Abstract
THE demand for this type of text-book has enabled the author to make some useful additions, particularly chapters on power distribution and thermionics. A chapter on materials gives useful notes on a subject which is too often glossed over, although pivotal in industry. In general, the text is adequate for the new Section B in the A.M.I.E.E. examination, and for the Engineering Cadet course. The treatment is everywhere clear and to the point, except in those aspects to which the reviewer objected in the first edition, namely, the relevant torque in a rotary machine is not on the conductors but on the iron, and the confusion between the terms 'electromotive force' and 'potential difference' (p. 70). While one can properly speak of the 'counter-electro-motive-force' in an inductance or condenser (better 'capacitor', according to the latest B.S.I. Glossary), because of the storage and delivery of electrical energy temporarily transformed, one simply cannot accept in these days 'counter-electro-motive-force of a resistance'. When the author states a Kirchoff Law as "the algebraic sum of all the E.M.F.s in any closed circuit is zero", what would he say of a uniform closed conducting ring embracing an alternating magnetic field? There is certainly a single Faraday electromotive force, but there is no potential difference that can be measured anywhere.
Applied Electricity
A. W.
Hirst
By. Second edition. Pp. xii + 367. (London, Glasgow and Bombay: Blackie and Son, Ltd., 1944.) 17s. 6d. net.
Enjoying our latest content?
Log in or create an account to continue
- Access the most recent journalism from Nature's award-winning team
- Explore the latest features & opinion covering groundbreaking research
or
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
H., L. Applied Electricity. Nature 154, 503 (1944). https://doi.org/10.1038/154503d0
Issue date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/154503d0
