The Phenomenology Approach Turn of Maxwell's Electromagnetism
The fundamental purpose of Maxwell's electromagnetism research is to integrate the previously discovered laws of electricity,magnetism and electro-magnetic induction into a unified representation.According to previous studies,Maxwell in his early years worked within the framework of mechanistic physics,and later he gave up the mechanical approach and turned to the style of presentation of analytical mathematics.Reexamining Maxwell's electromagnetics research process,it can be find out that:(1)Maxwell indeed started his electromagnetics research along the Kelvin path,which means that mathematical presentation must be set up on the basis of the building of a physical model of electromagnetic induction,however,in order to realize his electromagnetics synthesis,he finally com-pleted the related mathematical representation by introducing the quaternion method into field electromagnetics;(2)Maxwell neither abandoned mechanism philo-sophically,nor turn to action at a distance,and he finally took no longer care of mechanical models and turn to the phenomenological representation approach,be-cause it would help him avoid the difficulties of field electromagnetism since W.Thomson in constructing analogies or models of electromagnetic aether;(3)The result is that,Maxwell's phenomenological research and characterization approach would eventually replace Kelvin's approach.
MaxwellelectromagnetismKelvin Approachphenomenology approachcalculus of quaternions
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