Jim Kelley wrote:
Most of your ideas and concepts were of course correct, Cecil. Your
... it wasn't merely a difference over semantics.

I have not changed any of my basic ideas or concepts.
All I have changed is the definitions of "interference"
and "reflection" that I was using. It was a trivial
problem and easily fixed by changing "causes" to
"corresponds to" and "reflected" to "redistributed". The
only problem left is your refusal to accept my apology
and lay the distant past to rest after I made all the
revisions that you suggested.

You absolute refusal to define any of the words you were
using was part of the problem.

It provided you with justification for adding, subtracting,
and superposing average power at will.

For your information, the use of the irradiance (power density)
equation from Born and Wolf is *NOT* superposition of powers.
It is, however, the proper way to add power densities when
interference is present. If the forward and reflected waves are
not 90 degrees out of phase, interference is present at every
impedance discontinuity and energy is being redistributed in
different directions. I would expect a physics major to know
such or at least know where to look to alleviate his ignorance.

You once said that the irradiance equation that I quoted from
"Optics" by Hecht did not appear in Born and Wolf and that
Hecht had been discredited or some such. I bought the Born and
Wolf book and found the exact equation to which you were objecting.
--
73, Cecil, IEEE, OOTC, http://www.w5dxp.com