[capn_duck]

I'd strongly recommend it! I think it's worth the price of admission for the first few chapters alone, although I admit that at a certain point, I was struggling to keep up with all of the mathematical arguments as I am not a trained physicist. But I was able to keep up by hand through all of the thermodynamic, electromagnetic, and statistical mechanical arguments of the black box portion.

But the first few chapters are so conversational and grounded in historical context that it's a real joy to read, even if you're not following along on pen and paper through all of the steps. If you know of any other "must reads" of the 20th century like this, please let me know! I love to hear the arguments presented as they were actually discussed at the time, not just what was settled on as the end result a century later.

[hilbert42]

Later....

I already have a downloaded version and I like very much what I see. Soon I'll have a hardcopy. Still not sure how I missed this given its prominent position amongst texts on the subject.

Anyway, glancing through the book pretty much at random I've seen many phrases that tickle my fancy and pique my interest. For instance, take the 2nd para on p151 wherein he's discussing Newton's Laws of Motion and force, it's pretty hard to stop reading a paragraph that begins "It is a curiously ironical development of history that,....". Further down the same page when discussing gravity he makes a very straightforward statement but with a twist:

"Thus, the laws of gravitation can be expressed as follows: Two bodies suffer a mutual acceleration, in the direction of the line adjoining them, which is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them."

Here, 'suffer' conjures up the notion of imposition - of gravity imposing an acceleration on bodies which otherwise wouldn't be the 'natural' order of things. Had he used words like 'experience' or 'influence' it wouldn't have been nearly as effective writing. From the little I've read so far I note the way he writes forces me to think laterally, in effect he's forcing me to perceive things from a different perspective.

In fact, I'm already half way through Chapter 8, An Attempt to Build a Physical Picture of the Quantum Nature of Matter, as it's a breeze to read it's so well written - it's not only informative but also entertaining which is a rare quality for a physics textbook.

Mind you, that's an easy chapter as there's not an integral sign to be seen anywhere. ...But I note they're not forgotten, they reappear in great abundance in Chapter 9! :-)

It's excellent stuff, thanks again for the info.

[wrycoder]

You might like the book, "The Maxwellians".

At a more advanced level, there is Joseph Larmor's 1900 book, "Ether and Matter"[0]. Between the Preface and the first four chapters, you get about 60 pages of discussion of the state of electrodynamics and ether theory, as they were at the end of the 19th century, without any math more than some trig near the end.

[0] https://archive.org/details/aethermatterdeve00larmuoft

[hilbert42]

Thanks, I'll check The Maxwellians out.

Oh no, not luminiferous aether again! I've not seen Larmor's book before but I've just downloaded it from the link and look forward to reading it.

It's somewhat an inspired guess that you thought I'd be interested that topic, the fact is I have been so for quite some years. I've even pontificated on the subject on HN from time to time.

Whilst the original luminiferous aether concept has been debunked, it seems to me that things get interesting at a deeper level. We still don't know why c has the value it has, similarly, why the electric and magnetic constants - vacuum permittivity and permeability - along with the fine structure constant alpha are as they are. If any of those constants were to change so would all the others.

Dare I even mention it, any new conceptual 'Lorentzian'-like framework for a 'new aether' that also incorporates those constants is a far too big a subject to discuss here. What can be said however is that it's logical progression from what Larmor's book is about.

[hilbert42]

Ah, damn, that's enough, I'm ordering a copy of it now.

Thanks!

Edit: I've always considered this historical context most important and we do not stress it enough in teaching physics (same in math and chemistry or in just about every subject that has developed and progressed over the years - 19th C. scholars translating ancient Greek texts for instance).

As far as far as is possible, we need to get inside the heads of these people and try to picture the obstacles and difficulties they were facing at the time. Moreover, it's my experience that if I try to understand where they are coming from then I find that I get a much deeper appreciation (and better understanding) of the subject. Similarly, old scientific and engineering textbooks of the era are very useful in further illuminating this historical thinking; for example, 19th C. postulations about how the sun got its energy before we knew anything about nuclear fusion.

That said, it seems we largely ignore this historical context because it is hard to do well and that most courses are already short of time. Still, if any subject needs it, it's QM and I've said so here on HN and elsewhere on many occasions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31980008. Big warning, here I'm in long-rave mode!

Re: other good reads on the subject, at short notice I'm at a bit of a loss. Your best bet are textbooks on HPS - History and Philosophy of Science (which was one of my subjects decades ago). The trouble is comments on this topic soon time out, so in future when I think of them I won't he able to update you. (Much of my knowledge comes from snippets in individual texts, unfortunately, it's not all collected into one volume.)