Questions tagged [maxwell]
James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) was a Scottish mathematical physicist whose most notable achievement was to formulate the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, bringing together for the first time electricity, magnetism, and light as different manifestations of the same phenomenon.
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How was the induced emf determined to be "equal" to the rate of change of flux?
Who determined, and how, the fact that the emf is exactly equal to the rate of change of flux, instead of only proportional?
At first this seems like a question of units, defining the magnetic flux in ...
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Who introduced Maxwell's stress tensor?
The question might be obvious, but James Clerk Maxwell did not even use vectors for his equations. Oliver Heaviside was the one that wrote them in vector form. In a paper of from 1889 "On the ...
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"Équation de Maxwell-Thomson"
In French, Gauss' law for magnetism (no magnetic monopoles) is, sometimes at least, referred to as Équation de Maxwell-Thomson. What is the historical justification of this?
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Why did Maxwell predict radiation pressure?
I know that Kepler thought based on comet tail that light might exert pressure (although is the Solar wind not also involved?) but did Maxwell's prediction stem from newer observations or from perhaps ...
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A question concerning the history of Maxwell's equations
So I am writing my thesis around the Maxwell equations, in one part I saw to speak about their history. The issue is, I found conflicting pieces of information as to who enunciated the laws first.
Let'...
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Component form of the fourth Maxwell's equation
I am doing an introduction to Maxwell's equations, and it is said that originally the equations were in component form. Can anyone help with the derivation of the fourth equation? I have checked many ...
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Did Maxwell discuss charge quantization?
I once read in Wikipedia that James Clerk Maxwell included the possibility that charge could be both quantified and continuous. Since the electron hadn't been discovered in 1873, does Maxwell discuss ...
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Was Nikola Tesla aware of Maxwell's equations?
Was Nikola Tesla aware of Maxwell's equations or Heinrich Hertz's experimental proof of the former when he worked on his radio device invention?
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How has the modelling of classical electrodynamics changed since Maxwell?
Maxwell published his Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism in 1873, 150 years ago; before the discovery of quantized charges, special relativity, quantum field theory etc. How has the mathematical ...
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What did Maxwell mean by different types of people to whom science should be presented in different forms?
In my copy of Physics for Scientists and Engineers with Modern Physics (Volume 2) by Raymond Serway there is a quote given by James Clerk Maxwell at the start of Part IV.
For the sake of persons of [....
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Validity of Maxwell's equations in the aether's reference frame
If Maxwell's equations were experimentally found on Earth such as Faradays law, coulombs law , and worked in the Earth's frame of reference, then why did people believe them to be valid in the aether'...
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Was the sun assumed to be at rest aether frame?
Back in the past, was the sun assumed to be at rest in the luminous aether frame?
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Maxwell equations and aether
Were Maxwells equations (in their usual common form) assumed to be valid only in ether frame,in the past? If someone would ask them "In what frame are you writing these equations " ,what ...
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Did James Clerk Maxwell derive the permittivity of free space from his "Maxwell's" equations or was the parameter already known by him?
My problem is my lack of knowledge on the historical development of the constant used for the permittivity of free space. I know instead of asking the question I should read Wiki on the history of "...
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What is the idea behind Maxwell's "displacement current" in electromagnetism?
I'd like to get an explanation why Maxwell chose the name "displacement current" for the term $\mu_0\epsilon_0\frac{\partial E}{\partial t}$ he added to Ampere's law (Maxwell's correction). I'm ...
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Who discovered Maxwell-Faraday equation, $\nabla\times E=-\frac{\partial B}{\partial t}$? Was it Maxwell or Neumann?
I have been trying to find out who discovered Maxwell-Faraday equation, $\nabla\times E=-\frac{\partial B}{\partial t}$. Was it Maxwell himself, or was it Franz Ernst Neumann who derived it?
The ...
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How did Maxwell fall short of Einstein?
This source (I believe it's in Ukrainian) claims that Maxwell came very close to creating the relativity theory, however, it was the fact that he was adhering to the traditional scientific frame of ...
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Did Maxwell originally write his equations using quaternions?
I read somewhere, some time ago that Maxwell originally wrote his eponymous equations using the formalism of quaternions and it was only the later intervention of Gibbs and Heaviside that put them ...
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Did Maxwell discover the distribution of velocities in a gas during an exam set by Stokes?
In some lecture notes I found online it was claimed that Maxwell discovered the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution while in the course of solving a (then unsolved) examination problem given by Stokes. The ...
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Is it thought that Maxwell used Green's Theorem to derive his equations?
I noticed there are two varieties of Maxwell's equations and although I am not sure which form Maxwell originally worked with and perhaps the differential form came much latter, I was wondering if he ...
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Why is Maxwell and not Ampère credited for unifying electricity and magnetism?
Ampère, a half century before Maxwell, theorized that magnetism was caused by electrical currents. So, why is Maxwell and not Ampère credited for unifying electricity and magnetism?
(cf. the question ...
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Did Maxwell invent the Maxwell's wheel?
Tried to find it online, but nothing. Everyone refers to it and that it's named after the famous James Clerk Maxwell (of the Maxwell electromagnetic laws and some other things), but there is no direct ...
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How did Maxwell conclude that $\frac{\partial\bf E}{\partial t}$ was necessary to complete $c^2\nabla \times \bf B= \frac{\bf J}{\epsilon_0}\;?$
As we know $$c^2\text{curl}\;\bf B= \frac{\bf J}{\epsilon_0}$$ is incomplete & in many cases like capacitor give contradictory result against Law of conservation of charge.
As Feynman writes;
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How did Maxwell conclude that light is an electromagnetic wave?
This is a copy of a question I just asked at Physics Stack Exchange. From reading the text on the related questions, it seems that Maxwell equated light with the carrier of electromagnetic force just ...
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Why do Maxwell's equations bear his name?
Maxwell's equations in their modern differential form are:
$\nabla \cdot \mathbf{E} = \dfrac {\rho} {\varepsilon_0}$ (Gauss's law for electricity)
$\nabla \cdot \mathbf{B} = 0$ (Gauss's law for ...
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