TWO MILESTONE PAPERS ON THE THEORY OF ELECTROMAGNETISM

LORENZ, (LUDVIG VALENTIN) AND RIEMANN, B. (BERNHARD).

Ueber die Identität der Schwingungen des Lichts mit den elektrischen Strömen. (And Riemann:) Ein Beitrag zur Elektrodynamik. (2 Papers).

Leipzig, Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1867. Contemp. hcalf, raised bands, gilt spinewith gilt lettering. A few scratches to binding. In "Annalen der Physik und Chemie. Hrsg.von Poggendorff", Bd. 131. (Entire volume offered). (2),X,660 pp. and 5 engraved plates. Small stamps to verso of titlepage and to verso of plates. Clean and fine.

First German edition (which originally appeared the same year in Danish in "Oversigt over det Kongelige Danske Viidenskabernes Selskabs Forhandlinger") of Lorenz' paper, which contains his important studies on the electromagnetic theory of light in which he - less than two years after, but independently of, Maxwell - found that LIGHT MIGHT BE INTERPRETED AS ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES, and that his equations lead to the CORRECT VALUE FOR THE VELOCITY OF LIGHT.
AND:
First appearance of RIEMANN'S important paper (issued posthumously) in which he introduces the concept of "RETARDED POTENTIALS". Riemann suggests that Poisson's equation be modified by introducing terms which, though too small to be appreciable in ordinary experiments, would be capable of accounting for the propagation of electrical effects through space with a finite velocity c. This, so far as it goes, is in agreement with the view now accepted as correct.

"The procedure which Lorenz followed was that of which Riemann had suggested in 1858 (the present paper by Riemann, which was published for the first time in 1867), namely, to modify the accepted formula of electrodynamics by introducing terms which, though too small to be appreciable in ordinary laboratory experiments, would be capable of accounting for the propagation of electrical effects through space with a finite velocity...The (Lorenz-) equations are, however, the fundamental equations of Maxwell's theory; and therefore the theory of L. Lorenz is practically equivalent to that of Maxwell, so far as concerns the propagation of electromagnetic disturbances through free aether.....he suggested that ALL LUMINOUS VIBRATIONS MIGHT BE CONSTITUTED BY ELECTRIC CURRENTS, and hence that there was 'no longer any reason for maintaining the hypothesis of an aether, since we can admit that space contains sufficient ponderable matter to enable the disturbance to be propagated" (Edmund Whittaker in "A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity I", p. 267-70).

"Maxwell seems to have considered the great paper of L. Lorenz on retarded potentials (published simultaneously in 1867 with a paper written in 1858 by B. Riemann on the same theme) as insufficiently supportive of his vision of a dynamical theory of the
electromagnetic field, whereas the present attitude is that Riemann and Lorenz made important contributions to the Maxwellian view." (Kirk T. McDonald in "Maxwell's Objection to Lorenz' Retarded Potentials").

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