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Biography or Obituary? The Historiographical Value of the Death of the Ether

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Biographies in the History of Physics

Abstract

In the preface to the second edition of his A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity, issued in 1951, Edmund Whittaker explained why he decided to preserve the old title. First published in 1910, this book was intended as an encyclopedic account of the evolution of physics since the days of Descartes, although the main focus was optics, electricity and magnetism in the nineteenth century, and the argumentative backbone was the changing role of the ether(s) in this evolution.

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Ikerbasque Research Professor, University of the Basque Country. Part of this research was possible thanks to project HAR2015-67831-P MINECO/FEDER, EU of the Spanish Government as well as the Ikercambridge fellowship of the Basque Government.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of the Basque Country, Leioa, Spain

    Jaume Navarro

  2. Ikerbasque, Bilbao, Spain

    Jaume Navarro

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  1. Jaume Navarro
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Correspondence to Jaume Navarro .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Ernst-Haeckel-Haus, Friedrich-Schiller-University, Jena, Germany

    Christian Forstner

  2. Union College, Schenectady, NY, USA

    Mark Walker

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Navarro, J. (2020). Biography or Obituary? The Historiographical Value of the Death of the Ether. In: Forstner, C., Walker, M. (eds) Biographies in the History of Physics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48509-2_16

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