STARS:Maxwell's Equations

From GHN

Author: Graham Turnbull

Citation

Maxwell’s Equations provide a complete description of electromagnetic phenomena and underpin all modern information and communication technologies. They are named after James Clerk Maxwell, the Scottish physicist whose pioneering work during the second half of the 19th century unified the theories of electricity, magnetism, and light. The theory of electromagnetism was built on the discoveries and advances of many scientists and engineers, but the pivotal contribution was that of Maxwell. Today, Maxwell’s Equations are the essential tools of electrical engineers in the design all types of electrical and electronic equipment.

Timeline

1785	Coulomb’s Law is published
1812	Poisson’s Law is published
1813	Gauss’ Divergence Theorem is discovered
1820	H.C. Ørsted discovers that an electric current creates a magnetic field
1820	André-Marie Ampère’s work founds electrodynamics; Biot-Savart Law is discovered
1826	Ampère’s Law is published
1831	Faraday’s Law is published
1856	James Clerk Maxwell publishes "On Faraday’s lines of force"
1861	Maxwell publishes "On physical lines of force"
1865	Maxwell publishes "A dynamical theory of the electromagnetic field"
1873	Maxwell publishes Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism
1870	In this decade Lorentz and Helmholtz develop the electromagnetic theory of light
1880	In this decade Heaviside recasts equations into vector form
1888	Heinrich Hertz discovers radio waves
1940	Albert Einstein popularizes the name 'Maxwell’s Equations'
1966	Kane Yee introduces finite-difference time domain methods to solve Maxwell’s Equations

Essay

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