Re: condensors

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <Parpp807-at-aol-dot-com>

In a message dated 4/10/02 10:24:14 PM Central Daylight Time, 
tesla-at-pupman-dot-com writes:

> Does someone have source information for these?
>  And if someone might take the time to explain, what is the difference
>  between a capacitor and a condensor?
>  
>  Thanks!
>  Joyce

Hi Joyce,
That's really an interesting question.

The electronic device consisting of two conductors separated by a dielectric 
is
a capacitor. 

A condenser changes a vapor to a liquid as in boiling water and collecting 
the cooled 
steam as distilled water. Also makes Indiana joy juice.
The word also means to concentrate or thicken a liquid usually by removing 
water.
This is what Campbell's does to make a condensed soup.

My 2nd edition of Ghirardi, A Course in Radio Physics (1933) offers a long 
paragraph
on the need to drop the incorrect term of condenser and use the correct 
term-the capacitor.
In 1891 Tesla patented a new condenser. Reading his description of the device,
he explains it using words like capacity and capacitance.

I don't know where the early term of condenser originated but it is possible 
to
guess.  The 18th and 19th century researchers held a firm belief in the 
ethereal
effluvium, the aether. Heat energy was thot to be a local concentration or 
condensation
of phlogiston. So it was not difficult for the electrical scientists of that 
time to think
of a concentration of electrical charge as a condensation from the other 
fluid, the 
aether. They understood the ability of two conductors separated by a 
dielectric to
hold a certain capacity of charge, but believing in the aether theory they 
thot the charge had to be condensed out of the aether fluid by the condenser.

A better explanation is very possible. 
The aether theory lasted until the Michaelson-Morley experiment. Too bad 
because an aether would be useful for a longitudinal wave. :-))

Cheers,
Ralph Zekelman