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The Maxwellians
"The Maxwellians is a remarkable achievement.... Hunt combines the highest level of professional historical scholarship with a narrative that is lively and compelling throughout."
― Nature James Clerk Maxwell published the Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism in 1873. At his death, six years later, his theory of the electromagnetic field was neither well understood nor widely accepted. By the mid-1890s, however, it was regarded as one of the most fundamental and fruitful of all physical theories. Bruce J. Hunt examines the joint work of a group of young British physicists—G. F. FitzGerald, Oliver Heaviside, and Oliver Lodge—along with a key German contributor, Heinrich Hertz. It was these "Maxwellians" who transformed the fertile but half-finished ideas presented in the Treatise into the concise and powerful system now known as "Maxwell's theory."
― Nature James Clerk Maxwell published the Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism in 1873. At his death, six years later, his theory of the electromagnetic field was neither well understood nor widely accepted. By the mid-1890s, however, it was regarded as one of the most fundamental and fruitful of all physical theories. Bruce J. Hunt examines the joint work of a group of young British physicists—G. F. FitzGerald, Oliver Heaviside, and Oliver Lodge—along with a key German contributor, Heinrich Hertz. It was these "Maxwellians" who transformed the fertile but half-finished ideas presented in the Treatise into the concise and powerful system now known as "Maxwell's theory."
280 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1991
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 17, 2014
This is a very good book for understanding the relationships between scientists and how their mutual interests and competition can result in meaningful progress for both science and technology. Also, how interpersonal prejudices and politics can hinder great achievements. For readers interested in science and specially electromagnetic theory and its development, this book is a great read. However, I think it lacks clarity in explaining the physical models that the Maxwellians were trying to conjure up to explain electromagnetic phenomena. I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of EM and science in general.
January 11, 2015
Interesting book about circuitous, in more than one sense, way to what is now known as Maxwell theory. The book is however jumpy at several places and author does not make it clear what his expectations are with regards to to familiarity with Maxwellian theory towards the readers and skips some important steps in derivation of Maxwellian equations, whatever is known as those at any given stage. Also, some of the explanations of the models (e.g. wheel-band model of luminoforous ether) employed by Maxwellians (FitzPatrick and Lodge ) are not very clear.
June 26, 2025
Bruce Hunt essentially picks up the story of modern electromagnetics from Maxwell's death in the late 1870s, specifically the critical role played by several of his contemporaries in elucidating the real force behind his Treatise.
Reading this with a modern view of electromagnetics (and trained from much more mature textbooks and materials), I'm struck by the fact that these early scientists converge on an extremely field-driven view of electromagnetics; especially Heaviside. Although it has always been an undercurrent in some subfields of electrical engineering (particularly communications and power), I've seen something like a revival of the field-centric understanding of electromagnetism permeating even very modern areas like printed circuit board design (I'm thinking of Ralph Morrison, Henry Ott, Rick Hartley), computing, and even popular science and education (see Veritasium's videos on energy flow in circuit theory, or Chabay's Matter and Interactions). If one comes from a very particle-centric electromagnetic education, it's easy to feel like you have appreciated something deep and poorly understood as you start to consider a more field centric view. The fact that Heaviside in the 1880s already has such a comprehensive (and even applications-oriented) perspective is humbling, even if it does prove to be a conviction held a bit too strictly, owing to his difficulty accepting the role of the electron later on in his career.
Hunt does a reasonably good job tying together a coherent narrative here, with Fitzgerald, Lodge, and Heaviside constituting the core of the "Maxwellians". Though Hertz' experimental contribution is hard to overstate in its importance toward justifying much of these other men's analytic work, he turns out to be more of a side-show to the core three. Many excellent side plots and characters like Lord Kelvin (William Thomson), Larmor, and nods to Lorentz, Faraday, and others. As always for me in reading the history of science, it's gratifying to start connecting these names to actual persons, and to understand their positions in time and relative to one another.
Another interesting conceptual learning for me was the fixation on reconciling the fields with the ether. I'm loosely aware of Victorian era (a)-ether ideas, but only in passing and often as almost comical or laughed at misunderstandings in our scientific past. It's interesting to realize that these scientists were at some level concerned with something very real (generously, maybe an "accounting" of electromagnetic phenomena in media), and were generally not distracted by pseudo-scientific or metaphysical considerations. I wish there had been more to discuss these mens' reactions to Michelson and Morley's experiment, but it's clear that they all saw the aether not as a dumping ground to account for inconsistencies, but instead as a means of reconciling that the field-centric view can't account for all phenomena.
A critique of the book that I share with many other readers is its poor treatment of the actual technical content. To be frank, both the mathematical and the physical content are badly explained. Hunt makes it clear that, especially for Lodge and Fitzgerald, mechanical analogies were critical in their mental models of electromagnetism, but I found myself looking to other sources for clear explanations. Hunt's "attempts" at mathematical writing are not great.
Overall, a great read, and one I'd recommend to anyone interested in the history of science.
Reading this with a modern view of electromagnetics (and trained from much more mature textbooks and materials), I'm struck by the fact that these early scientists converge on an extremely field-driven view of electromagnetics; especially Heaviside. Although it has always been an undercurrent in some subfields of electrical engineering (particularly communications and power), I've seen something like a revival of the field-centric understanding of electromagnetism permeating even very modern areas like printed circuit board design (I'm thinking of Ralph Morrison, Henry Ott, Rick Hartley), computing, and even popular science and education (see Veritasium's videos on energy flow in circuit theory, or Chabay's Matter and Interactions). If one comes from a very particle-centric electromagnetic education, it's easy to feel like you have appreciated something deep and poorly understood as you start to consider a more field centric view. The fact that Heaviside in the 1880s already has such a comprehensive (and even applications-oriented) perspective is humbling, even if it does prove to be a conviction held a bit too strictly, owing to his difficulty accepting the role of the electron later on in his career.
Hunt does a reasonably good job tying together a coherent narrative here, with Fitzgerald, Lodge, and Heaviside constituting the core of the "Maxwellians". Though Hertz' experimental contribution is hard to overstate in its importance toward justifying much of these other men's analytic work, he turns out to be more of a side-show to the core three. Many excellent side plots and characters like Lord Kelvin (William Thomson), Larmor, and nods to Lorentz, Faraday, and others. As always for me in reading the history of science, it's gratifying to start connecting these names to actual persons, and to understand their positions in time and relative to one another.
Another interesting conceptual learning for me was the fixation on reconciling the fields with the ether. I'm loosely aware of Victorian era (a)-ether ideas, but only in passing and often as almost comical or laughed at misunderstandings in our scientific past. It's interesting to realize that these scientists were at some level concerned with something very real (generously, maybe an "accounting" of electromagnetic phenomena in media), and were generally not distracted by pseudo-scientific or metaphysical considerations. I wish there had been more to discuss these mens' reactions to Michelson and Morley's experiment, but it's clear that they all saw the aether not as a dumping ground to account for inconsistencies, but instead as a means of reconciling that the field-centric view can't account for all phenomena.
A critique of the book that I share with many other readers is its poor treatment of the actual technical content. To be frank, both the mathematical and the physical content are badly explained. Hunt makes it clear that, especially for Lodge and Fitzgerald, mechanical analogies were critical in their mental models of electromagnetism, but I found myself looking to other sources for clear explanations. Hunt's "attempts" at mathematical writing are not great.
Overall, a great read, and one I'd recommend to anyone interested in the history of science.
August 16, 2024
I found this book through a bibliography I believe, probably from Faraday, Maxwell, and the Electromagnetic Revolution by Forbes and Mahon. This book covers all the theoretical development AFTER Maxwell that resolved its inconsistencies and made it more rigorous. Forbes and Mahon had to cut the story somewhere, and this book fills in those gaps.
What a compelling story, this book had so many fascinating elements to it. It's main cast of characters are Heaviside the telegrapher, Lodge the modeler, and Fitzgerald the collaborator-- but other important characters come in too like Hertz who is credited with discovering electromagnetic waves and Larmor who came up with the theoretical basis for electrons. Also William Thomson, later Lord Kelvin, plays an important role too that I didn't expect. He keeps popping up places, I believe he features in a Veritasium video too. The two biggest takeaways for me that I really appreciate was the concept of the ether in late nineteenth century physics that is essentially lost to modern students (at least I hadn't heard of it in my science education), as well as the importance of physical models. Mahon and Forbes do touch on this a bit in their book when they explain Maxwell's vortex model, including a really great aside on Maxwell's essay "Analogies in Nature." But these really were expanded by Fitzgerald and Lodge to a much larger extent. I want to go back and read these, and hope they help me understand some of these field concepts a bit more.
That was one of the main critiques I had of the book. There were a LOT of physics concepts here that were not very accessible to an amateur in physics. I had to take an electricity and magnetism course for scientists and engineers in undergrad, but other than that I hadn't touched the topic ever. I just remember being bewildered the whole time in that class, I just learned the math to get an A but didn't conceptually understand what was going on. This helped, but there were pages and pages where I didn't know what was going on. I got some of it-- analogies of stresses and strains-- I just wish there was a bit more help on that front.
I'm also reading at the same time Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions," and this PERFECTLY encapsulates a paradigm shift. "Maxwell was only 1/2 a Maxwellian", aligns perfectly with Kuhns reiteration "In order for a science to be fully mature, it needs to forget its founders." I was reading the book through that lens the entire time.
This was a very helpful book, and I'm digging deeper into the primary sources mentioned for a project I'm working on. Really helpful book, such an exciting time in history of science. I wish more people knew about it.
What a compelling story, this book had so many fascinating elements to it. It's main cast of characters are Heaviside the telegrapher, Lodge the modeler, and Fitzgerald the collaborator-- but other important characters come in too like Hertz who is credited with discovering electromagnetic waves and Larmor who came up with the theoretical basis for electrons. Also William Thomson, later Lord Kelvin, plays an important role too that I didn't expect. He keeps popping up places, I believe he features in a Veritasium video too. The two biggest takeaways for me that I really appreciate was the concept of the ether in late nineteenth century physics that is essentially lost to modern students (at least I hadn't heard of it in my science education), as well as the importance of physical models. Mahon and Forbes do touch on this a bit in their book when they explain Maxwell's vortex model, including a really great aside on Maxwell's essay "Analogies in Nature." But these really were expanded by Fitzgerald and Lodge to a much larger extent. I want to go back and read these, and hope they help me understand some of these field concepts a bit more.
That was one of the main critiques I had of the book. There were a LOT of physics concepts here that were not very accessible to an amateur in physics. I had to take an electricity and magnetism course for scientists and engineers in undergrad, but other than that I hadn't touched the topic ever. I just remember being bewildered the whole time in that class, I just learned the math to get an A but didn't conceptually understand what was going on. This helped, but there were pages and pages where I didn't know what was going on. I got some of it-- analogies of stresses and strains-- I just wish there was a bit more help on that front.
I'm also reading at the same time Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions," and this PERFECTLY encapsulates a paradigm shift. "Maxwell was only 1/2 a Maxwellian", aligns perfectly with Kuhns reiteration "In order for a science to be fully mature, it needs to forget its founders." I was reading the book through that lens the entire time.
This was a very helpful book, and I'm digging deeper into the primary sources mentioned for a project I'm working on. Really helpful book, such an exciting time in history of science. I wish more people knew about it.
May 18, 2018
It was interesting. A little (read very) dry in several parts. This is my area of study and there were quiet a few things in the book that were not very clear.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews