 MAXWELL,
JAMES CLERK.
On Physical Lines of Force, Parts 1 and 2
“With a century and a half of hindsight we can see the spinning cell
model as a crucial bridge between old and new ideas—built from old
materials but paving the way for a completely new type of theory, one
which admits that we may never understand the detailed workings of
nature… Scientific historians now look upon his spinning cells paper as
one of the most remarkable ever written…” –Basil Mahon
FIRST EDITION of Maxwell’s celebrated mechanical model of the
electromagnetic field, a significant step in the development of his
equations describing electricity and magnetism.
“As early as 1857 Maxwell began to develop the idea of orienting
molecular vortices along magnetic field lines, culminating in the
publication of his paper ‘On physical lines of force’… He posited a
honeycomb of vortices in which each vortex cell was separated from its
neighbour by a layer of spherical particles, revolving in the opposite
direction to the vortices. These ‘idle wheel’ particles communicated the
rotatory velocity of the vortices from one part of the field to another.
In this ether model, the most famous image in nineteenth-century
physics, the analogy provides mechanical correlates for electromagnetic
quantities. The angular velocity of the vortices corresponds to the
magnetic field intensity, and the translational flow of the idle wheel
particles to the flow of an electric current; the field equations are
based on the rotation of molecular vortices in the ether. He emphasized
that while the theory was mechanically conceivable, the model itself was
provisional and temporary, even awkward, hardly ‘a mode of connexion
existing in nature’ (Niven, 1.486), an argument that has generated much
philosophical discussion about the role of models in physics” (DNB).
Maxwell “had not expected to extend his paper On Physical Lines of
Force beyond Parts 1 and 2” but in the summer of 1861 he began
extending his mechanical model to cover “electrostatics, displacement
current and waves” [Part 3] and used “his model to explain why polarized
light waves change their plane of vibration when they pass through a
strong magnetic field [Part 4]” (Basil Mahon, The Man who Changed
Everything: The Life of James Clerk Maxwell). NOTE: The present
volume contains only Parts 1 and 2, not Parts 3 and 4 which were
conceived later and published in the following year (1862).
In The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal
of Science. Vol. XXI, Fourth Series, January—June, 1861, pp. 161-75;
281-91; 338-48.
London:
Taylor and Francis, 1861. The complete volume offered. Octavo,
contemporary three-quarter navy polished calf, marbled boards,
endpapers, and edges. Institutional stamp on two preliminaries of each
volume. Bindings scuffed but text clean. $2800.
Famous plate of Maxwell's
"vortices", click to enlarge:
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