Research Seminar December 11th: Giora Hon - James Clerk Maxwell's Methodological Odyssey in Electromagnetism: A Philosophical Perspective
Research Seminar December 11th: Giora Hon - James Clerk Maxwell's Methodological Odyssey in Electromagnetism: A Philosophical Perspective
06 December 2017
Einstein (1931): “The greatest alteration in the axiomatic basis of physics—in our conception of the structure of reality—since the foundation of theoretical physics by Newton, originated in the researches of Faraday and Maxwell on electromagnetic phenomena....". We ask, then, what was Maxwell’s key to this fundamental change in the conception of Physical Reality? By following closely the trajectory of Maxwell’s several contributions to electromagnetism, which we characterize as an odyssey, we uncover one fundamental aspect of this success—innovative methodologies.