Maxwell on Saturn's Rings. Edited by Stephen G. Brush, C. W. F. Everitt, and Elizabeth Garber.

MAXWELL, James Clerk:

ISBN 10: 0262131900 / ISBN 13: 9780262131902

Published by Cambridge & London: The M.I.T. Press, 1983., 1983

About this Item

First of this edition. xii, 1 leaf, 199 pp. Original cloth. Near Fine, in near fine dust jacket. Reprints 19 letters (to Kelvin, Stokes, Tait, et al.) and nine other sources.

Seller Inventory # 03413

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Maxwell on Saturn's Rings. Edited by Stephen G. Brush, C. W. F. Everitt, and Elizabeth Garber.
• Publisher: Cambridge & London: The M.I.T. Press, 1983.
• Publication Date: 1983
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0262131900
• ISBN 13: 9780262131902
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Printing: 1st Printing
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine

About this title

Synopsis

From the first time they were dimly sighted through Galileo's telescope to the recent spectacular pictures beamed back by Voyager, Saturn's rings have fascinated generations of observers. The scientific problems associated with them have also attracted the attention of successive generations of theoreticians.

James Clerk Maxwell's 1856 Adams Prize Essay, "On the Stability of the Motion of Saturn's Rings," forms the central body of this book and is the work that first established his reputation as one of the greatest mathematical physicists of any generation. It is surrounded by previously unpublished materials written both before and after the essay was completed. The former group consists of sixteen letters - to William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin), George Gabriel Stokes, Peter Guthrie Tait, and other friends and colleagues - written while Maxwell was working out the problems and preparing the essay for publication, and they reveal both the sureness of his approach and false starts and errors. The post-essay documents include a review of the work by George Biddell Airy, the Astronomer Royal, and correspondence with the Harvard astronomer George Bond in 1863. Here Maxwell attempts to extend his analysis to include the effects of collisions among the particles of the ring, employing his own newly developed kinetic theory of gases.

The editors' introduction provides a historical context for Maxwell's contribution. Stephen G. Brush is affiliated with the University of Maryland at College Park, C. W. F. Everitt with Stanford University, and Elizabeth Garber with SUNY at Stony Brook.

Review

"A superb piece of work. It is done with Brush's usual thoroughness and sensitivity to issues raised that go beyond the narrow particulars of Maxwell's immediate interest.... It is the best account of Maxwell's work on kinetic theory, gases, and molecular physics that exists."
- L. Pearce Williams, Cornell University