Electricity and Magnetism: A Historical Perspective

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Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007 - Science - 165 pages
2 Reviews
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All students of physics need to understand the basic concepts of electricity and magnetism. E&M is central to the study of physics, and central to understanding the developments of the last two hundred years of not just science, but technology and society in general. But the core of electricity and magnetism can be difficult to understand - many of the ideas are counterintuitive and difficult to appreciate. This volume in the Greenwood Guides to Great Ideas in Science series traces the central concepts of electricity and magnetism from the ancient past to the present day, enabling students to develop a deeper understanding of how the science arose as it has. In addition, Electricity and Magnetism: A Historical Perspective supports curriculum guidelines that stress student understanding of the history and nature of the scientific enterprise. The volume examines the work of many of the most important scientists of the past: BL Benjamin Franklin and his fluid theory of electricity BLJames Clerk Maxwell and the development of the theory of electromagnetism BLAlbert Einstein and his special theory of relativity, which arose from debates over Maxwell's theory Electricity and Magnetism also examines the importance of the scientific research to modern technology - radio and television, computers, and light and power. Jargon and mathematics is kept to a minimum, and the volume includes a timeline and an annotated bibliography of useful print and online works for further research.Electricity and Magnetism is an ideal introduction for students studying physics and technology and who need to understand the history and nature of the scientific enterprise.
 

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worst piece of literature ever written! I found no helpful information from this book and that a new invention called google! gives me the information i needed in seconds were reading the book still left me with questions.

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Hi. I am sorry to say your work is incorrect. The history of electricity and magnetism has already been explained in "GOD BASED MAGNETISM", on Google Sites, by Michael S. Green. Please stand corrected or stand down. Thank you, Michael S. Green.

Contents

Electromagnetic Waves
105
Charged Particles of Matter
117
The Atom and the New Physics of the Twentieth Century
129
Timeline
137
Glossary
145
Bibliography
153
Index
159
Copyright

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Popular passages

Page 23 - I wish we could derive the rest of the phenomena of Nature by the same kind of reasoning from mechanical principles, for I am induced by many reasons to suspect that they may all depend upon certain forces by which the particles of bodies, by some causes hitherto unknown, are either mutually impelled towards one another, and cohere in regular figures, or are repelled and recede from one another.
Page 63 - In experimental philosophy we are to look upon propositions inferred by general induction from phenomena as accurately or very nearly true, notwithstanding any contrary hypotheses that may be imagined, till such time as other phenomena occur, by which they may either be made more accurate or liable to exceptions.
Page 23 - I offer this work as the mathematical principles of philosophy, for the whole burden of philosophy seems to consist in this — from the phenomena of motions to investigate the forces of nature, and then from these forces to demonstrate the other phenomena; and to this end the general propositions in the first and second Books are directed.
Page 23 - That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum, without the mediation of anything else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity, that I believe no man, who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it.
Page 98 - Fizeau, that we can scarcely avoid the inference that light consists in the transverse undulations of the same medium which is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena.
Page 40 - The electrical spark is zig-zag, and not straight ; so is lightning. Pointed bodies attract Electricity ; lightning strikes mountains, trees, spires, masts, and chimneys. When different paths are offered to the escape of Electricity, it chooses the best conductor : so does lightning. Electricity fires combustibles : so does lightning. Electricity fuses metals : so does lightning. Lightning rends bad conductors when it strikes them ; so does Electricity when rendered sufficiently strong. Lightning...
Page 23 - ... arise from the action of the bodies themselves, as tending to each other or agitating each other by spirits emitted; or whether it arises from the action of the ether or of the air, or of any medium whatever, whether corporeal or incorporeal, in any manner impelling bodies placed therein towards each other. In the same general sense I use the word impulse, not defining in this treatise the species or physical qualities of forces, but investigating the quantities and mathematical proportions of...
Page 31 - I wish to inform you of a new but terrible experiment, which I advise you on no account personally to attempt. I am engaged in a research to determine the strength of Electricity. With this object I had suspended by two blue silk threads, a gun barrel, which received electricity by communication from a glass globe which was turned rapidly on its axis by one operator, while another pressed his hand against it.

About the author (2007)

Brian Baigrie is Associate Professor in the Institute for History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Toronto. He is the author of many articles in history and philosophy of science, and has edited Scientific Revolutions: Primary Texts in the History of Science, History of Modern Science and Mathematics, and Life Scientists of the Twentieth Century.

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