Talk:Ampère's law

Why do you think that Ampère's force law is less common? When I was in the 9th grade of middle school, the "Ampère's law" appeared in a textbook exclusively as "Ampère's force law". This should be either a disambig. page or two articles might be merged since these laws are quite obviously related. Biophys (talk) 14:24, 30 October 2010 (UTC)


 * You can check google and notice that all the results are the circuital law, including the results not related to wikipedia. Or, here's google books which shows the same thing: All the results are the circuital law. It's overwhelmingly more common by this metric.


 * I think your 9th grade experience was unusual. I for one heard about "Ampere's law" in many textbooks and many lectures by many teachers/proferssors through high school, college, and grad school -- and even teaching electromagnetism to college students -- but I never heard of this Ampere's force law until the article appeared on wikipedia. :-) --Steve (talk) 17:21, 30 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I vote against merging the two articles. They are related but they're not the same topic, and the articles as written don't substantially overlap. :-) --Steve (talk) 17:28, 30 October 2010 (UTC)


 * The law is about interaction of electric currents (Ampère's force law). This is easy to show in a class; this is a very simple equation and does not require any calculus. But why do the current interact? Because they create magnetic fields around (hence the Ampère's circuital law). That's how it was taught in Russian schools, if I remember correctly.Biophys (talk) 19:28, 30 October 2010 (UTC)


 * It seems that you are right and a vast majority of US sources describe it as a the circuital law. Perhaps we are dealing with different teaching approaches. For example, a typical good Russian teacher would be quick to pay attention of students that Coulomb's law and Ampère's force law are very similar, except that dealing with charges and currents, respectively, and that a multiplier in the Ampère's law (in CGS system), "strangely" enough includes the speed of light. Biophys (talk) 23:29, 30 October 2010 (UTC)


 * That's interesting! I suppose I should clarify: All my electromagnetism courses of course discussed the magnetic force between wires, just without using the exact words "Ampere's force law", and without explicitly stating the general mathematical relationship. We would learn the Biot-Savart law, and the Lorentz force law, and then maybe in a homework or exam problem we would figure out how to combine the two. It does sound different from how you learned it. In my experience, the first example of magnetism has usually been "a wire exerts a force on a magnetic compass"--not "a wire exerts a force on another wire". :-) --Steve (talk) 01:32, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Right, the magnetic compass was also there. So, maybe this is not so different, after all.Biophys (talk) 14:52, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Still, I do not see any reason why this should not be a disambig. page. Note that Ampère's force law, is the basis for the SI units definition for the unit of current, the ampere. Biophys (talk) 19:28, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Ampere's force law is nothing more or less than gluing together the Lorentz force equation and the Biot-Savart law (or in the case you mention, Ampere's circuital law also works) into one equation. One could therefore correctly say that Ampere's circuital law and the Lorentz force equation are the basis for the SI unit of current, the ampere. It's possible to understand the basis of the ampere without ever having heard the term "Ampere's force law" or seen the equation, as was the case for me until a year or two ago. Again, the reason it should not be a disambig page is WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. :-)
 * But I'll say this: If you make it a disambig page, and pipe all the links from other articles, I won't object. (I can't speak for anyone else, but for sure I won't object.) (Oh you would need to fix these too, and these and these etc.) (Oh one more thing: versus .) :-) --Steve (talk) 19:43, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * All right. I am convinced. Let's keep everything as it is right now.Biophys (talk) 03:08, 9 November 2010 (UTC)