Electrodynamics from Ampère to Einstein

by Darrigol, Olivier

• ISBN13: 9780198505945
• ISBN10: 0198505949
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-08-10
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Three quarters of a century elapsed between Ampère's definition of electrodynamics and Einstein's reform of the concepts of space and time. The two events occurred in utterly different worlds: the French Academy of Sciences of the 1820s seems very remote from the Bern patent office of the early 1900s, and the forces between two electric currents quite foreign to the optical synchronization of clocks. Yet Ampère's electrodynamics and Einstein's relativity are firmly connected through an historical chain involving German extensions of Ampère's work, competition with British field conceptions, Dutch synthesis, and fin de siècle criticism of the aether-matter connection. Darrigol's book retraces this intriguing evolution, with a physicist's attention to conceptual and instrumental developments, and with an historian's awareness of their cultural and material embeddings. This book exploits a wide range of sources, and incorporates the many important insights of other scholars. Thorough accounts are given of crucial episodes such as Faraday's redefinition of charge and current, the genesis of Maxwell's field equations, or Hertz' experiments on fast electric oscillations. Thus emerges a vivid picture of the intellectual and instrumental variety of nineteenth century physics. The most influential investigators worked at the crossroads between different disciplines and traditions: they did not separate theory from experiment, they frequently drew on competing traditions, and their scientific interests extended beyond physics into chemistry, mathematics, physiology, and other areas. By bringing out these important features, this book offers a tightly connected and yet sharply contrasted view of early electrodynamics.

Author Biography

Olivier Darrigol is a Research Director at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris.

Table of Contents

Conventions and notations	xvii
Foundations	1	(41)
Introduction	1	(5)
Ampere's attractions	6	(10)
Faraday's rotations	16	(7)
Electro-dynamique	23	(8)
Electromagnetic induction	31	(8)
Conclusions	39	(3)
German precision	42	(35)
Introduction	42	(1)
Neumann's mathematical phenomenology	43	(6)
The Gaussian spirit	49	(5)
Weber's Maassbestimmungen	54	(12)
Kirchhoff compared with Weber	66	(8)
Conclusions	74	(3)
British fields	77	(60)
Introduction	77	(1)
Faraday's electrochemistry	78	(7)
Dielectrics	85	(11)
The magnetic lines of force	96	(17)
Thomson's potential	113	(13)
Thomson's magnetic field	126	(8)
Conclusions	134	(3)
Maxwell	137	(40)
Introduction	137	(2)
On Faraday's lines of force	139	(8)
On physical lines of force	147	(7)
The dynamical field	154	(12)
Exegi monumentum	166	(6)
Conclusions	172	(5)
British Maxwellians	177	(32)
Introduction	177	(1)
Thomson's antipathy	177	(3)
Picturing Maxwell	180	(9)
Modifying Maxwell's equations	189	(5)
A telegrapher's Maxwell	194	(8)
Electromagnetic waves	202	(3)
Conclusions	205	(4)
Open currents	209	(56)
Introduction	209	(1)
Continental foundations	210	(4)
Helmholtz's physics of principles	214	(20)
Hertz's response	234	(18)
The impact of Hertz's discovery	252	(10)
Conclusions	262	(3)
Conduction in electrolytes and gases	265	(49)
Introduction	265	(1)
Electrolysis	266	(8)
Discharge in rarefied gases	274	(14)
Gaseous ions	288	(12)
The cathode ray controversy	300	(10)
Conclusions	310	(4)
The electron theories	314	(37)
Introduction	314	(1)
Some optics of moving bodies	314	(5)
Helmholtz's ionic optics	319	(3)
Lorentz's synthesis	322	(10)
Larmor's reform	332	(11)
Wiechert's world-ether	343	(4)
Conclusions	347	(4)
Old principles and a new world-view	351	(44)
Introduction	351	(1)
Poincare's criticism	351	(9)
The descent into the electron	360	(6)
Alternative theories	366	(6)
Einstein on electrodynamics	372	(20)
Conclusions	392	(3)
Appendices	395	(48)
1 Ampere's forces	395	(4)
2 Absolute units	399	(1)
3 Neumann's potential	400	(2)
4 Weber's formula and consequences	402	(4)
5 Convective derivatives	406	(4)
6 Maxwell's stress system	410	(2)
7 Helmholtz's electrodynamics	412	(8)
8 Hertz's 1884 derivation of the Maxwell equations	420	(2)
9 Electrodynamic Lagrangians	422	(7)
10 Electric convection	429	(5)
11 Fresnel's coefficient	434	(3)
12 Cohn's electrodynamics	437	(6)
Abbreviations used in bibliographies	443	(2)
Bibliography of primary literature	445	(40)
Bibliography of secondary literature	485	(30)
Index	515