“Ohm found that the results could be summed up in such a simple law that he who runs may read it, and a schoolboy now can predict what a Faraday then could only guess at roughly. By Ohm's discovery a large part of the domain of electricity became annexed by Coulomb's discovery of the law of inverse squares, and completely annexed by Green's investigations. Poisson attacked the difficult problem of induced magnetisation, and his results, though differently expressed, are still the theory, as a most important first approximation. Ampere brought a multitude of phenomena into theory by his investigations of the mechanical forces between conductors supporting currents and magnets. Then there were the remarkable researches of Faraday, the prince of experimentalists, on electrostatics and electrodynamics and the induction of currents. These were rather long in being brought from the crude experimental state to a compact system, expressing the real essence. Unfortunately, in my opinion, Faraday was not a mathematician. It can scarcely be doubted that had he been one, he would have anticipated much later work. He would, for instance, knowing Ampere's theory, by his own results have readily been led to Neumann's theory, and the connected work of Helmholtz and Thomson. But it is perhaps too much to expect a man to be both the prince of experimentalists and a competent mathematician.” MathematicsGreenMathMathematicianElectricityMagnetismFaradayMichael FaradayPoissonAmpereAndré Marie AmpèreCoulombHelmholtzJ J ThomsonNeumannOhmSiméon Denis PoissonCharles Augustin De CoulombFranz Ernst NeumannGeorg OhmGeorge GreenHermann Von HelmholtzThomson Book:Electromagnetic Theory Source: Electromagnetic Theory
“It is shocking that young people should be addling their brains over mere logical subtleties in Euclid's Elements, trying to understand the proof of one obvious fact in terms of something equally .. obvious.” PeopleShouldTryingFactsYoungScienceTermBrainElementsMathematicsMereObviousProofLogicalShockingSubtletyEuclid Author:Oliver Heaviside
“Now, in the development of our knowledge of the workings of Nature out of the tremendously complex assemblage of phenomena presented to the scientific inquirer, mathematics plays in some respects a very limited, in others a very important part. As regards the limitations, it is merely necessary to refer to the sciences connected with living matter, and to the ologies generally, to see that the facts and their connections are too indistinctly known to render mathematical analysis practicable, to say nothing of the complexity.” ImportantMatterPlayFactsScienceNatureKnownKnowledgeDevelopmentConnectionsRegardMathematicsComplexesConnectedMathematicalLimitationAnalysisComplexityAssemblageInquirersMathematical Analysis Author:Oliver Heaviside
“Mathematics is an experimental science, and definitions do not come first, but later on.” FirstsScienceAccountsMathematicsDefinitionsExperimental Science Author:Oliver Heaviside
“The best result of mathematics is to be able to do without it.” AbleResultsMathematics Book:Electromagnetic Theory Source: Electromagnetic Theory
“Mathematics is of two kinds, Rigorous and Physical. The former is Narrow: the latter Bold and Broad. To have to stop to formulate rigorous demonstrations would put a stop to most physico-mathematical inquiries. Am I to refuse to eat because I do not fully understand the mechanism of digestion?” KindTwoMathematicsRefuseFormerMathematicalLatterBroadsMechanismInquiryDemonstrationDigestion Author:Oliver Heaviside
