Overview
- Authors:
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Parry Moon
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA
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Domina Eberle Spencer
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University of Connecticut, Storrs, USA
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Table of contents (7 chapters)
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- Parry Moon, Domina Eberle Spencer
Pages 1-48
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- Parry Moon, Domina Eberle Spencer
Pages 49-76
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- Parry Moon, Domina Eberle Spencer
Pages 77-95
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- Parry Moon, Domina Eberle Spencer
Pages 96-135
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- Parry Moon, Domina Eberle Spencer
Pages 136-143
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- Parry Moon, Domina Eberle Spencer
Pages 144-162
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- Parry Moon, Domina Eberle Spencer
Pages 163-216
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Back Matter
Pages 217-236
About this book
Let us first state exactly what this book is and what it is not. It is a compendium of equations for the physicist and the engineer working with electrostatics, magne tostatics, electric currents, electromagnetic fields, heat flow, gravitation, diffusion, optics, or acoustics. It tabulates the properties of 40 coordinate systems, states the Laplace and Helmholtz equations in each coordinate system, and gives the separation equations and their solutions. But it is not a textbook and it does not cover relativistic and quantum phenomena. The history of classical physics may be regarded as an interplay between two ideas, the concept of action-at-a-distance and the concept of a field. Newton's equation of universal gravitation, for instance, implies action-at-a-distance. The same form of equation was employed by COULOMB to express the force between charged particles. AMPERE and GAUSS extended this idea to the phenomenological action between currents. In 1867, LUDVIG LORENZ formulated electrodynamics as retarded action-at-a-distance. At almost the same time, MAXWELL presented the alternative formulation in terms of fields. In most cases, the field approach has shown itself to be the more powerful.
Authors and Affiliations
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA
Parry Moon
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University of Connecticut, Storrs, USA
Domina Eberle Spencer