Message-Id: <199308141251.AA01614@eli.CS.YALE.EDU>
Date:         Sat, 14 Aug 1993 19:20:00 +1000
Reply-To: Nick Nicholas <nsn@MULLIAN.EE.MU.OZ.AU>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU>
From: Nick Nicholas <nsn@MULLIAN.EE.MU.OZ.AU>
Subject:      TECH: Positive/negative electricity
To: Erik Rauch <rauch>
Status: RO

I've been having a hard think about this. It was particularly ironic that,
a couple of weeks ago in Philosophical Issues in Cognitive Science, the
lecturer gave the 18th century treatment of electricity as an instance of
meaningless questions: in an environment where 'electrical flow' was held
to be an arbitrary theoretical construct, only metaphorically related to
fluid flow, the question of electrical flow directionality was meaningless
--- a contention I fully support. Unfortunately for my lecturer, 19th century
electricity came along...

I do not want to support 19th century electricity at the expense of 18th
century electricity in the gismu definition, so I don't support Bob's
proposed redefinition of {dikca}. However, the concept of an electrical
quantum is very much a late 19th century one, so I would support a definition
of {dicka'u} to mean electron, with perhaps a {vedu'o} (epistemology)
qualification.

I intended dicyjdika (which *is* a short word) to be an abbreviation of
nildicka'ukezyjdika (to give the correct form of the word), but if that
is taken to imply a redefinition of {dikca}, then I'd much prefer

dicka'ujdika (electron-reduced); dicka'udenmi/dicka'uzenba (dense/increased
in electrons) for positive/negative.

And to tell the truth, {ma'u zei dicka}/{ni'u zei dicka} make a lot more
sense. (Jorge, you are familiar with {zei}, aren't you? It takes the two
words on either side of it, which needn't be brivla, and makes of them a
lujvo; so rafsi for {ma'u} and {ni'u} aren't strictly necessary).

In Electrical Engineering (my alma mater), we have a lot of occasion to
talk of holes (absenses of electrons), and not protons, as the quanta of
positive electricity; this is a convention to make explaining semiconductor
behaviour easier. The holes are quanta of current too, but an odd sort of
a quantum; I'd be happy to have them called {dicfa'eka'u} (Electrical
reverse quanta).

*******************************************************************************
 A freshman once observed to me:         Nick Nicholas am I, of Melbourne, Oz.
 On the edge of the Rubicon,             nsn@munagin.ee.mu.oz.au (IRC: nicxjo)
 men don't go fishing.                   CogSci and CompSci & wannabe Linguist.
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