A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism - Volume 1

Arguably the most influential nineteenth-century scientist for twentieth-century physics James Clerk Maxwell (18311879) demonstrated that electricity magnetism and light are all manifestations of the same phenomenon: the electromagnetic field. A fellow of Trinity College Cambridge Maxwell became in 1871 the first Cavendish Professor of Physics at Cambridge. His famous equations - a set of four partial differential equations that relate the electric and magnetic fields to their sources charge density and current density - first appeared in fully developed form in his 1873 Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism. This two-volume textbook brought together all the experimental and theoretical advances in the field of electricity and magnetism known at the time and provided a methodical and graduated introduction to electromagnetism. Volume 1 covers the first elements of Maxwell''s electromagnetic theory: electrostatics and electrokinematics including detailed analyses of electrolysis conduction in three dimensions and conduction through heterogeneous media.