Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: Influence machine



I understand that Maxwell's Electromagnetic ether metaphor was a matrix of
coupled springs (vortices) of great stiffness.
He was said to have dismantled the scafolding of his model before
publishing the equations. He knew no vector algebra - so the equations
amounted ( if I recall) to seven, collected from the experimental work of
the electrical pioneers.

Seven is a most unlikely number, but I can't say more. One of
the more remarkable stories I heard at Cambridge it the tale
of how Maxwell learned Stokes' theorem, so important to his
subsequent prediction of electromagnetic waves. Maxwell was a
student in Stokes' mathematics course at Cambridge. Stokes'
theorem was first introduced as a proof required of students
on an examination in that class!

From Franklin & MacNutt op. cit:

"137. Maxwell's mechanical model of the ether. - The ether
is to be considered as built up of very small cells of two
kinds, positive and negative, in such a way that only unlike
cells are in contact. These cells are imagined to be gear
wheels provided with rubber-like teeth, shown in Fig. 172,
so that if a cell be turned while the adjacent cells are
kept stationary, then a torque due to the elastic distortion
of the gear teeth is brought to bear upon the turned cell.
In subsequent figures, these cells or cog-wheels are
represented by plain circles for the sake of simplicity."

The prevailing pedagogy had space filled with three sets of
interpenetrating, yielding (rubbery), hobbed cylinders
oriented parallel to x, y and z axes. Of course no one took
the corporeal existence of these gears seriously; they were
merely a "conceptual convenience". Sort of like virtual
particles and Feynman graphs.

Not!

Leigh