Customer Reviews

Maxwell on the Electromagnetic Field: A Guided Study (Masterworks of Discovery)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I think, for a certain type of reader, this book is a great find...I'm in that limited audience, and am very glad to have discovered it.

As the other reviews suggest, this is NOT the place to start your study of E & M. There are two objectives the book DOES help to meet. First, if you already know a bit about Maxwell's Equations and you want to learn something of the ways in which Maxwell (and indirectly, Faraday) thought about the subject as they developed their ideas, this is a very good book. Secondly, for those, like me, with a poor "intuition" about E & M, I think the book will sharpen our vision in a way that contemporary texts may not. The book makes clear that Faraday and Maxwell certainly stumbled along the way, and got some wrong notions in their heads as they worked hard towards the truth. If you learn just from modern textbooks, you may get the false impression that the greats were infallible, and that you are somehow "foolish" if you either (a) just don't "see" it, or (b) waste your time trying to "see" it when "after all it's all about the mathematics anyway." Just watching Maxwell struggle to visualize what is going on gives me more courage in my efforts to visualize what is going on.

I'm a civil engineer who has never had to use E & M seriously, but since college 30 years ago, I've wanted to gain some intutitive feel for what is happening in Maxwell's Equations. It was exciting for me to read the introductory material giving the context of Faraday and Maxwell struggling for the same "insight" into how things work, especially in the face of a very powerful intellectual movement that said "it's all in the mathematics; don't waste your time trying to visualize it."

As one of the other reviews points out, the historical background is very helpful. If it is true that this book is perhaps NOT the place to start your study of Electricity and Magnetism, I agree strongly with one of the other reviewers that going straignt to Maxwell WITHOUT this guide will be even more fraught, as words and definitions have naturally evolved in 150 years. Armed with more of the context from this book, I may end up engaging with Maxwell more directly.

I disagree that the first paper is a "waste of time", although I'm no scholar of the literature of the era. My own background is more in fluid mechanics and hydraulics, and I was astonished that the first paper lays out very clearly the mechanics and geometry of potential theory (relevant to ideal inviscid flow and groundwater flow, as well as heat and electrostratics) in the form of a "letter to Faraday", i.e. a paper working to avoid all the mystification of mathematical symbols by using plain English to the extent that he could to lay out the ground rules, methods, and consequences of potential theory. Modern textbooks don't do this job much better, and Maxwell takes the time to make the imagery as physical as possible. Not only is this paper inherently interesting to me because of its subject (it could be called "visualizing the geometry of potential theory"), but also because it shows how Maxwell, following Faraday's vision, worked to shift thinking from "action at a distance" to "field theories" and the phenomena of "transmission" (or "induction").

The book does have some organizational problems, as you read related arguments 3 times (the article itself, the annotation, and then the discussion pieces.) I share, with the other readers, frustrations about the omissions from the original papers. Finally, the premise, (that you can use this in a Great Books program to convey the miracle of Maxwell's and Faraday's insight to the non-scientist) is also dubious. If I wanted to explain the amazing power of Maxwell's discoveries to a non-scientist, I would not start with this book.

BUT I have been curious about Maxwell's equations for over thirty years, and this book is scratching a long-standing itch as many others have not. I am grateful to the editors/authors for their efforts, and I believe some others will find it as valuable as I have.

I bought this book to understand electromagnetic theory from ground up - to follow the inventor's thought pattern instead of pushing equations from textbook in to my memory. But I guess this book isn't enough. The good things about this book is that it gives really good historical account of electromagnetism experiments which is essential before peeping in to Maxwell's work. But major part of this book gets wasted in Maxwell's first two papers which are really not important or necessary at all. It's purely waste of time for uninformed readers to read these obscure papers that really doesn't derive anything important. The whole electrodynamics, Maxwell's famous equations and derivation of speed of light - all that stuff comes in his 3rd paper. Maxwell had originally derived 20 equations (8 if you use Vector form) instead of popular 4 textbook versions. This whole derivation part - the single reason why I picked up this book - is missing altogether. Author just gives final form of derivation like any other text book would do. The pain is that you would have spent weeks to get at this part trying to figure out content of those two first papers and finally left learning nothing new. I also get the constant feel that book is more geared towards historians of Maxwell instead of a person who wants to know his work. Anyway good part of this book is that it provides original text of paper + interpretation notes + discussion notes. The bad part is that original text is often omitted at number of places, interpretive notes of missing for many of the confusing parts of first two papers and the whole part of Maxwell's original derivation is missing in discussion notes. Because the heart (derivation of equations) is missing, you would need to by Vol 2 (not Vol 1) of "A Treatise on electricity and magnetism" ALONG with this book and remember to skip those two first papers. The reason I wrote "along with" is because you will still need this book to read about the original electromagnetic experiments and a modern point of view.

If you read the intro or preface, you will quickly realize that this book ISN'T for students trying to find a "dumb" person's advanced guide to E&M. This book is for those of us who are occasionally amazed at how we got this far in science, E&M especially. This takes you back to a time of pure science. When people asked how AND why.
This book was well-written and a wonderful read. I highly recommend it.

The history of electromagnetic waves has a very limited audience, but was perfect for my needs. I came away even more impressed with Maxwell, the preeminent founder of electromagnetic theory than before. His work stands uncorrected in 140 years, while even Einstein misinterpreted the facts and quantum mechanics has gone off the deep end into mysticism.

The book is complete disaster. If you want to find out how did James C. Maxwell came up with his 20 equations that describe behaviour of electromagnetic field - do NOT buy this book, but instead try to find an "untempered" version of Maxwell's original work. (for example, "The dynamical theory..." editor T.F Torrance - I was forced to do that myself)
The major problem with the book is that the author had a weired notion, that he could explain Maxwell better than Maxwell himself. Instead of giving the original version of Maxwell's text first and add his own comments after that, Mr. Simpson decided to re-shaffle Maxwell's work at his own will and insert his unwanted comments right in the middle of Maxwell's original lines without even distinct marking. What had he accomplished by that ? Made his own book unreadable - complete mess.
In short - Do NOT waste a penny on this useless book...
Even a one star rating for this book is too much...