Reading List for Chapter 4

Understanding Energy Flow and Radiation and Electromagnetic History

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For a reading list oriented toward a more fundamental understanding of electromagnetism, I will refer you to the reading list for Chapter 3.

Chapter 4 is a transition point in the presentation of Fields & Energy. Most of Chapter 4 is a presentation of the well-established but sometimes overlooked theory of electromagnetic energy flow pioneered by Poynting and Heaviside and the theory of electromagnetic waves and dipole fields pioneered by Hertz. However, we’ve focused on aspects that are crucial for my more divergent thinking on electromagnetism. We looked at the importance of energy flow in interfering electromagnetic waves, a topic brushed on by Heaviside but not driven to its logical conclusion. We considered the radiation fields from an individual accelerating charge, and saw how the conventional approach is like trying to understand the sound of one hand clapping. And we’ve started to examine the process of how bound electromagnetic energy and fields decouples and radiates away. We also looked into the history of electromagnetic science to understand what models have been used to understand electromagnetism and what models might be of the most use to us going forward.

I was inspired on my own path to understand electromagnetism by a few key texts I highly recommend and would like to share with you.

The first of these is Paul Nahin’s Oliver Heaviside: The Life, Work, and Times of an Electrical Genius of the Victorian Age. That’s the second edition from 2002 - I began my career in electromagnetism by studying the first edition from 1988, Oliver Heaviside: Sage in Solitude : The Life, Work, and Times of an Electrical Genius of the Victorian Age. Nahin engendered in me a lifelong appreciation for this often overlooked pioneer of electromagnetic theory, who overcame crushing poverty and a lifetime of self-imposed isolation to earn one of the highest places of honor and respect in the electromagnetic pantheon. Nahin’s books are accessible to those without a mathematical or physics background, but the depth and clarity of his exposition are best appreciated by those conversant in vector calculus.

The non-mathematically-inclined might prefer Basil Mahon’s The Forgotten Genius of Oliver Heaviside: A Maverick of Electrical Science. We last saw Mahon in the reading for Chapter 3 as the co-author of Faraday, Maxwell, and the Electromagnetic Field. His Oliver Heaviside book is similarly an engaging and comprehensive narrative for general readers.

Finally, I recommend Bruce J. Hunt’s The Maxwellians. Professor Hunt does a marvelous job wading through the wealth of material generated by Maxwell’s successors, explaining the subtle differences in their opinions and perspectives and how their clash of ideas led to our modern understanding of electricity and magnetism.

One school of thought teaches that you shouldn’t bother to read the old masters because you can get their results all neatly polished and digested for you by any number of modern textbook treatments. There’s an element of truth to this. Reading the masters sometimes requires you to suffer through archaic notation and long discarded notions and approaches. Hidden in these dusty books and treatises, however, is a valuable treasure - the mindset of those who created our modern electromagnetic science. By seeing how they wrestled with the ideas, by observing their struggles, their triumphs, and their failures, you learn better how to cope with modern challenges. You pick up on long overlooked and forgotten insights

I was deeply struck by what Nobel Laureate Philipp Lenard (1862–1947) had to say about Heinrich Hertz. I shared this quote in the summary for Chapter 4, but it bears repeating.

It is very noteworthy that in the fifteen years between Maxwell’s publication of his work On Electricity and Magnetism and Hertz’s discoveries, a great deal had been written about ‘Maxwell’s theory’ and in particular concerning the electro-magnetic theory of light, and these subjects had been lectured upon at universities, yet not even the beginning of a way to the goal had been made clear, for people simply played about with Maxwell’s equations, but not with the ideas of Maxwell or Faraday; it was a mathematical game and not scientific research that was pursued, and the results were sterile.

Hertz was the first who not only understood the equations, and knew how to deal with them mathematically when necessary, but also saw the structure of ideas upon which they were based by their originator, and understood how to move about in it.

The equations are, so to speak, merely ground plans of this structure, and are far from being actual inhabitable apartments; the latter can only be produced by the architect, who knows how to grasp the ideas which have been put into the ground plan [[ix]].

What does an understanding of the thinking of men like Maxwell, Heaviside, and Hertz have to offer you? Exactly that: “…the structure of ideas upon which [the equations] were based by their originator” and “how to move about in it.” That insight is invaluable if you want to understand the subject instead of merely playing mathematical games with it.

Philipp Lenard’s Great Men of Science has fallen out of favor for reasons we’ll learn more about in Chapter 5, but judging by his chapter on Hertz I read, it will be worthwhile reading the rest.

Nahin and Hunt can be your guides through the body of material the Maxwellians left us, but ultimately, you’ll be off reading through the pages of Maxwell’s Treatise (alt link), his Elementary Treatise, and his collected papers. You’ll smile at the outrageous sarcasm of Heaviside’s Electromagnetic Theory (alt link) or scratch your head at how he reached his results in his Electrical Papers. Hertz’s Electric Waves (alt link) offered me lost insights and hidden wisdom on the physics of dipoles that had been long forgotten. I came to Lodge’s Modern Views of Electricity (alt link) more recently and appreciate the model-based approach Lodge offered. You can find all these public domain works online or (usually) in inexpensive used editions at places like AbeBooks. Archive.org is an excellent source, but was recently hacked, and is still unavailable. While they’re unavailable, try Google Books or Hathi Trust.

A variety of excellent histories of electricity and magnetism are available. There are two I mentioned in the readings for Chapter 3 that bear repeating. Edmund Taylor Whittaker (1873-1956) was a mathematician with an interest in the history of electromagnetism. His well researched A History of the Theories of Æther and Electricity is a must read for the serious student of electricity and magnetism. Referring to the first (1911) edition, a Nature reviewer declared:

WHEN we turn to an historical survey of electrical theory we are usually entertained by reprints showing scenes like the Abbé Nollet demonstrating the properties of an electrified boy, but the present work contains more satisfactory evidences of first-hand knowledge of the authorities. It traces carefully the growth, during three centuries, of optical and electrical science, more especially in relation to the theory of the æther. As regards mathematical calculations, space is saved by expressing results in vector notation, as well as by numerous references to the original memoirs; the treatment of the more important advances, without being exhaustive, is sufficiently adequate to define them clearly in their historical setting, that being the proper function of a work of this type.

In my defense, I found the Abbé Nollet’s charming engravings of electromagnetic experimentation and demonstrations irresistible for capturing the electric enthusiasm of eighteenth century salons. Only a true and stalwart mathematician like Whittaker could harden his heart to resist their allure and stick to the facts, events, and sources.

Makers of Electricity by Brother Potamian and James J. Walsh is a similarly compelling biographical history of electricity and magnetism, full of obscure yet fascinating detail about the lives of the electrical pioneers. Here’s the 1910 review from Nature:

THIS is not a work on central-station engineers, but a series of biographical sketches of the chief pioneers in the science of electricity in its historical development. Of these sketches there are twelve, as follows:—Peregrinus and Columbus; Norman and Gilbert; Franklin and some of his contemporaries; Galvani; Volta; Coulomb; Oersted; Ampère; Ohm; Faraday; Clerk Maxwell; Lord Kelvin. As the first three, together with those on Oersted and Lord Kelvin, are signed by Brother Potamian, it may be assumed that the rest are by his colleague, Dr. Walsh, who is the author of several others works, “Makers of Modern Science,” “Catholic Churchmen in Science,” “Makers of Modern Medicine,” and “The Popes and Science,” which appear to have a great vogue amongst Roman Catholic readers in the United States. Brother Potamian, better known to his English friends as Dr. O'Reilly, is one of those who has made the bibliographical history of electricity his own; and his masterly annotations of the catalogue of the Wheeler collection of electrical books (formerly the library of the late Mr. Latimer Clark) in the possession of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers show him to possess abundant qualifications for writing biographies of the pioneers. If the chapters on Peregrinus and Columbus, Norman and Gilbert, add nothing to previous knowledge, they are valuable in presenting very readable summaries of the results of recent antiquarian research into the achievements of these early investigators of magnetism. The account of Peregrinus is particularly good, and avoids errors too often attaching to accounts of his long-forgotten discoveries. The article on Gilbert is also replete with the details which have been unearthed in recent years, though by a slip on p. 49 he is said to have blamed Stevinus for certain “vain and absurd” views about the variation of the compass in southern regions of the earth. It was not Stevinus whom he blamed, but “certain unnamed Portuguese mariners.” Gilbert's Copernican views are discussed fully, and criticised.

Brother Potamian was an excellent scientist in his own right, and a pioneer in x-ray photography. He brought that same appreciation for scientific discovery to his writing. Makers of Electricity has long since lapsed into the public domain and is available for $0.99 on Kindle or free from Archive.org or from Project Gutenberg.

The Intellectual Rise in Electricity by Park Benjamin is another classical history on which I relied, available for $2.99 on Kindle or free from Archive.org. Benjamin does a good job spinning a compelling narrative. An 1896 review in Nature proclaimed:

SINCE the days of the distinguished Joseph Priestley, no physicist has ventured to give us series of lessons on the history of the origin and progress of electrical science. In a large and admirable volume entitled “Priestley on Electricity” the author of it tried to introduce everything that was known up to his own time, and he is a poor electrician who is not fully conversant with this gigantic labour. At last another author has risen who has undertaken to supplement preceding authors, and to put before the world in one volume the subject of “the evolution of electricity”; that is to say, to describe the history of electrical science from its origin up to the present day. The author who has undertaken this task is Dr. Park Benjamin, L.L.B., a writer from the other side of the Atlantic, who, it must be said, has made himself fairly acquainted with the many electricians who have preceded him, and who makes an excellent effort to instruct the world at large by bringing into what may be called a nutshell the many pieces of information which he has been able to collect and put together in a readable form. The work is a large octavo, and consists of 611 pages, the whole being written in a style which is as commendable to the general scholar as to the particular electrician. The greatest care has been taken, step by step, to supply such illustrations as shall make the text comparatively easy. There are also portraits of men who have been engaged in the practical work of electricity; and although we would not compare the book with that written by Priestley, we must candidly say of it that all teachers, especially physical teachers, are certain to be benefited by its perusal and intimate study.

You might not think there’d be enough wireless telegraphy history in 1901 to write a History of Wireless Telegraphy, but that did not deter John Joseph Fahie. Cambridge University Press offers a modern reprint edition of this radio history classic.

John Joseph Fahie (1846-1934) was an engineer for the Electric and International Telegraph Company before being posted overseas in the Indo-European Government Telegraph Department. He was also a respected historian whose History of Wireless Telegraphy (1899) sold out two impressions in little over a year. In this second edition (1901), he traces the development of wireless communication during the nineteenth century, drawing extensively from the correspondence and technical illustrations of inventors themselves. This edition was fully updated to take account of the latest advances in radio technology, including Marconi's latest public demonstrations. As a practising telegraph engineer, Fahie was in the perfect position not only to understand the significance of these developments, but to explain them to a non-specialist audience. Contemporary reviews indicate he did this with great success. His book gives an eyewitness account of the rise of radio technology that still fascinates scholars and enthusiasts today.

There does not appear to be a Kindle edition but Fahie’s History of Wireless Telegraphy is free on Archive.org. A vintage copy of A Short Account of The Life and Work of John Joseph Fahie is available from min-O-tavros.

Those are my recommendations. What are your favorite books, sources, and references on intermediate electromagnetism and energy flow or electromagnetic history? Let us all know in the comments. Next time, we’ll launch into Chapter 5: Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.

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