[From Bruce Abbott (960126.1250 EST)]
Bill Powers (960125.1430 MST) --
There's nothing you can learn from your electronic analogy that you
can't learn directly from the equations. If using this analogy puts you
on more familiar grounds, fine -- but let's not start naming even more
entities by analogy with other situations. What we need to do is to get
rid of superfluous entities.
You're right, the equations are still the equations. However, I found the
analogy helpful because the behavior of the system was nicely described for
me in a way I could easily visualize. I thought others might find it
helpful, too; not all of us are engineers familiar with such systems and
their behavior. And it's useful to learn what characteristics of such
systems electronics engineers think are important enough to call attention
to in their elementary textbooks. I now appreciate that some aspects of
Killeen's theory can be simulated with nothing more than a voltage source
and a couple of resistors. As for entities, I don't know what you are
referring to. I did mention "stiffness," but this is not a theoretical
entity, it's only a way of characterizing the performance of a system.
Regards,
Bruce