"Maxwell in particular noted that the phenomena of electromagnetism did not fit into the scheme of Newtonian mechanics. Whereas it had been thought that only the distance between two objects determined the force one exerted on the other, electric charges in motion, such as are met with in electric currents, were found to produce effects not encountered when charges are at rest. Celestial bodies will only attract each other; electric charges at rest will either attract or repel... they will exert forces only in the direction of the connecting straight line. Oersted discovered that an electric current (...charges in motion) will exert a force on a magnetic needle at right angles to the connecting straight line. Previous observations in astronomy had tended to show that the force between two bodies depended only on their instantaneous configuration, but Hertz showed by experiment that electromagnetic disturbances propagate as waves, at a finite rate of speed. Hence the force experienced by one body can be understood and explained only in terms of the history of the other."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Peter G. Bergmann, The Riddle of Gravitation: From Newton to Einstein to Today's Exciting Theories (1968) pp. 25-26.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Electromagnetism
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Electromagnetism
45 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Electromagnetism →
Related Quotes
"Maxwell succeeded in casting all known electromagnetic effects into a mathematical form that has endured to this day.…"
"Faraday was the first scientist to realise the enormous importance of the electromagnetic field. He saw in it a reali…"
"In order to appreciate the nature of Maxwell's contributions, let us recall how matters stood in his day. ...Faraday'…"
"The... weak force... couples to both s and s, and is very short-ranged due to the large rest mass of the messenger qu…"
"The general equations are next applied to the case of a magnetic disturbance propagated through a non-conductive fiel…"
"Classical mechanics has been developed continuously from the time of Newton and applied to an ever-widening range of …"
"The first clear sign of a breakdown in communication between physics and mathematics was the extraordinary lack of in…"
"After ten years of reflection such a principle resulted from a paradox upon which I had already hit at the age of six…"
"The special theory of relativity owes its origins to Maxwell's equations of the electromagnetic field."
"The subject of electric oscillation announced in a remarkable paper of Henry in 1842 and threshed out in its main fea…"