Faraday, Maxwell, and the Electromagnetic Field

January 6, 2014
Science writers Forbes (Imitation of Life) and Mahon (The Man Who Changed Everything) explore the lives of ground-breaking physicists Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell in this work that blends science history and lively biography. The authors describe how Faraday, a blacksmith’s son, abandoned a promising career as a bookbinder in 1813 to study the young science of electricity. Faraday’s attention to detail and skill as a “compulsive experimenter” led to the first electric motor, the first generator, and the idea that electricity and magnetism travel as waves, like sound and light. His work supported the concept of fields, but his lack of mathematical ability meant few took him seriously. Then Maxwell, a young professor from Marischal College in Aberdeen, Scotland, developed the math to back up Faraday’s ideas. A prodigy with a “quicksilver mind” prone to expressing his feelings through verse, Maxwell was fascinated with Faraday’s fields. Through Maxwell, these fields became a means of storing electromagnetic energy and transmitting forces to cause magnetic attraction and repulsion. Accessible writing and a feel for character make this an interesting look at two scientists whose work defined an era and set the course for modern physics.

Starred review from January 15, 2014
Forbes (Imitation of Life: How Biology Is Inspiring Computing, 2004, etc.) and Mahon (Oliver Heaviside: Maverick Mastermind of Electricity, 2009, etc.) offer a compelling new interpretation of the seminal importance of the discoveries of Michael Faraday (1791-1861) and James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879). The authors explain "the way that Faraday and Maxwell's concept of the electromagnetic field transformed scientists' view of the physical world," beginning with Faraday's anticipation of a unified field theory that would include the force of gravity as well as electromagnetism and the propagation of light. His ideas were so advanced that not only did he reject the Newtonian concept of action-at-distance, then prevalent among scientists, but also the existence of an ether. "From today's perspective...Faraday, the bold theorist, was making an advance announcement of a scientific transformation that has given us not only electromagnetic theory but special relativity," write the authors. Faraday is credited as the brilliant experimentalist who "discovered the principle of the electric motor," while Maxwell, with his groundbreaking Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, laid the groundwork for modern field theory. Forbes and Mahon show that Maxwell adhered to Faraday's hypothesis that the propagation of electricity and magnetism in space occurred through the vibration of lines of force. He developed his famous equations by first adapting the mathematical treatment of fluid flow and a mechanical model of spinning cells with minute ball bearings as heuristic models. Only then did he dispense with these models and directly employ the "mathematical laws of dynamics" to electromagnetism, thus laying the basis for modern field theory. The authors emphasize that, for Maxwell, his use of models "didn't purport to represent nature's actual mechanism, it was merely a temporary aid to thought." A lively account of the men and their times and a brilliant exposition of the scientific circumstances and significance of their work.

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February 15, 2014

American science writer Forbes (U.S. Dept. of Defense; Imitation of Life: How Biology Is Inspiring Computing) has coauthored with Mahon (retired, British Govt. Statistical Svc.; The Man Who Changed Everything: The Life of James Clerk Maxwell) an excellent biography of two "discoverers" (in the parlance of their time) who truly brought about the modern scientific age. Daringly, but with exacting experiments and proofs, Faraday (a scientifically adept Englishman) and his contemporary and successor Maxwell (a mathematically adept Scotsman) broke with the long tradition of the mostly mechanical worldview promulgated by Isaac Newton and uncovered much about how electricity and magnetism work. This book is rich in details about the social, scientific, and personal contexts in which these 19th-century geniuses worked, much as Daniel Kevles's The Physicists is about their 20th-century successors and is even more readable than that well-regarded work. The simple diagrams of some of Faraday's and Maxwell's devices, as well as excerpts from their letters, plus some photographic portraits, add further appeal to the title. VERDICT Fans of biographies, as well as anyone interested in science and technology (without these men, we would not have electric motors, televisions, or most of our current electronic devices) will enjoy reading about these "two modest and genial men whose combined endeavors changed the world."--Sara R. Tompson, Jet Propulsion Lab Lib., Pasadena, CA

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