h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There are two h's in Kirchhoff.

oooh, two h's in kirchoff, that's funny but for the past four years of intensive electronic engineering study, see my home page, i, my collegues and all of my lectures have only spelt it with one. i suggest before you slag off my knowledge on this subject (even my spelling of such a widely used term) you go and pick yourself a book like hughes electrical technology and read it. it i'll probably find it in the first paragraph.

N.B. all spelling mistakes in this reply are admissable as i've been doing a spot of lunch time drinking

After a Google search it appears that the spelling can be both with one or two h's -, it seems that UK prefers one h (as per the entry). But if anyone knows different, feel free to tell us. Nicely please.

Gustav Robert Kirchhoff. Born in 1824 in Prussia (Königsberg). Died in 1887 in Germany (Berlin).

There are 2 h's in his name.

Also, every electronics textbook I own spells his name with 2 h's.

For example (though there are others, these are two that I have at home):
_The Art of Electronics_ Auth: Horowitz & Hill, Publ: Cambridge.
_Microelectronics_ Auth: Millman & Grabel, Publ: McGraw-Hill.

His name can be spelled with only one h, but that makes it an incorrect spelling as his name has 2 h's in it.

However the incorrect 1 h spelling is frequently seen.

I did not slag off your spelling. I merely pointed out your error. I also did four years of intensive training in electronic engineering, although you can't tell it from my home page. The spelling of Kirchhoff with two h's was drummed into us by our lecturers.

I've amended the entry to encompass both spellings.

Thanks for ths guys

That should be 'this'.

Sorry, but I can't understand that. 'Kirchoff' is not an alternative spelling, it's a mistake. Especially because it was named in honour of a person it should be spelled correctly. Why should we cover an error in the guide?

The idea with the footnote is just bearable (for people sending the wrong version through the search engine) but having both spellings in the main text looks bizarre.

Sorry about alternative spellings in the main text, that was entirely my fault and has now been rectified.

As to the anglicising of names, this is a perfectly acceptable procedure - for example Lev Tolstoi becomes Leo Tolstoy in English.

The beauty of the Guide is that we can encompass these variants quickly and efficiently.

Thanks for this.

Have a great weekend.

nuff said. i'm an engineer, so are (most of) you guys, so just remember it's an engineers lot in life to be satisfied with function over aesthetics.

i'm glad people are just taking notice of my work

Your formulation of Kirchhoff's second law doesn't seem correct to me. It says 'the voltage dropped across devices like resistors, is equal to the voltage applied to the circuit'. This is trivial because true by definition.

One (there are some) proper version would have been 'The sum of voltages around any closed path in a network equals zero'. The closed path thing is important, it is also known as the 'mesh rule'.

cefpret (wtf) please read my latest jounal entry. and please remember i have done two years of a degree when explaining about circuit analysis (do the words nodal analysis prove this)

This post has been removed.

GOD DAMN IT!!!!

do you not understand what I am saying, the entry was meant as an introduction. when you were in secondary school, even college what was the definition you were give as to kvl.

why don't you try explaining kvl to some one who has never come accross it in there lives. you'll find that a simple sum and possibly an illustration (oh how I wish - jimi, ashley, whoever) goes down a lot better than tring to explain mesh analysis.

i wholeheartly stand behind my decision to explain kvl in simple terms because of this.

btw did you learn mesh before superposition, norton, etc. because you must be a genius if you did

I agree with Cefpret. If you are going to explain circuits in simple terms, go right ahead, but if you are going to present Kirchhoff's Voltage Law, you should present it correctly. The voltage law appplies to voltages around any closed loop in the circuit. The loop may or may not include a voltage source such as a battery.

Man of Legend, you are over-reacting to criticism. While it may feel that as soon as you publish it, we pick holes in it, everybody here is working towards producing the same guide. Any factual information it presents should be accurate.

FOR THE LAST F*****G TIME!

The entry was meant as a simple introduction (please see my original on my page) however it was edited in such a way that it has come out as though it is the be all and end all on first principles, which I never said it was. I was just trying to produce an entry that the layman could look at and understand. If you want me to reel off the whole law down to the most microscopicly accurate I could do that, but that was not the articles original intention.

as for me overreacting to criticism. . .

TOO F*****G RIGHT

Keep that up and we'll have you thrown off h2g2.

Okay, I know nothing whatsoever about electrical engineering, so can't possibly take sides on this one, not that I'd want to.

I take on board that the entry was intended to be a simple introduction. If any of the contributors to this conversation what to write entries to expand on the theories mentioned here, it would be great, and we could link to them from this entry. Alternatively, one or more of you could volunteer for the h2g2 University and write the definitive guide to electrical engineering.

Either way, try not to wind each other up. Man of Legend has written a good piece here, and there's plenty of room in the Guide for the subject to be expanded on, or linked to in the future.

*Hands out

right, i'm sick of fighting everyone. peta could you possibly change the title of the entry to something like "Basic electronics explained in laymans terms" and include the correct definition of kvl, kcl, and ohm's law, which i'm sure gnome or cefprat (joke, laugh it wont kill you), will supply with a smug smile on their faces and use my explanations as so the newbee or layman can understand them. i'm sure this is a reasonable idea and will satisfy all parties.

p.s. gnome, cefprat, feel free to take the mick of of man of legend, as man of leg end is the best someone has come up with

Hi Peta, I've never said that the article is too simple. I know that it was intended to be an introduction.

*Sigh*

What can I do to convince you? It's just one sentence, the rest of the article is okay. I learnt it at school so it can't be too complicated. The present version is a) pretty meaningless and b) not even similar to the version in the books. Please (with sugar on the top) substitute it.

To Man of Legend: As I already made very clear, please take this as little personally as I do.