Abstract
Classical field theory possesses a striking beauty in part because it comes to us as a complete theory in which we can tie almost each law and concept directly to a single experiment. Except for the qualifying “almost” we can present the subject as based on hard laboratory data and a very limited number of guiding ideas. But there is too much human thought that lies behind the word “almost” for us to drop it in our pursuit of understanding.
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Notes
- 1.
We shall treat here only Newtonian gravitation.
- 2.
A test mass is a small mass used to measure a gravitational field. The field is found as the force on the test mass divided by the mass of the test mass in the limit as the mass of the test mass goes to zero.
- 3.
The field is found from the force on the test charge divided by the charge of the test charge in the limit as the charge goes to zero.
- 4.
Schweigger’s Journal für Chemie und Physik, xxix (1820), p. 364; Thomson’s Annals of Philosophy, xvi (1820), p. 375; Ostwald’s Klassiker der exakten Wissenschaften, Nr. 63. (cited by [97]).
- 5.
Schweigger’s Journal für Chemie und Physik, xxix (1820), p. 364; Thomson’s Annals of Philosophy, xvi (1820), p. 375 (cited by [97]).
- 6.
Mém. de l’Acad., vi, p.175 (cited by [97]).
- 7.
These lengths of wire actually consisted of multiple lengths which could be connected together to change the effective length of the wire.
- 8.
This is a fundamental statement regarding the geometry of the magnetic field lines, but does not define a physical relationship among measurable physical quantities.
- 9.
The modern term electromotive force (emf) is the integral around a contour of this \(\vec{E}\). That the integral does not vanish indicates that \(\vec{E}\) resulting from the rate of change of the magnetic field intensity \(\vec{H}\) is not conservative.
- 10.
Hendrik Antoon Lorentz (1853–1928) was a Dutch theoretical physicist.
- 11.
William Thomson, later Lord Kelvin, was a personal friend of Maxwell’s, as well as a scientific collaborator.
- 12.
The magnetic field is designated by magnetic induction \(\vec{B}\) or as magnetic intensity \(\vec{H}\). These are related by the permeability μ as \(\vec{H} = \left (1/\mu \right )\vec{B}\).
- 13.
A Ruhmkorff coil is an induction coil with a few turns in the primary, many turns in the secondary, and a core of iron threads.
- 14.
The paper was The Ether and the Earth’s Atmosphere, published in the American journal Science [Science, 1889, 13: 390].
- 15.
The terminology Einstein used was clock. We have used timepiece because the clock with hands is becoming less common.
- 16.
Einstein used the form of the Maxwell equations employed by von Helmholtz and Hertz [46, p. 201].
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Helrich, C.S. (2012). Origins and Concepts. In: The Classical Theory of Fields. Graduate Texts in Physics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23205-3_1
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