History of Maxwell's Equations #1: Gauss' Law

This woman is a total unicorn. She understands history, she understands mathematics, she understands the science, she reveals the true scientific process, and she’s able to teach it. you don’t need many people like this to absolutely change the world and my God she’s doing it basically for free Thank you. Incredible.

Hi Kathy, I am an EE. I have never seen this concise and accurate history ever presented by anyone. Thanks!

Having done my honours degree at Edinburgh University 1991 995 and studied in the JCBM (James Clerk Maxwell building) and covered electromagnetism as part of my engineering degree , I was never happy with my comprehension of electric voltage ( potential difference). Years later I went back to source and read the same papers you are quoting and had my eureka moments. It still remains sad to me that coming from the home of JCM I had to figure all this out by myself years later. I reckon I'm probably the only one in a class of 100 students who ever did this ? I always intended to explain Maxwells ele tromagnetics in the way Maxwell first formulated it as it is brilliantly 'simple'. Glad to see that you have done this so well. Thank you.

Heaviside is the only reason we understand Maxwell now - before Heaviside, there were 20-21 equations with as many unknowns. Heaviside reformulated these into the 4 recognized equations we use today. Heaviside was treated very unfairly, and from my recollection, this was due to his Operational Calculus. His response to their accusation that he didn't prove, mathematically rigorously, that this method worked, was along the lines of: "Just because I don't know understand how my body digests my breakfast, doesn't mean I shouldn't eat it.". BTW - it works. His efforts, along with Charles Proteus Steinmetz (almost not allowed into the USA b/c of his dwarfism), are the sole reason electricity is engineerable. Heaviside eventually go so fed up with the criticism from the British establishment, that he stopped writing. He did something like painted his fingernails and removed all the furniture from his house, and gave up...

Whasnt Farady and spectacular mind. Such insgight. I love your direct delivery. No circumlocution or repetition. Very clear and focused.

One really important part of this history is the complementarity of Maxwell and Faraday. Both were geniuses but in their own ways. Faraday was a genius of experimentation and Maxwell of theory. These two were the perfect compliment of each other.

My wife gave the three-volume set to me for Christmas several years ago. She gave me "Feynman's Tips on Physics" a couple of Christmases later. They are my most cherished Physics books, even more than all my textbooks.

This is great - I just taught an intro class in E&M and leaned in a bit on the historical aspects, but there are many here I was not aware of! Great work here.

Feynman's lectures are great for people who already know physics. Seeing it for the first time? Depends on the student.

You are phenomenal Kathy, the research you put into your work is astounding. Thanks for putting this all together and presenting it in a fun and comprehendible way.

You are the person who makes history an interesting subject because other historians focus more on politics and wars, but you focus more on physics. ❤

Never before have I had such dry equations be brought to life with such nail-biting drama and cliff-hanging excitement. Thanks so much for this!

I appreciate this video. I am writing this note from the steps of maxwells home in Aberdeen Scotland at 129 union street in Aberdeen Scotland ..as a coincidence!

Round 2: I am watching this video again. It is an amazing synthesis of the why and how Maxwell came to his equations. Keep going Kathy. You have a very special gift in the way your explain physics. Thank you,.

I bet the comment section is all STEM professionals. I’m Petroleum and I can’t thank Kathy enough. Your presentation is addictive. Thank you!

Thank you for bringing O. Heavyside into discussion of Maxwell's Equations.

Hey, you don't need a REASON to mention Feynman - it's always a good thing. The man is a top hero of mine.

I am an electrical engineer so of course I studied electrodynamics and Maxwell's equations. The video was very detailed and and exact. The graphics were very helpful. But I found that the discussions and derivations went by a bit too quickly. This is a subject that really needs a slower step by step derivation plus seeing and deriving it by writing the equations. But I know that you really don't want to stretch this out into too many videos so I understand why you went at the pace you did. For me as a young undergrad, the epiphany was realizing that based on these equations the speed of light through a vacuum is a function of mu-zero and epsilon-zero ie physical constants based on static measurements!!! A group of us made T Shirts with Maxwell's Equations with the words "Let there be light!" a the bottom!

Fascinating to this old physicist. It seems I have used the equations for 40 years without knowing their real origins.

It's a good introduction to a long tradition in physics, taking someone else's brilliant idea, and turning it into brilliant math. Minkowski is another classic example. I've heard Einstein quited as saying that by the time Minkowski got done with it, he barely understood his own theory.