Reading List for Chapter 3
And Where to Get Started Understanding Electricity & Magnetism
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I can only capture so much in a chapter, and I have to ruthlessly prune away interesting diversions that don’t directly contribute to my purpose. Also, I’m presenting a simplified story of electromagnetism that should not only be accessible to novices, but also offer interesting twists even for experts. For both reasons, my survey is far from a comprehensive treatment of the subject. You will find much the same territory covered in an accessible fashion but in more detail in Nancy Forbes’ and Basil Mahon’s Faraday, Maxwell, and the Electromagnetic Field. I also enjoyed Asimov’s treatment. Light, Electricity, and Magnetism is the second volume of his Understanding Physics. You can buy the new three-in-one tome, or probably find an inexpensive, used, paperback copy of volume two. All these are introductory level books for high school students and other interested beginners. You’ll get a good overview, but you won’t get an in depth technical introduction to the mathematical science of electromagnetism from those writings.
For that, you should look into an undergraduate level text. Purcell’s Electricity and Magnetism is one of the best. I own a second edition. The first edition is supposed to be in the public domain. Ben Crowell has been working to get a complete open source copy available, but has been hindered by rights issues. Check out Crowell’s other open source physics texts at his website. David Griffith’s Introduction to Electrodynamics, now in a 5th edition, has long been the standard undergraduate text. I found the first edition was a useful reference when I was an undergrad. He has a few squirelly quirks like insisting that magnetic fields don’t do work, but it’s otherwise a solid text. Finally, I also enjoyed Roald K. Wangsness’ Electromagnetic Fields. I have a second edition. Wangsness covers sophisticated topics like dipole fields and plotting field lines.
Oleg D. Jefimenko’s Electricity and Magnetism: An Introduction to Electric and Magnetic Fields is also excellent. I particularly respect the way Jefimenko demonstrated how grass seeds could be used to visualize electric fields in a manner analogous to how Faraday employed iron shavings to examine magnetic fields. Jefimenko is also clear about dipole fields. I used his treatment to guide me in my doctoral research. Finally Jefimenko popularized a very clever way of decoupling the electric and magnetic fields in Maxwell’s Equations to create expressions for the fields in terms of sources, alone. More about that coming up in Chapter 4.
Paul Lorrain and Dale Corson’s Electromagnetic Fields and Waves, originally published in 1962 and updated to a second edition in 1970, is yet another excellent text widely available from low-cost used book sources. I have the second edition, but more recent editions are available.
The Feynman Lectures are a deep and well-thought-out survey on physics. Volume 2 addresses electromagnetism. They are also available for free online. The Feynman Lectures were helpful to me as a junior and senior in physics, once I’d already completed basic courses and I was trying to understand and integrate what I’d already learned. I tried and failed to get much out of them as a freshman. The story I heard in grad school was that when Feynman presented the material to his freshmen they almost all dropped over the course of the class, but Feynman didn’t notice because as the freshmen dropped, the empty seats were occupied by grad students who enjoyed the review of the basic material.
I can believe it.
Update - a friend says “[I] can confirm the Feynman story. One supervisor’s HS classmate graduated from MIT, his fallback choice. The fellow left Caltech after getting a D (average class grade) in freshman physics, a weeding course. Half or more of the freshman class weeded out. Dr. Feynman was the instructor. Grad students filled the empty seats. Only time he was allowed to teach below senior UG physics. Supervisors friend graduated fairly high in his MIT class, but getting a D, at Caltech, stuck with him.
“Why are you here with a D?”
“Dr. Feynman.”
“Ohhh…”
There are some supplementary texts I also found very helpful. A Student’s Guide to Maxwell’s Equations by Daniel Fleisch not only offers a clear description of Maxwell’s equations, but also offers online solutions and a podcast. For an introductory-level tutorial on vector calculus, check out Div, Grad, Curl, and All That by H.M. Schey.
You may have guessed that I'm a big fan of Edmund T. Whittaker's two-volume History of Theories of the Aether and Electricity. There is no more technically detailed and comprehensive treatment available even today. The first edition of the first volume is in the public domain. Whittaker updated the first volume and wrote a second volume extending the coverage into the twentieth century shortly before his death in 1956. I appreciate and respect Whittaker’s iconoclastic refusal to deify Einstein’s special relativity, and instead to focus on the contributions of Oliver Heaviside, George Fitzgerald, Henri Poincaré, and Hendrik Lorentz. But that's a topic we'll take up in Chapter 5. My absolute favorite biographical history of electricity and magnetism is Brother Potamian’s and James J. Walsh’s Makers of Electricity. The authors really capture the intrepid spirit of adventure inherent in scientific discovery. It’s long since lapsed into the public domain and is available for $0.99 on Kindle or free from Archive.org.
The original works of Faraday and Maxwell are all in the public domain and may be found at archive.org or books.google.com. Maxwell’s Treatise is a tough read, but it has many excellent sections. Maxwell’s Scientific Papers are similarly to be taken in small bites. Maxwell on the Electromagnetic Field: A Guided Study by Thomas K. Simpson is a good place for beginners to start understanding Maxwell and his thinking.
Not long after Maxwell’s untimely death, his friend from childhood, Lewis Campbell, collected family letters and diaries, and drew on his intimate familiarity with Maxwell and his family to write a biography of the late scientist. This biography includes charming contemporaneous sketches and drawing of Maxwell’s childhood by his rather talented first cousin Isabella Wederburn Blackburn. William Garnett took the lead describing Maxwell’s scientific life and accomplishments. The Life of Maxwell by Lewis Campbell and William Garnett is in the public domain. Recently, however, Sonnet Software Founder, James Rautio, released a newly revised and updated version including modern photographs of the restoration efforts at Maxwell’s estate, Glenlair, Cavendish Laboratory artifacts, and a photograph of the recently dedicated statue of Maxwell in Edinburgh with his beloved dog, Toby, and the “colour wheel” he used to explore the primary colors of light.
Dr. Rautio’s work on Maxwell includes:
James C. Rautio, "Fire! fire! fire! [fire that destroyed the James Clerk Maxwell home]" Microwave Magazine, IEEE, Volume 14, Issue 4, June 2013.
James C. Rautio, "Toby's Statue", IEEE Microwave Magazine, June 2009, pp 48-60.
James C. Rautio, "Twenty Three Years: The Acceptance of Maxwell's Theory", Microwave Journal, Vol. 51, No. 7, July 2008, pg 104.
James C. Rautio, "In Search of Maxwell", Microwave Journal, Vol. 49, No. 7, July 2006, pp. 76-88.
James C. Rautio, "Maxwell's Legacy", IEEE Microwave Magazine, June 2005, pp. 46-53.
Coulomb’s Memoirs on Torsion, Electricity, and Magnetism Translated Into English by Andre Assis and Louis L. Bucciarelli is an extensively commented presentation of the great scientist’s work. I have no idea how they can sell it on Amazon for $1.95, but I highly recommend you get a copy while you can. While you are there, check out his many other excellent writings on scientific and electromagnetic history.
I recommend Kasra’s Physics Inquiry Substack for excellent introductory discussions of physics concepts.
John Plaice’s Fiat Lux Substack looks at fundamental physics concepts often in a deep historical context.
In particular, he recently gave an excellent talk calling attention to the now largely forgotten and overlooked action-at-a-distance electrodynamics of Wilhelm Eduard Weber (1804-1891).
Those are my recommendations. What are your favorite books, sources, and references on basic electromagnetism? Let us all know in the comments. Next time, we’ll launch into Chapter 4: Electromagnetism Comes of Age.
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