K7ITM wrote:
No, it's about practicality. Convince me that calculations based
primarily on power (or energy) rather than on voltage and current
offer me something useful, with respect to TEM lines, and I might have
a closer look at them.

Assume you are dealing with light waves in free space
instead of RF waves in a transmission line. Would you
then find intensity (power density) calculations useful?
That's why optical physicists find them so useful.

Tom, are you familiar with an s-parameter analysis?

If so, it seems to me that b1 = s11(a1) + s12(a2) = 0
represent two wave components that immediately cancel
to zero when superposed at the impedance discontinuity.
Would you care to comment?
--
73, Cecil http://www.w5dxp.com