Does anyone know what is the inverse of the inductance?

Question

That's for a homework. I'm asking what is 1/L, where L is inductance? I mean, as the inverse of the resistance is conductance, what is the inverse of the inductance.

Answer 1

Short answer: no such term exists. Susceptance is the reciprocal of reactance (good for pure inductors and capacitors) and admittance is the reciprocal of impedance (totally general), and that's as close as you'll get.

The unit Ohm for resistance is independent of frequency; it is just the ratio of voltage to current. For the purely reactive components, the component's physical value is more than that ratio - frequency is involved. "2πfL" appears as that ratio, the reactance and it's fine to have jargon for its reciprocal so we do our business with series and parallel circuits. We must deal with voltages and currents, Kirchoff's laws and all that, so all this is good.

Even part of that expression "2πf", the angular frequency (radians per second) has its reciprocal, the angular period (seconds per radian, not often used in real life) but alas, poor L the only actual physical constant in the inductor's equation has no defined terminology or unit for its reciprocal. It wouldn't be useful by itself.

However, I wouldn't be surprised if someone digging around in a university library for old, old electrical engineering and physics papers from the mid to late 19th Century, turns up some forgotten one-hit wonder that quickly faded into the mists of never-caught-on.