Talk:Electrical element

Heron, you jumped right on it.

I had just submitted an initial version and was in the process of polishing it up when you started making edits...

Well, since they seem to be real improvements, I'm going to leave it to you!

Don't let me stop you editing. There's plenty of room for both of us. -- Heron

Maybe they should implement a temporary lock mechanism so two editors don't trounce one another Steve

Hey - Inductance is measured in Henrys - because its the name of soemone, y plural does not become ies! minor blip

Not really. Inductance is measured in henry: lower case henry, singular henry. Henry_(unit) Davide Andrea 13:33, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Merge

An electric circuit, or electrical network, consists of electrical elements or components connected by conductors. 204.56.7.1

Don't forget that an electrical 'element' can also be interpreted as a stove/water heater/kettle heating element. As per dictionary.com: Element # 6. The resistance wire in an electrical appliance such as a heater or an oven. Chapmeister

Requested merge

I suggest a merge, Electrical_element → electronic component because they are different terms for the same thing. If, however, people feel they should remain separate, then, I'd add an explanation of the difference in both entries. See below for a discussion of "electric" vs "electronic".Davide Andrea 13:32, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Voting

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~

Discussion

Upon further reflection, I believe that the original reason for which I suggested a merge is that this article seems to confuse "Electric Element" as an item in an electric schematic, with a Physical Component. I say that for 2 reasons:

1. The article "Electric Component" redirects to this article, "Electric Element". That doesn't seem right: the former is a physical component, the latter is a theoretical element. It would be more appropriate for "Electric Component" to redirect to "Electronic Component"
2. The "Elements and Components" section inside this "Electric Element" article is not talking about Electric Element at all. Instead, it's simplified, incomplete rehash of the material already covered under "Electronic Component"

Therefore, what I am more inclined to do now, is to suggest that:

1. The "Electric Component" article redirects to the "Electronic Component" article instead
2. Remove the "Elements and Components" section from this "Electric Element" article, and merge its contents with the "Electronic Component" article
3. In this "Electric Element" article emphasize that it's not talking about physical components.

Davide Andrea 15:23, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Result

Having received no feedback, I implemented the change.

1. Redirected the "Electrical Component" and "Electrical Components" articles to the "Electronic Component" article instead of the "Electrical Element" article
2. Rewritten this article to clarify what an electrical element is, and differentiated it from Electrical Component
3. Moved any text about components out of this article and into the Electrical Component article
4. Removed the merge suggestions from this article and from the Electrical Component article

Davide Andrea 15:00, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Further implications

The Category:Electrical components needs to be cleaned up and possibly renamed to reflect whatever is decided here. --RichardVeryard 01:15, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. I'll see if I can help. Davide Andrea 15:01, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Electrical or electronic

What exactly is the difference between an electrical component and an electronic component? Please explain or merge. --RichardVeryard 08:28, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

For passivecomponents, it has to do with who is using the term: an eletrician will call a relay and "electrical component", while someone in the electronic industry will call it an "electronic component". Having said that, active components are always considered "electronic components". Davide Andrea 13:30, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Nine?

I reckon four elements will suffice: the resistor, either of the two reactive components, the gyrator and any one of the four sources. --catslash (talk) 17:52, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Quite right, although the description of the gyrator in the article already (partially) addresses this. Gyrators are usually not introduced at the beginning of analysis partly because introductory analysis is all in terms of one-ports whereas the gyrator is a two-port. More importantly, while there is obviously such a thing as a gyrator circuit, the gyrator is not the idealised representation of any real element, whereas the others all have a real-world non-ideal counterpart. SpinningSpark 11:49, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Memristors and time-(in)dependence

The article says the memristor "only has any meaning as a time-dependent non-linear element; as a time-independent linear element it reduces to a regular resistor." I find the second clause confusing. In an ideal memristor, any application of voltage changes the element's resistance because the resistance is a function of the integral over flux. So doesn't that make the idea of time-independence meaningless? Is there a better way of saying what was meant, or am I missing something (quite likely!). Thanks. p.r.newman (talk) 18:14, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Merge Nonlinear element and Linear element here?

I suggest Nonlinear element and Linear element be merged into this article. They are stubs which cover complimentary aspects of the same subject, which is also covered in this article in the Non-linear elements section (although this section could be improved). If these were expanded into adequate articles they would contain a lot of redundant explanations. We also have Linear circuit covering this subject. --Chetvorno^TALK 21:56, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

I would support a merge. While you're at it, can you think up a better title for the merged article? Electrical element? Like in an electric kettle for instance? The article is talking about elements of circuit analysis, not elements of kettles. Electrical circuit elements, or Electrical analysis elements would be good (and yes, I do think it should be plural, like in Orbital elements). SpinningSpark 01:31, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, that's a good point. Electrical circuit elements sounds good to me; "circuit elements" seems to be the common term in textbooks [1], [2]. They are technically lumped circuit elements, but of course this qualifier isn't needed. I support a name change. --Chetvorno^TALK 17:10, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Circuit elements would be good, but it needs disambiguating because we also have articles on mechanical networks. So it would have to be Circuit elements (electrical) or else the article would have to include the mechanical elements (which I don't recommend). SpinningSpark 17:43, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Agreed that a merge makes sense. Seeing the above, I merged nonlinear element as a start, but Spinningspark reverted without improvement. What's up? cc Chetvorno – SJ + 22:43, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Short description

I've removed (and re-removed) the short description imported from Wikidata. "(Smallest) fundamental unit regarded as part of an electrical circuit". Koavf, if you have a source that so describes electrical elements, then please present it. If you have just blindly copied this from Wikidata, then please defer to those who know something. It is not my responsibilty to clean up the misinformation coming out of Wikidata (of which there has been a great deal in this subject area), it is for you to provide a citation per WP:CHALLENGE. I have been improving some of these, but I have come to the conclusion that the information over there is uniformly bad, or at least unreliable, so I've stopped doing it. No information is preferable to wrong information. Get it right, or leave a short description to someone who can. SpinningSpark 18:28, 25 June 2019 (UTC)