In the late 19th and early 20th century the physics community began to
enshrine mathematical ingenuity as the best way to resolve the tensions
between theory and experiment and grew increasingly dismissive of
philosophical questioning and speculation.
The theory of Special Relativity is typically
Faraday's message to Maxwell parallels Aristotle's complaint about the
Egyptians. Aristotle implied words to the effect that the ancient Egyptians
thought that the physical world should obey mathematics instead of math
describing reality. There's a lot of that going on today. The so-called
Faraday wrote this 10 years before Maxwell published his first work on
electromgnetism in 1856 which was titled "On Faraday's lines of Force"
Maxwell's equations were first published in 1862. It seems Maxwell
interpreted Faraday's writings in a manner that was consistent with an
aether.
I would
Hmmm... A year after Maxwell's equations. Maxwell can't have been too happy
about that, as his equations described the behavior of the aether. And he
repeatedly claimed that he had merely expressed Faraday in conventional
mathematical form.
On Monday, April 15th, 2024 at 8:04 PM, MSF wrote:
>
This gives you an idea what a deep thinker Faraday was. Do you know if he
posited this idea before Maxwell published his equations? I thought I had read
everything Faraday wrote. Somehow I missed this one.
MIchael
On Monday, April 15th, 2024 at 12:08 PM, H L V wrote:
> This is a quote from a
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