Electromagnetic theory

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1. rezmasonJan 2025
   There's a fascinating story about ego in science buried here.

   William Henry Preece was Engineer-In-Chief at the British Post Office in the late 19th Century (basically heading their telegraphy efforts) and controversially stuck to Thomson's model, or the "KR Law" as it was called back then, relying on poor quality experimental results to direct the organization.

   Oliver Heaviside publicly criticized Preece, who in turn blocked publication of Heaviside's writing to preserve his own reputation (according to Wikipedia). When Preece retired in 1899 and received a knighthood, Heaviside wrote in the preface of Volume II of "Electromagnetic Theory":

   "It is to be hoped and expected that the late important removals in the British Telegraph Department will lead to much improvement in the quality of official science."

   Writing by hand on his own copy, Heaviside suggested that the preface (and thus the book's publication) were "held back" so as to "allow W H Preece to make sure of his knighthood".

   https://outsideecho.com/DGT-BIO_files/PDFs/DGT13.pdf

   So! On the one hand, we have an esteemed engineer who ran the country's telegraphs and refused to admit he made a mistake, became a knight and faded somewhat from history; on the other hand, we have a self-taught physicist who made massive contributions to our understanding and analysis of electromagnetism, lived in "relative poverty" for fifty years while doing so, didn't shy away from calling out bad science, and he gets the analogue of heaven named after him in the musical "CATS".

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2. segfaultbuserrFeb 2024
   > I think I understand GA, but I knew I did not understand quaternions after working through lectures and problems.

   Most physicists stopped using them at the end of 19th century for the same reason...

   > More than a third part of a century ago, in the library of an ancient town, a youth might have been seen tasting the sweets of knowledge to see how he liked them. He was of somewhat unprepossessing appearance, carrying on his brow the heavy scowl that the "mostly-fools" consider to mark a scoundrel. In his father's house were not many books, so it was like a journey into strange lands to go book-tasting. Some books were poison; theology and metaphysics in particular they were shut up with a bang. But scientific works were better; there was some sense in seeking the laws of God by observation and experiment, and by reasoning founded thereon. Some very big books bearing stupendous names, such as Newton, Laplace, and so on, attracted his attention. On examination, he concluded that he could understand them if he tried, though the limited capacity of his head made their study undesirable.

   > But what was Quaternions? An extraordinary name! Three books; two very big volumes called Elements, and a smaller fat one called Lectures. What could quaternions be? He took those books home and tried to find out. He succeeded after some trouble, but found some of the properties of vectors professedly proved were wholly incomprehensible. How could the square of a vector be negative? And Hamilton was so positive about it. After the deepest research, the youth gave it up, and returned the books. He then died, and was never seen again. He had begun the study of Quaternions too soon.

   - Oliver Heaviside, Electromagnetic Theory

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3. hilbert42Apr 2021
   Oliver Heaviside is very often underrated and forgotten and he deserves not to be—even his reformulation of Maxwell's equations into the four that we know and commonly use today alone ought to have him receive better history/recognition in the textbooks. This is probably because he was an outsider to the physics and electrical engineering establishment and he wasn't known to make friends easily, and he didn't abide fools well.

   Whilst CliffStoll's quote (and link) is from Paul J. Nahin's article in the Royal Society journal it's also worth highlighting the fact that Nahin has written a full bio on Heaviside (it's mentioned in the article's footnotes but might be overlooked). I have a copy of the book, it is excellent, it's likely the most comprehensive and authoritative written on Heaviside, and I'd thoroughly recommend it: Oliver Heaviside–The Life, Work, & Times of an Electrical Genius of the Victorian Age; Paul J. Nahin PJ ©1988-IEEE ©2002-John Hopkins Uni, ISBN 0-8018-6909-9 paperback ed.

   It's all very well to praise Heaviside but if one really wants to get a feel for the extent and depth of his work then I refer one to the following works of his that are on the Internet Archive (they're out of copyright so they can be downloaded). Note, as with many works, the Internet Archive has multiple copies some of which are more readable (or better scanned) than others, so the seemingly multiple entries are not duplicates. Two other points to note, this list is not comprehensive and the IA's file-naming conventions are sometimes skewed or confusing (apologies if I've made any typos):

   Electromagnetic Theory, Volume-1, Heaviside, Oliver, 1850-1925, 1893 edition: https://archive.org/details/electromagnetic00heavgoog

   Electromagnetic Theory, Volume-1, Heaviside, Oliver, 1850-1925, 1894/1912 ed.: https://archive.org/details/electromagnetict01heavrich

   Electromagnetic Theory, Volume-2, Heaviside, Oliver, 1850-1925, 1894/1912 ed.: https://archive.org/details/electromagnetict02heavrich

   Electromagnetic Theory, Volume-3, Heaviside, Oliver, 1850-1925, 1893 ed.: https://archive.org/details/electromagnetict03heavuoft

   Electrical Papers, Volume-1, Heaviside, Oliver, 1850-1925, 1892 ed.: https://archive.org/details/electricalpapers01heavuoft

   Electrical Papers, Volume-2, Heaviside, Oliver, 1850-1925, 1894 ed.: https://archive.org/details/electricalpaper01heavgoog

   Electrical Papers, Volume-2, Heaviside, Oliver, 1850-1925, 1894 ed.: https://archive.org/details/electricalpapers02heavrich

   Electromagnetic Waves, Heaviside, Oliver, 1850-1925, 1889 ed.: https://archive.org/details/electromagnetic01heavgoog

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