The Maxwellians (Cornell History of Science) - Hardcover

Hunt, Bruce J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0801426413 ISBN 13: 9780801426414

Publisher: Cornell University Press, 1991

Synopsis

"The Maxwellians is a remarkable achievement.... Hunt combines the highest level of professional historical scholarship with a narrative that is lively and compelling throughout."
― Nature

James Clerk Maxwell published the Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism in 1873. At his death, six years later, his theory of the electromagnetic field was neither well understood nor widely accepted. By the mid-1890s, however, it was regarded as one of the most fundamental and fruitful of all physical theories. Bruce J. Hunt examines the joint work of a group of young British physicists—G. F. FitzGerald, Oliver Heaviside, and Oliver Lodge—along with a key German contributor, Heinrich Hertz. It was these "Maxwellians" who transformed the fertile but half-finished ideas presented in the Treatise into the concise and powerful system now known as "Maxwell's theory."

About this title

About the Author

Bruce J. Hunt is Associate Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0801426413
• ISBN 13: 9780801426414
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 280