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bellsandwhistles t1_ixcn85t wrote

Fundamentally, the power is flowing in the fields rather than the voltage and current. The direction of power flow is determined by the Poynting vector.

Edit: misspelled Poynting as pointing

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Redingold t1_ixcq4k3 wrote

So named because it points in the direction of the flow of power (not really, it's the Poynting vector, not the Pointing vector, named after physicist John Henry Poynting, but it's an amusing case of a sort of nominative determinism).

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