Talk:History of electromagnetic theory

message: This is a rather disappointing page given how much waffle and crap there is written about political and subjective topics. This is such an important topic for the amount which current society relies on electricity.
I know that I'm just being a whinger and should write something myself, but I don't have the time.
Can someone else please do it?DrBob127 03:47, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 09:54, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject class rating

message: What would a medievil person do when they were shocked by static electricity? 69.220.2.188 (talk) 06:40, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: They would say "Ouch"218.186.12.9 (talk) 09:42, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  History of Static Electricity 

message: At the end of the section: Middle Ages and the Renaissance there's the assertion:
:The first usage of the word electricity is ascribed to Sir Thomas Browne in his 1646 work, Pseudodoxia Epidemica.
Since this is a history of electromagnetism, not just electricity (or mainly electricity) I've felt the need to assert Athanasius Kircher's priority on the word "electromagnetism" itself.
Some people feel that Kircher's coining of the word, in his book Magnes (The Magnet), was a pure accident, since the chapter in which it occurs deals mainly with the attractive force of amber, so he was using it to mean "electrostatic attraction". I've tried to make it clear though that Kircher seriously goes into the idea of unifying magnetic and electrostatic force, chewing over Gilbert's ideas on the topic.
I was also tempted to point out that Kircher proposed a workable (?) scheme for generating electromagnetic waves. But I didn't want to get in an argument over whether this was "original research". The Findlen refs show it isn't my idea. But to try to defend the workability of the scheme would almost certainly embroil me in the charge of "original research", which I gather can be a euphemism for "baloney". So not without a twinge of regret I've omitted a defence of Kircher's proposal, except an implied one that the reason it wouldn't have worked boils down to the physical magnitudes being too small (of Planck's Constant, as it happens), not yet-another bizarre misconception by Kircher. In other words his machina magnetica would only have generated a signal too weak to detect at a useful distance, not that it couldn't possibly have worked. Had the figures been in Kircher's favour, wireless communication might have emerged 250 years earlier than it did, with profound impact on the course of world history.
But to say something like that falls into Kircher's "error". The trouble with Fr Kircher was that he couldn't resist embellishing a perfectly sound and far-reaching idea with all the high-baroque speculation that occurred to him. The emerging class of physicists, then called natural philosophers (especially Descartes) quickly realised that sort of thing got you a bad reputation, and learned to be more cautious in their conjectures, not to say their claims.
Quacksalber (talk) 18:43, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Who invented the word "electromagnetism"? 

message: The practical application of electricity will go on apace. It is an every day saying of laymen that electricity is as yet in its infancy. This remark causes technical men to smile, for "electricity" is already a most prodigious infant. But in the sense that we may only be on the threshold of the possible utilizations of this most wonderful of nature's agents, the remark is perhaps true. Predictions that were with diffidence made in the closing decade of last century to the effect that within 100 years of that time people would probably speak to one another without artificial means of communication; that wires would be laid along every street and knocked into every house as gas pipes were then, for lighting and power purposes, have been for a decade facts accomplished. What the next 120 years shall bring forth with regard to the applications of electricity none can tell. One hundred and twenty years ago it would have been difficult to find one steam railroad engineer willing to admit that application of electric traction to steam railroads was a possibility even though it was.
Other means, now unknown, of developing electricity may be wrested from nature's storehouse. Indeed in view of the past progress of electricity, and especially in view of its marvelous progress in the last two centuries, theoretically and practically, it required no great exercise of the imagination to conceive that the time was not too distant when the universal artificial source of the world's heat, light and power, is electricity, and that what is now only surmise as to the sameness of electricity and matter has been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt. Not only has wireless been more perfected and "seeing by electricity" to a distance been perfected, but many other accomplishments can be practically accomplished. Indeed, it is not even beyond the possibilities that the transference of thought directly from brain to brain with the space-time as the medium — the suggestion of which is now regarded as the vagrant of a disordered imagination — may then also be realized. In short our successors of 125 or 130 years hence may wonder at our obtuseness in not perceiving the obviousness of things which to them may then be self-evident, virtually as we now marvel at the simplicity of our cleverest ancestors in so long failing to recognize the identity of frictional, animal, and voltaic electricity, or the more simple fact that the wind, by them regarded as a phenomenon, is merely air in motion.
----
Updated from the The Encyclopedia Americana; a library of universal knowledge. (1918). New York: Encyclopedia Americana Corp.
J. D. Redding 02:28, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Furture

message: At the moment this reads:
According to Thales of Miletus, writing at around 600 BC, noted that a form of electricity was known to the Ancient Greeks would cause a particular attraction between the two. Rubbing fur on various substances, such as amber, would cause a particular attraction between the two, although he never understood why.[16] Thales wrote on various substances, such as amber, would cause effects now known as static electricity. The Greeks noted that the amber buttons could attract light objects such as hair and that if they rubbed the amber for long enough they could even get a spark to jump. During this time in alchemy and natural philosophy, the existence of a medium of the æther, a space-filling substance or field, thought to exist.
Because in this form it makes no sense -- the first sentence mentions 'attraction between the two' and we don't know what 'two' is, the 3rd sentence makes no sense either, I went back to an earlier version, dropping the 'aether' bit which seemed irrelevant. My version(which also had a reference) was: 
Thales of Miletus in the 6th century BC wrote that The Greeks noted that the amber buttons could attract light objects such as hair and that if they rubbed the amber for long enough they could even get a spark to jump.
This edit (and my removal of the unattributed 19th century speculation), although they had detailed edit summaries explaining why I made them, were reverted by Reddi with only the comment 'restored some information', ie no explanation. I'm not the only editor Reddi has reverted with no explanation. Doug Weller (talk) 14:01, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thales - needs rewriting 

message: Tesla had his own section in this article. That's a bit novel and weird. We don't give Volta, Gauss, Coulomb, Ampere, Henry, Faraday, Weber, Lenz, Lorentz, Einstein, etc. their own sections but we give Tesla his own section? What's the possible rationale? Answer: none. I merged the section with the next section. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:07, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Tesla with his own section?

message: To describe the works of Lorentz and Poincaré and others before the rise of Albert Einstein's special relativity, I've included a new section on that topic in "20th century". Also some references to Miller, Pais, Darrigol, Katzir, Janssen, Galison are included in "References". --D.H (talk) 12:24, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Electromagnetic world view 

message: The evidence that Romagnosi actually was the first one to realize a relationship between electricity and magnetism (nearly 20 years before Oersted)is nowadays consolidated and historically confirmed. The fact that the article not only assign a full bodied paragraph to the italian scientist as he should deserve but it even never mention his name it's quite unfair and questionable.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Magnagr (talk • contribs) 16:22, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Here's a possible source  Dougweller (talk) 17:12, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why Romagnosi has not been mentioned?

message: From the article, Feb. 5, 2010, section on the "Leyden jar":
:In 1741, Ellicott "proposed to measure the strength of electrification by its power to raise a weight in one scale of a balance while the other was held over the electrified body and pulled to it by its attractive power".
This whole paragraph is sourced to an unidentified place in the Encyclopedia Americana of 1918. This Ellicott in all likelihood was John Ellicott, F.R.S. However, I cannot find any confirmation of him having made such a proposal. I can only find a letter from an anonymous addressed to John Ellicott, in which the unknown author proposed such a method in 1746. See "A Letter from - to Mr. John Ellicot, F. R. S. of Weighing the Strength of Electrical Effluvia", in
Phil. Trans. 1746 44:96-99.
BTW, all the Americana references should be improved, giving the precise entry, if possible with a link to the containing volume at archive.org, from which the fact was taken. Lupo 08:35, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  1st, it's not from archive.org. 2nd, it's public domain information, right? 3rd, improved references are needed. Sincerely, --J. D. Redding 09:37, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not a question of whether the source is PD or not, but a question of traceability. Archive.org happens to host the PD Americana, so why not use it for direct on-line sourcing? That was all I was suggesting. Lupo 21:56, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

text: Ok, found and linked the entry in the EA. The author sources this Ellicott phrase to Carpue, probably Joseph Constantine Carpue, presumably his "An Introduction to Electricity and Galvanism..." of 1803. Lupo 08:58, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

text: Yes, but Mottelay sources his claim to Phil. Trans. 1746 vol XLIV, p. 96, which is the source I've also identified above. However, that source is a letter to John Ellicott, not one by him. So he didn't suggest that; it was suggested to him. Lupo 12:36, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: P.S.: as to the date, the Philosophical Transactions state it was read on March 6, 1746 (New Style; 1745 Old Style). 1741 seems to be simply incorrect. Lupo 16:05, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

text: While he does cite the source mentioned above he also cites a number of other sources.  There's no inline citations so its not clear (to me at least) what is sourced to what specifically.  I don't have a subscription to the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London so I can't look at the letter but from the title "A Letter from - to Mr. John Ellicot, F. R. S. of Weighing the Strength of Electrical Effluvia" it's not clear whether the unnamed author is commenting on John Ellicott's experiments or is suggesting them to him (I imagine this is fairly clear upon reading the actual document). I also haven't seen the other sources Mottelay cites under his description of Ellicott which may or may not add to the matter.Sxoa (talk) 17:49, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: P.S. It seems like that would be  fairly gross error on Motellay's part if he claims that Ellicott conducted the experiment and then cited a letter that says Ellicott did not in fact do so (if that's what the letter says, as I have said before I'm unable to access its contents).Sxoa (talk) 17:51, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

text: It is a letter, in which the unnamed author does suggest that method. If you want, I can send you the document. Lupo 20:10, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

text: As long as you've read it and confirmed it that's fine with me.  Still weird about Motellay though; I wonder what the other sources have to say?  Regardless at this point the question now becomes how to edit the actual article.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sxoa (talk • contribs) 16:10, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ellicott 

message: Hi, folks!  A while back, I copied some text from this article over to 1800-1809.  This isn't a field that I have expertise in, so further editing of the work in context from other editors here would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks! -- RobLa (talk) 02:00, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some text copied to [[1800–1809]] 

message: In the 'End of the Century' Section, the number of electrons given for hydrogen and oxygen are 700 and 11200, respectively. This seems absurd, but perhaps I am missing something.
I will correct the numbers to 1 and 8, with apologies to anyone whose chemistry is better than mine.
--Cladist (talk) 11:05, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I have removed that paragraph in its entirety. It appears to have been copy-and-pasted verbatim from an out of copyright edition of Encyclopedia Americana from the turn of the last century. As such, it reflected contemporary thought, as well as being written in the ponderous language of that time. —BillC talk 16:39, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Number of Electrons in the hydrogen and oxygen atoms 

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thread_title: File:Shen Kua.JPG Nominated for Deletion

message: As noted above and in the template added to reference, large parts of this article are a direct copy and paste from The Encyclopedia Americana; a library of universal knowledge, a 1918 source. So the historical view in this historical article is way off, the source was written when some of these subjects were still alive and formulating their theories. I have tried to cleanup the more glaring problems (we are not referring to a series of "professors", some of which are still doing research and,  no..., wireless telegraphy.... systems ... are NOT now in successful use on shipboard, lighthouses and shore and inland stations) but the tone and factual accuracy of this article is way off. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 15:08, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Feel free to site reliable sources that support your (pro-Tesla?) point of view. The burden is on you. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 20:00, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Out-of-date information 

message: Fountain's anti-Teslaic editing is apparent here 
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_electromagnetic_theory&diff=582762281&oldid=582672070
This should be corrected. --J. D. Redding 16:43, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Feel free to site reliable sources that support your (pro-Tesla?) point of view. The burden is on you. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 20:00, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: BM Editing with a POV

message: This section is not neutral and refers only to a recent commercial name. The section should be rewritten using a reference to the Wireless power Transfer page and to all technologies in the field, starting with Tesla work a century ago and many others.Henri BONDAR (talk)
:Its questionable to have an "Electromagnetic technologies" section in an article on the history of its "theory". So maybe we are talking more about deletion than a rewrite. The Wireless Energy Transfer section reads like a plug for WiTricity and WiTricity should be removed unless there are several reliable sources that this stuff is "called WiTricity". What should be here is a summary of the lead paragraph "History" summary found at Wireless power..... hmmm ... problem there, Wireless power does not have a history summary in its lead.... so a little work to do. The problem with inserting Tesla in a "History of electromagnetic theory" is Tesla was not a theoretician and did not believe in many parts of "electromagnetic theory" so he contributed very little (nothing?) to its historical development. He may not even show up in textbooks on electromagnetic theory so probably should not be in this article, some checking needed. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 20:09, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wireless Energy Transfer 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I've changed the attribution of the two-fluid theory to Robert Symmer alone. This is also consistent with what is written in the linked article. If one person should be singled out, it should rather be du Fay. Phidus (talk) 11:37, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Robert Symmer and the two-fluid theory

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The "circle of monks" claim doesn't lead anywhere other than one author making a claim with no citation. He cites himself a few times then stops citing the claim. Curiously, he invents the claim in his third paper - the original paper doesn't mention anything about the speed of light being finite.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_electromagnetic_theory&oldid=935877389#cite_ref-guarnieri_8_42-0
The original claim can be traced here:
"His research drew the attention of Jean-Antoine Nollet (1700–1770), ... In 1746, he arranged some 200 monks in a circle 1.6 km in circumference, connected them with iron wires, and then discharged Leyden jars (early capacitors) through this circuit. He observed that the monks reacted simultaneously to the electric shock, clearly showing that electricity is transmitted at a very high speed."
This paper was published in IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine, so I'm guessing it's fine by Wikipedia standards, but it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. The claim mutates across 3 papers into something that makes no sense. Instant reaction would imply an infinite or an unknowably-high speed of light / conduction.
See also:
Electricity in the Age of Enlightenment
Massimo Guarnieri
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265789515_Electricity_in_the_Age_of_Enlightenment_Historical
Birth of Amplification Before Vacuum Tubes
Massimo Guarnieri
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260625875_Birth_of_Amplification_Before_Vacuum_Tubes  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anonymous-232 (talk • contribs) 23:39, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Circle of Monks Leads to a Chain of Unverifiable Citations 

message: This article purports to be a history of electromagnetic theory, but includes a huge amount of information that wouldn't normally be considered part of electromagnetic theory, such as the history of semiconductors or nuclear fusion, & more besides.  These are worthy topics but don't really belong here. 88.98.240.146 (talk) 15:45, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article needs tighter focus 

message: I don't see any reference to the date or year of Ben Franklin's electricity experiment with a kite. I hope someone knowledgeable about this historic experiment can add this information.2601:200:C000:1A0:750D:52AA:4ECF:4C9A (talk) 01:09, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  When was Franklin's kite experiment?