Imperial Science

ISBN-13: 9781108828543 / Angielski / Miękka / 2022 / 320 str.

Austin) Hunt Bruce J. (University of Texas

Opis

Explores how Britain's global cable network became both the 'nervous system' of its Empire and the key to electrical physics.

Recenzje

'In this important book our foremost historian of British telegraphy and Maxwellian electromagnetic field theory gives a compelling account of the intimate relation of telegraph engineering and mathematical physics over some forty years.' M. Norton Wise, Metascience

Spis treści

Prologue. 'An imperial science'; 1. 'An ill-understood effect of induction': telegraphy and field theory in Victorian Britain; 2. Wildman Whitehouse, William Thomson, and the first Atlantic cable; 3. Redeeming failure: the joint committee investigation; 4. Units and standards: the ohm is where the art is; 5. The ohm, the speed of light, and Maxwell's theory of the electromagnetic field; 6. To rule the waves: Britain's cable empire and the making of 'Maxwell's equations'; Epilogue. Full circle.