"Based on Faraday's earlier work, Maxwell stressed the notion of fields, in contrast to Newton's emphasis on the direct action of bodies on each other across empty space ('). Faraday and Maxwell regarded the effect of an electrically charged body as giving rise to stresses in its immediate surroundings... [and] in ever widening circles, gradually diminishing... These stresses... [i.e.,] the fields are intermediaries between the material particles and assume the burden of Newton's action at a distance. ...[O]ne set of Maxwell's equations is to the effect that, in the presence of a magnetic field which changes in the course of time, an electric field arises which is not caused by the presence of any electric charge. This [is] the law of electromagnetic induction... From his theory, Maxwell... predicted that magnetic fields propogate at... the speed of light. ...The laws of mechanics involve only accelerations, not velocities: the laws of electromagnetism involve a universal velocity [c]..."
Special relativity

January 1, 1970

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