From Tom Bearden's recent correspondence: Dr. Bearden
Just a simple question out of curiosity, not that it will change anything. Do you think those who destroyed Maxwell's work and altered the course of history in doing so did so out of ignorance or so you believe they knew or suspected the potential and altered them with intent? /David
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David,
Maxwell's real "primary theory" was published as James Clerk Maxwell,
"A
Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field," Royal Society
Transactions,
Vol. CLV, 1865, p 459. The paper was read before the Society on Dec.
8,
1864. It is included in The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell,
2
vols. bound as one, edited by W. D. Niven, Dover, New York, 1952, Vol.
1, p.
526-597. Two errata are given on the unnumbered page prior to page 1
of Vol.
1.
In this 1865 paper Maxwell presents his seminal theory of
electromagnetism,
containing 20 equations in 20 unknowns. His general equations of the
electromagnetic field are given in Part III, General Equations of the
Electromagnetic Field, p. 554-564. On p. 561, he lists his 20
variables. On
p. 562, he summarizes the different subjects of the 20 equations,
being
three equations each for magnetic force, electric currents,
electromotive
force, electric elasticity, electric resistance, total currents; and
one
equation each for free electricity and continuity. In the paper,
Maxwell
adopts the approach of first arriving at the laws of induction and
then
deducing the mechanical attractions and repulsions.
Maxwell himself was pressured intensely to change from his "horrid"
quaternion-like mathematics theory (20 equations in 20 unknowns).
Hamilton's
quaternions were advanced and backed by a gruff, quarrelsome fellow,
Tate,
who almost no one could get along with. The math of the day was quite
simplified. Vector algebra, e.g., had not yet been born, and in fact
it got
born because of the work (by Heaviside, Gibbs, Hertz and others) to
simplify
Maxwell's work.
There were less than three dozen "electrodynamicists" in the entire
world in
the 1880s, even after Maxwell's death in 1879. The electron had not
been
discovered, and the "atom" was still just a theory. Everyone still
believed
in the material ether, and also believed that only force fields were
real
and that potentials were just mathematical conveniences having no
physical
reality.
Maxwell's own previous electromagnetic theorizing had been very
"mechanical"
and generally followed Faraday's belief in "lines of force" in space
around
conductors etc. To Maxwell, these were very material things -- in
short, the
material ether was a very firm part of his thinking, and also was a
firm
part of the thinking of Faraday and most others. See Maxwell, James
Clerk,
"On Faraday's Lines of Force," Transactions of the Cambridge
Philosophical
Society, Vol. X, Part I., p. TBD, 1855-56. Read Dec. 10, 1855 and Feb.
11,
1856. Also see Maxwell, James Clerk, "On Physical Lines of Force,"
Philosophical Magazine, Vol. XXI, Mar., Apr., and May 1861; Jan. and
Feb.
1862.
In 1868, Maxwell used an electrical derivation of his theory instead
of the
previous dynamical derivation. See Maxwell, James Clerk, "On a Method
of
Making a Direct Comparison of Electrostatic with Electromagnetic
Force; with
a Note on the Electromagnetic Theory of Light," Philosophical
Magazine, Vol.
CLVIII, 1868.
Eventually Maxwell retired to his estate, and after some years of hard
work
he produced the first edition of his famous Treatise. See Maxwell,
James
Clerk, A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, Oxford University
Press,
Oxford, 1873. This was just six years before his death.
During this time, the Maxwell theory had not really made very much
progress,
and though considered of importance, it was not considered anything
very
spectacular -- much of this being because of its "considered too
difficult"
mathematics and the residues of the "terrible quaternions". Even
Maxwell's
own publisher strongly criticized to Maxwell his use of this horrid
mathematical style which was so much opposed, as the publisher
considered
that was cause of the theory meeting with such opposition.
Taken aback, Maxwell himself set upon greatly simplifying his own
mathematics, by going back through his Treatise and re-doing it. He
had
finished doing this for about 80% of the book (the first nine chapters
or
so) when he died of stomach cancer in 1879.
After his death, a modified second edition was published in 1881.
Foreword
to the second edition was by Niven, who finished the work past where
Maxwell
had dramatically rewritten the first nine chapter. Some new matter was
added
and the former contents rearranged and simplified. The rest of the
second
edition is therefore largely a reprint from the first edition.
The third edition was published in 1891, volumes 1 and 2. This third
edition
was then edited by J. J. Thomson and a new third edition was published
in
1892, by Oxford University Press (much later this one was published
unabridged, Dover Publications, New York, 1954). J. J. Thomson
finished the
publication of the third edition, and wrote a "Supplementary Volume"
with
his notes. A summary of Maxwell's equations are given in Vol. II,
Chapter IX
of the third edition.
However, Maxwell had gone (in his work for the second edition) to some
pains
to reduce the quaternion expressions himself, so as not to require the
students to know the calculus of quaternions (so stated on p. 257). We
note
that Maxwell did not finish the second edition, but died before that.
He
actually had no hand at all in the third edition as to any changes.
The
Second edition was later finished by Niven by simply adding the
remaining
material from the previous first edition approved by Maxwell. The
printing
of the first nine chapters of the third edition was already underway
when J.
J. Thomson was assigned to finish the editing of the manuscript.
Quoting Paul Nahin, "Oliver Heaviside," Scientific American, 262(6),
June
1990, p. 124:
"Maxwell had predicted that an oscillating electric field in space
would
generate a magnetic field oscillating at the same frequency, which, in
turn,
would induce an electric field and so on. This "electromagnetic" wave
would
necessarily propagate at the speed of light, itself a species of
electromagnetic radiation."
Quote p. 124: "Maxwell died at 48 in 1879, nine years before the
German
genius Heinrich Hertz verified his prediction by detecting
electromagnetic
waves in space. Almost immediately thereafter Oliver J. Lodge (later
Sir
Oliver) - who was to be one of Heaviside's most ardent supporters -
detected
electromagnetic waves in metal wire. Only then did Maxwell's theory
become
widely accepted as the standard."
Quote p. 124: "Heaviside vastly simplified Maxwell's 20 equations in
20
variables by squeezing their essence into two equations written in two
variables (the variables described the magnetic and electric field
vectors).
Much of the theoretical work was done in parallel with Hertz, who
graciously
noted in his book on electric waves that "Mr. Heaviside has the
priority."
... "For some years the reformulated equations were called the
Hertz-Heaviside equations, and later the young Einstein referred to
them as
the Maxwell-Hertz equations. Today only Maxwell's name is mentioned."
..."Together with Josiah Williard Gibbs of Yale University, Heaviside
taught
vectors to the world's physicists."
Summarizing on p. 124: "Heaviside vastly simplified Maxwell's 20
equations
in 20 variables by squeezing their essence into two equations written
in two
variables (the variables described the magnetic and electric field
vectors)."
We also point out that Heaviside never attended university, and was
self-taught. He was brilliant, but hated quaternions and potentials.
For
potentials, he stated that they should "be murdered from the theory".
Today,
in modern quantum theory we know that it is the potentials that have
the
primary reality, and the force fields are merely constructed from them
(by
their interaction in and with charged matter).
So, as one can see, Maxwell had been dead quite a few years prior to
the
dramatic reduction of his equations and theory and the emergence of
vector
analysis. Maxwell's theory did not gain prominence until Hertz and
Lodge had
experimentally detected electromagnetic waves.
The much-reduced Heaviside-Gibbs-Hertz limited version of Maxwell's
theory,
with the added Lorentz symmetrization and arbitrary discarding of all
asymmetrical Maxwellian systems, has since been taught as "Maxwell's
theory". It is Heaviside's equations and Heaviside's notations, as
further
limited by Lorentz.
In 1892 Lorentz added the coup de grace to even this much-reduced
Heaviside
vector theory with simple equations and much fewer potentials. Lorentz
arbitrarily symmetrized the equations to make them simpler yet, so
that
closed algebraic solutions could usually be found and one would not
have to
use numerical methods so widely. He did it merely to simplify the
equations
to NEW equations having much easier solutions! That he changed the
potentials was considered of no consequence, so long as no NET
translation
force field emerged (even though two new force fields were arbitrarily
introduced).
Contrast this to the "argument" that a man standing between two
elephants
pushing against each other and against him, is no different than the
man
standing between two fleas pushing against each other and against him.
To
anyone who believes that, he can stand between the elephants and we
will
stand between the fleas -- and then we will compare notes on whether
or not
our systems are "the same". Opposing forces equal and opposite
comprise a
stress potential, and two systems with differing stress potentials are
most
certainly not "the same thing".
Indeed, the two free fields that symmetrization introduced, represent
free
"EM energy from the vacuum" introduced into the system, and then
"locked up"
in it as stress potential. It deliberately is not allowed to translate
electrons, but only to change the physical stress of the system. In
short,
it is a very convenient way to "lock up" and not use that extra EM
field
energy from the vacuum that was generated and used in the two equal
and
opposite new fields.
At the time, by his symmetrization of the Heaviside-Maxwell equations,
Lorentz had just (unknowingly and unrecognized to anyone else)
discarded all
nature's permissible asymmetrical Maxwellian systems -- the very ones
that
contained the entire class of Maxwellian systems capable of freely
receiving
energy from the vacuum, creating a NET translation force field in its
charged matter system, and using it to push current through loads and
power
them freely....
Read the rest of it here: http://www.cheniere.org/correspondence/030706.htm