The MaxwelliansJames Clerk Maxwell published the Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism in 1873. At his death, six years later, his theory of the electromagnetic field was neither well understood nor widely accepted. By the mid-1890s, however, it was regarded as one of the most fundamental and fruitful of all physical theories. Bruce J. Hunt examines the joint work of a group of young British physicists--G. F. FitzGerald, Oliver Heaviside, and Oliver Lodge--along with a key German contributor, Heinrich Hertz. It was these "Maxwellians" who transformed the fertile but half-finished ideas presented in the Treatise into the concise and powerful system now known as "Maxwell's theory." |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
FitzGerald Lodge and Electromagnetic Waves | 24 |
Heaviside the Telegrapher | 48 |
Maxwell Redressed | 108 |
Waves on Wires | 129 |
Bath 1888 | 152 |
The Maxwellian Heyday | 175 |
The Advent of the Electron | 209 |
Abbreviations | 249 |
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Common terms and phrases
British Association Buchwald 1985a cable Cambridge circuit conduction conductor dielectric discovery displacement currents early effect elastic solid elec electric and magnetic Electrician electromagnetic field electromagnetic theory electromagnetic waves electron theory energy engineers experimental Faraday Faraday effect FG-RDS FG-TCD FitzGerald 1902 FitzGerald and Lodge FitzGerald to Heaviside flow flux Heav Heaviside 1892 Heaviside to FitzGerald Heaviside to Lodge Heaviside's Hertz's experiments HH-DM hypothesis Ibid ideas important induction J. J. Thomson JL-RS Joseph Larmor later letter Lodge's Lorentz MacCullagh's magnetic field magnetic force mathematical Maxwell Maxwell's equations Maxwell's theory Maxwell's Treatise Maxwellian mechanical medium motion Nature OH-IEE OJL-UCL Oliver Heaviside optical oscillating paper phenomena physical Poynting Preece Preece's problem propagation published Rayleigh remarks Royal Dublin Society scientific self-induction Sept simply Stokes telegraph theoretical theory of light tion told FitzGerald told Lodge Trinity College Dublin tromagnetic vector potential vortex sponge wellian wheels William Thomson wire wrote