not be made more accessible to a general reader, that most definitely is our mission. I agree that opening with a definition section using vector notation is far from useful. It is not even correct—half the section is spent analysing the field of point charges before getting anywhere near an actual definition. The reader, if they even understand this, are going to run away with the idea that electric fields only exist around point charges. The electric field is the natural force that acts on electric charges, and the electric field strength is the force per unit charge acting on an arbitrarily small test charge n the field. It's as simple as that. There is no need to refer to Coulomb's law at all in the definition. All that analysis could come (much) later in the article. SpinningSpark 15:18, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
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