Abstract
Our story covers two and one half millennia. It starts with Thales of Miletus who wrote in −600 about the mineral magnetite. It ends with Gouy and Larmor who proposed at the beginning of the 20th century the concept of self-excited dy-namo to explain the existence of magnetic fields on the Sun. All this while, the pace was accelerating.
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References
References for this section about China: Haudricourt and Needham (1957, pp. 483–485); Hellemans and Bunch (1988, pp. 19, 37, 39, 75); Macdonald (1957, p. 1508); Needham and Ling (1954–1956, Vol. 1, p. 128, and Vol. 2, p. 576); Needham, Ling, and Robinson (1962, pp. 229–230, 232, 249–250, 279–280, 334); Sarton (1927–1948, Vol. 1, pp. 755–756, 764).
Needham, Ling, and Robinson (1962, p. 231); Sarton (1927–1948, Vol. 1, pp. 65, 71, 72).
Lenoble (1958, p. 325).
See Brothers Arnold and Potamian (1904). The authors provide many references to Latin and medieval writings, with quotations.
Pliny the Elder (1855, Chap. XXXIV, 137).
Beaujouan (1957, p. 573); Hellemans and Bunch (1988, p. 79); Needham, Ling, and Robinson (1962, pp. 230, 279–280); Sarton (1927–1948, Vol. 2, pp. 24, 385, 589, 592–593, 671).
Macdonald (1957, p. 1504); Needham, Ling, and Robinson (1962, pp. 229–230); Sarton (1927–1948, Vol. 2, p. 630).
Needham, Ling, and Robinson (1962, p. 330).
Arnold and Potamian (1904); Beaujouan (1957, p. 542); Hellemans and Bunch (1988, pp. 61, 81); Lenoble (1958, pp. 326–327); Merrill and McElhinny (1983, pp. v, 5); Sarton (1927–1948, Vol. 2, pp. 24, 630).
Fleming (1939, pp. 2–3); Malin (1989, pp. 7–8); Merrill and McElhinny (1983, pp. 6–7, 12). See also Physics Today (June 2000), p. 52. There exists an extensive site on Gilbert’s life and work at www.spof.gsfc.nasa.gov/earthmag/demagint.htm
Beaujouan (1957, p. 573).
Fleming (1939, p. 2); Hellemans and Bunch (1988, p. 99).
Merrill and McElhinny (1983, p. 6).
Malin (1989, p. 35).
Malin (1989, p. 21–22); Merrill and McElhinny (1983, p. 11).
Faraday (1852a,b,c, 1965); Gillispie (1970–1978).
Bork (1963); Domb (1979); Gillispie (1970–1978); Harman (1998); Heaviside (1950); Hunt (1991).
For the origin of the name Maxwell, see Gillispie (1970–1978).
Maxwell (1873).
Hunt (1991).
Gillispie (1970–1978).
Gillispie (1970–1978) attributes the discovery of the vector formulation to Lorentz (1853–1928) in 1895, eleven years after Heaviside.
Heaviside (1950), Sect. 22.6.
See Heaviside (1950).
Zeeman (1897).
Hale (1908).
Gouy (1912).
Larmor (1919).
Larmor (1929, 1934).
Gillispie (1970–1978).
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(2006). The Early History. In: Magneto-Fluid Dynamics. Astronomy and Astrophysics Library. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-47290-4_1
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