Electrodynamics from Ampère to Einstein
Olivier Darrigol
Price: £96.00 (hardback)
ISBN-13: 978-0-19-850594-5
Publication date: 8 June 2000
552 pages, 13 halftones, 100 line illus., 234x156 mm
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| Reviews |
| - '... this is both a pioneering work that lays firm foundations for all further investigations in this fundamental field and one of the highest quality.' - ISIS
- '... the scholarship is detailed and impeccable.' - ISIS
- '... an important book that should stand as one of the first points of reference for anyone seeking a sound technical introduction to the history of electrodynamics in the nineteenth century.' - The Royal Society Notes and Records
- '... carefully interweaves the history of theoretical innovation with the history of the experimental work upon which the theory was founded ... The author has done an extremely impressive job in digesting and summarizing a large and often highly technical primary and secondary literature, and in telling the story in his own lucid and engaging style. The key mathematical theories of
electrodynamics are dealt with in a clear and concise manner ... very useful end-of-chapter summaries.' - The Royal Society Notes and Records
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| Description | | - Sheds new light on the origins of Einstein's relativity
- Richly documented and abundantly illustrated
| | 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. |
Readership: Students and scholars of physics and the history of science.
| Contents |
Preface
Conventions and notations
1.
Foundations
2.
German precision
3.
British fields
4.
Maxwell
5.
British Maxwellians
6.
Open currents
7.
Conduction in electrolytes and gases
8.
The electron theories
9.
Old principles and a new world-view
Appendices
Abbreviations used in bibliographies
Bibliography of primary literature
Bibliography of secondary literature
Index
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| Authors, editors,
and contributors |
Olivier Darrigol, Research Director, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris
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