Your efforts are appreciated, and I'm sure you're correct in all you say, but I can't escape the feeling that we're talking about different things. I readily c

Your efforts are appreciated, and I'm sure you're correct in all you say, but I can't escape the feeling that we're talking about different things. I readily concede that "diffuse" has ambiguous meaning and therefore a poor choice, however. Beyond that, I don't think what I'm saying is any more complicated or controversial than the example of the match and the sun. My attempts to clarify have revealed further gaps in my precision of phrasing, but your explanations haven't identified any specific points of confusion for me. I'm sure that says more about my comprehension than about your explanations. We're now in open battle with HN's anti-dialogue margin creep -- and we know who wins that battle, every time -- so I'll take my distant memories of undergrad mechanics and E&M, mark the page dirty, invalidate the cache, etc. Thanks again for your efforts, they're not as wasted as they appear.