Electrodynamics from Ampi'Are to Einstein

by Olivier Darrigol

Overview

Darrigol (research director, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France) describes the historical development of physics from Ampére's development of electrodynamics in the early 1820s to Einstein's development, three quarters of a century later, of the theory of relativity. His long-term approach is offered as a corrective to other histories of the theory of relativity that ignore developments in electrodynamics that certainly impacted Einstein, such as the increasing quantification of physics and the merging of theoretical optics and electromagnetism. Annotation ©2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198505945
Publisher:	Oxford University Press, USA
Publication date:	06/28/2000
Pages:	552
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris

Table of Contents

Preface
Conventions and notations
1. Foundations
2. German precision
3. British fields
4. Maxwell
5. British Maxwellians
6. Open currents
7. Conduction in electrolytes and gases
8. The electron theories
9. Old principles and a new world-view
Appendices
Abbreviations used in bibliographies
Bibliography of primary literature
Bibliography of secondary literature
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Darrigol has managed to get beyond the controversy and the confusion, assembling an interesting, coherent, and convincing narrative. By taking the best from the various scholars that have contributed to the field, by discarding the dross with a minimum of fuss and bother, and by adding his own substantial research as well as his own synthetic vision, Darrigol has crafted a history of electromagnetic experiment and theory in the 19th century that represents the best the history-of-physics enterprise has to offer."—Daniel M. Siegel, Physics Today

"The detailed analysis and understanding of the eighty or so years of endeavor which led form 'Ampere to Einstein' has been the daunting tasks that Professor Olivier Darrigol has set himself. I must admit that I find it extremely difficult to do justice in a brief review to this monumental work of scholarship...Darrigol's monograph is a highly detailed and mathematical account of the historical development of electromagnetism..."—European Journal of Physics

"The scope of Olivier Darrigol's impressive treatise arouses both surprise and admiration...Darrigol offers a richly textured narrative, painstaking in its attention to detail and compelling in conceptual thrust, a work which will repay attention by historians and philosophers of physics...Darrigol builds massively and impressively on contemporary scholarship on the history of 19th-century physics."—Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics

From the Publisher