Electrodynamics From Ampère To Einstein - Softcover

Darrigol, Olivier

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0198505930 ISBN 13: 9780198505938

Publisher: Oxford University Press, U.S.A., 2003

Synopsis

Three quarters of a century elapsed between Ampere'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 Ampere's electrodynamics and Einstein's relativity are firmly connected through a historical chain involving German extensions of Ampere's work, competition with British field conceptions, Dutch synthesis, and fin de siecle criticism of the aether-matter connection. Olivier Darrigol retraces this intriguing evolution, with a physicist's attention to conceptual and instrumental developments, and with a 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, and Hertz's experiments on fast electric oscillations.Thus there 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. Olivier Darrigol is a Research Director at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris. His research focuses on the history of quantum theory and of electrodynamics.

About this title

Review

By taking the best from the various scholars who have contributed to the field...and by adding his own substantial original research as well as his own synthetic vision, Darrigol has crafted a history of electromagnetic experiment and theory in the 19th century that represents the best the history-of-physics enterprise has to offer. (Daniel Siegel, Physics Today)

The high quality of the exposition, as well as the completeness of the bibliography, will make this book the authoritative reference work for historians of nineteenth century physics for years to come. (Ole Knudsen, Centaurus)

In its sophistication of analysis and detail of presentation, this treatise will surely become a standard resource for historians of science in the coming century. Darrigol offers a richly textured narrative, painstaking in its attention to detail and compelling in conceptual thrust, a work which will repay attention by historians and philosophers of physics. (Peter Harman, Studies in history and philosophy of modern physics)

About the Author

R.E.H.S.E.I.S. 59 rue Nationale Dalle Les Olympiades - Tour Montreal 75013 Paris et 83 rue Broca 75013 Paris darrigol@paris7.jussieu.fr

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press, U.S.A.
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0198505930
• ISBN 13: 9780198505938
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 552