Abstract
Maxwell’s contributions to physics have been extensively scrutinised by historians in the last decade, but certain aspects of his work, however, are still partially unexplored. Many of Maxwell’s historians have perhaps favoured those parts of Maxwell’s work which are, more or less, related to our modern theory. The consideration of some outmoded or controversial parts of his theories, such as the ones dealt with in this paper, will contribute, I hope, to a better understanding of the historical situation of Maxwell’s electromagnetism.
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Notes
Weber, “Elektrodynamische Maasbestimmungen. Über ein allgemeines Grundgesetz der Elektrischen Wirkung” [1846] in: Weber [1893] 25–211.
Weber & Kohlrausch [1856] 597–608.
Among them Bromberg [1957]; Everitt [1975].
D’Agostino [1980].
Larmor [1973] 705.
Larmor [1973] 729.
Because of Weber’s choice of electrodynamic units the factor 1/2 appeare before the velocity c. However Weber adopted also electromagnetic units (D’Agostino [1980] 285).
Maxwell, “On Physical Lines of Force”, in: Maxwell [1861]; Maxwell [1854], Vol. I, 451–513.
Maxwell [1854] 500.
On this point: Bromberg [1957] 227; Heimann [1870] 193. Both authors agree on the fact that Maxwell did not know Weber’s numerical value when he discove red that the velocity of his magnetic waves was equal to Weber’s factor. In the fol lowing, he would have discovered that this factor was equal to the velocity of light. For the argument of my paper is irrelevant whether Maxwell’s identification of the velocity of electromagnetic waves with that of light was or was not a discovery.
Maxwell [1850].
Maxwell [1861] 495.
Maxwell [1861] 498.
Maxwell [1861] 500.
Niven [1980] xvi.
Niven [1980]xvi.
“Report of the Committee appointed by the British Association on Standards of Electrical Resistance”, in: Maxwell & Jenkin [1863] 111–176.
Although I do not deal in this work with Thomson’s program of precise measurements, I wish to call attention to this important section of Thomson’s research, one that was recently studied in great detail by Crosbie Smith and Northon Wise (Smith & Wise [1989]).
Maxwell & Fleming [1863] 130–163, 131.
Maxwell & Fleming [1863] 130–163, 132.
Maxwell & Fleming [1863] 130–163, 132–135.
The relevance of Fourier’s analysis for Maxwell and Thomson’s measurement program is duly underlined in Smith & Wise [1989] 125, 150, 161, passim.
“The Report of the Committee” [1893], 118.
Larmor [1907] 26.
C.W.F. Everitt valuates highly this unduly neglected paper by Maxwell because it “supplied a vital step” in the definition of a “dual system of electrical units” (Everitt [1975] 100). I agree with Everitt on this point. He continues by stating that “by 1863, then, Maxwell had found a new link of a purely phenomenological kind between electromagnetic quantities and the velocity of light” (ibid. 101). I think that the construction of the dual system, from which Maxwell’s new link was derived, is far from being phenomenological, although I admit that the new link requires a minor number of ad hoc hypotheses in comparison with physical lines. For other aspects of the 1863 “Report”: D’Agostino (1978).
Maxwell [1864].
Maxwell [1864] 536, 568.
Maxwell [1864] 569.
Maxwell [1864] 579.
Maxwell [1864] 563–564.
Maxwell [1864] 589–597.
Maxwell [1868].
Maxwell [1868] 128.
Maxwell [1868] 134–135.
Maxwell [1868] 143.
Maxwell [186]) 134–135.
Maxwell [1891); Maxwell [(1954].
Entitled “Preliminary”.
Maxwell [1954] §.2.
Maxwell [1954] § 625.
Maxwell [1954] § 624.
Maxwell [1954] §§ 625, 686.
Maxwell [1954] §526.
Maxwell [1954] §§ 620–629
Maxwell [1954] §622.
Maxwell [1954] § 624
Maxwell [1954] §626.
Maxwell [1954] § 627.
Maxwell [1954] §627.
Maxwell [1954] § 628.
Maxwell [1954] § 768.
Maxwell [1954] §§ 768–770.
This system Maxwell had analysed in detail in § 653 ff.
Maxwell [1954] § 769.
A note added by J.J. Thomson informs us that the effect was discovered by Rowland in 1876.
I think that Maxwell’s above distinction between a classification of v as a real quantity in the first conceptual experiment and as a physical quantity in the second may be deepened by analysing Maxwell’s ideas on a physical classification of quantities as distinct from their mathematical classification, a point that he makes in his Lecture “On the Mathematical Classification of Physical Quantities” (Maxwell [1954] a) Vol. 2, 257–266.
See Smith & Wise [1989].
Maxwell [1954] §§ 781–805.
Maxwell [1954] §786.
Eight experiments of various types to measure the ratio of units, some of them performed by Kelvin, others proposed or performed by Maxwell himself (Maxwell [1954] §§772–80)
Maxwell [1954] §787.
Maxwell [1954] §786.
Smith & Wise [1989].
Schaffer [1994].
I comment on this matter in D’Agostino [1986] 194–198.
Schaffer [1994] 139.
Schaffer [1994] 146 ff. Also in: Smith & Wise [1989] 455.
Raleigh [1915]. Other remarks in: Carneiro [1993].
Buckingham 19XX. Carneiro [1993].
D’Agostino [1996] 46–49.
Let me express my agreement on this point with Smith and Wise. In commenting on Kelvin’s statement that, in order to meet a scientific test, any quantity was to be measurable, they keenly remark that “Maxwell’s displacement current...had never been observed, let alone measured in the sense direct sense Thomson intended” (Smith & Wise [1989] 455).
Maxwell [1954] §526.
D’Agostino [1996] 47. In my paper I gave evidence of the fact that Maxwell never quoted or utilized Weber and Koholraush’s velocity c, but in his research he limited his approach to Weber’s ratio of units (see above Gauss’s and Weber’s metrology). On this point, see also Siegel [1991] 130.
Sommerfeld 1935], [1964] 53–54.
Panofsky & Phillips [1955] 375–378.
However, the authors add that Maxwell’s choice of only three fundamental mechanical units does not allow a numerical determination of the absolute values for the ethereal constants. This determination is possible if a fourth non mechanical unit is arbitrarily determined Panofsky & Phillips [1955] 376.
Panofsky & Phillips [1955] 375.
Panofsky and Phillips mantain (Panofsky & Phillips [1955] 376) that c in the expression above was first determined by Weber and Koholrausch by measuring the discharge of a condenser whose electrostatic capacity was known. In my study I proved that this velocity was not Maxwell’s velocity c (v in Maxwell’s and my notation).See D’Agostino [1996] 47.
As it can be also argued by referring to Buchwald’s very detailed analysis in: Buchwald [1985] 27–33, 37–40, 47.
Buchwald [1985] 23 ff.
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D’Agostino, S. (2000). A Historical Role for Dimensional Analysis in Maxwell’s Electromagnetic Theory of Light. In: A History of the Ideas of Theoretical Physics. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 213. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-9034-6_3
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