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MAXWELL, James Clerk (1831-1879). 'A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field.' From: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Vol. 155, part I (1865), pp.459-512. London: Taylor and Francis, 1865.
First edition of the fourth of Maxwell's five important papers on the foundations of electromagnetic theory published between 1855 and 1868. ‘By 1863 ... Maxwell had found a link of a purely phenomenological kind between electromagnetic quantities and the velocity of light. His fourth paper [...] clinched matters. It provided a new theoretical framework for the subject, based on experiment and a few general principles, from which the propagation of electromagnetic waves through space followed without any special assumptions about molecular vortices or the forces between electric particles’ (DSB). ‘Clerk Maxwell […] may well be judged the greatest theoretical physicist of the nineteenth century […] A generation later Einstein’s work on relativity was founded directly upon Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory’ (PMM 355). Norman 1465; PMM 355.
Quarto (303 x 231 mm). (Light adhesion in gutter of first leaf from upper cover, some short marginal tears). Later grey wrappers (some short tears at edges); modern cloth folding case, morocco label gilt. Provenance: early pencil inscription erased.
First edition of the fourth of Maxwell's five important papers on the foundations of electromagnetic theory published between 1855 and 1868. ‘By 1863 ... Maxwell had found a link of a purely phenomenological kind between electromagnetic quantities and the velocity of light. His fourth paper [...] clinched matters. It provided a new theoretical framework for the subject, based on experiment and a few general principles, from which the propagation of electromagnetic waves through space followed without any special assumptions about molecular vortices or the forces between electric particles’ (DSB). ‘Clerk Maxwell […] may well be judged the greatest theoretical physicist of the nineteenth century […] A generation later Einstein’s work on relativity was founded directly upon Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory’ (PMM 355). Norman 1465; PMM 355.
Quarto (303 x 231 mm). (Light adhesion in gutter of first leaf from upper cover, some short marginal tears). Later grey wrappers (some short tears at edges); modern cloth folding case, morocco label gilt. Provenance: early pencil inscription erased.
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Please note that this is extracted from the journal issue of the Philosophical Transactions and bound in later grey wrappers, with one leaf loose.
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