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Re: Heavyside Revisited
Tesla List wrote:
>
> >From 73041.2215-at-CompuServe.COMWed Oct 30 21:40:06 1996
> Date: 30 Oct 96 11:52:42 EST
> From: JEFFREY WIGGINS <73041.2215-at-CompuServe.COM>
> To: Tesla List <tesla-at-poodle.pupman-dot-com>
> Subject: Re: Heavyside Revisited
>
> All:
>
> Anyone remember Oliver Heavyside? [No, I don't mean personally!]
>
> Another unsung hero of the late 18th century, Heavyside said (while
> revolutionizing
> long distance communications - or maybe INVENTING it): "Heretofore, it has
> been the fashion to consider electricity as some material thing, or current,
> flowing
> in the wires. We reverse this.." [paraphrase].
>
> He determined that electricity was not in the wires, which he called
> "obstructors",
> but in the electric fields in the dielectric between conductors! Electric
> current, as
> described by Maxwell, was a mere mathematical convenience and could not be
> observed in nature (note that the "flow" of electrons in current-carrying wires
> have
> been clocked at break-neck speeds of up to 17 cm/s!). The concept "current"
> merely describes the field's interaction with the obstructors.
>
> Along came Sprague who, while conceding that Heavyside's description was the
> correct one, went on to suggest that "if we embrace Dr. Heavyside's ideas then
> the practical electrician would likely go insane when furnishing even the
> simplest
> lighting system" [again paraphrasing].
>
> And so, Heavyside went out of favour at the universities and the "current is in
> the wires" description of electricity is what has been tought ever since.
>
> Imagine! One hundred years of utilizing electricity - some times loads of it,
> eh Robert? - and we still have no idea what it is! There is a revolution in
> science
> out there, waiting to happen.
>
> Jeffrey (I'll shut up now, Chip!) Wiggins
Jeffrey,
There are as many ways of looking at a thing as there are people in the
universe. The great thing is that mathematics can be used to prove each
and everyones point if tourtured long enough. One of heavisides great
gifts was his skill in mathematics. He also had a long running debate
with empericists and as the twentieth century dawned it looks like he
won. Science has long oscillated between the theoretical and the
emperical approach to understanding nature. This was just another great
swing of the pendulum.
I have read a lot about Heaviside I have to come out as a Heaviside
booster overall, inspite of his virtual 100% mathematical approach to
things. The bottom line is his stuff worked and expalined concepts not
intuitively graspable. His math deals with reality quite well. Whether
his explaination of its mechanism is correct, is another matter.
Charge held in dielectrics is an electrostatic thing. Charge effects or
its transport moving along metallic circuits with the object of doing
work is an electrodynamic thing. It changed over from one to the other
the instant current flowed in the wire and magnetic fields were produced.
Heaviside's thoughts on the matter were quite unique and I hold an open
mind to all alternate ideas which show merit based on experiment.
Richard Hull, TCBOR