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]

[Physltest] [Phys-L] reality of fields



I would like to ask Jim Green, especially, and others if they wish, to
respond to the list about this question in Serway (6e, p 1024):

``Joseph Henry, America's first
professional physicist, caused the most recent basic change in the
human view of the Universe when he discovered self-induction during a
school vacation at the Albany Academy about 1830. Before that time,
one could think of the Universe as composed of just one thing: matter.
The energy that temporarily maintains the current after a battery is
removed from a coil, on the other hand, is not energy that belongs to
any chunk of matter. It is energy in the massless magnetic field
surrounding the coil. With Henry's discovery, Nature forced us to
admit that the Universe consists of fields as well as matter.'' Argue
for or against the statement. What in your view comprises the
Universe?
_______________________________________________
Phys-L mailing list
Phys-L@electron.physics.buffalo.edu
https://www.physics.buffalo.edu/mailman/listinfo/phys-l