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by wrycoder
1398 days ago
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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 |
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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.