Chapter 14Maxwells Theory.ppt

More on Maxwell Maxwell differed from his contemporaries in the nineteenth century Faraday Ampere contributed to Maxwell’s theories Much of his important work was accomplished between the ages of 29 and 35 Maxwell’s Equations Gauss’s Law, no monopoles, Ampere’s Law and Faraday’s Law The Final Classical Theory 1865 paper “A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field” did not discuss vortices and idle wheels Classical mechanics was used as model After consistent defeat, mechanical models abandoned Electromagnetic theory distinct branch of physics Albert Michelson (1852-1931) American experimental physicist Devoted his life to making extremely accurate measurements of the speed of light Nobel Prize in Physics in 1907 for his efforts 1887 collaborated with Edward Morley to perform an experiment sensitive enough to detect the earth’s motion through the aether Michelson-Morley Animation /more_stuff/flashlets/mmexpt6.htm LIGO LIGO stands for Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory Similar apparatus to Michelson-Morley Run into same problem- trying to block out high frequency sounds that disrupt results They hang apparatus while Michelson and Morley suspended theirs in mercury Precursors to Relativity FitzGerald (1851-1901) could avoid negative result of Michelson-Morley experiment Contraction hypothesis was independently postulated by Hendrik Lorentz Lorentz manipulated equations and are called Lorentz transformations today Lorentz-FitzGerald contraction hypothesis Precursors to Relativity (con’d) Poincaré postulated that “optical phenomena depend only on the relative motions of the material bodies” He questioned the existence of aether In 1904 he determined his principle of relativity Lorentz came up with a theory of electrons consistent with Poincaré’s principle but still left room for the aether Conclusion Maxwell provided us with modern physical and mathematical equations Many contributions to physics even though his belief in the existence of aet