Maxwell and the Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism:A DIALECTICAL WORLD CRUISE II
AT SEA
Maxwell Between Two World-Views
Many of us may know what it means to feel “at sea”: without beacons to steer by, without terra firma on which to set our feet. A dialectical passage between two world-views is like that, and James Clerk Maxwell’s life-story might be read as the log-book of just such an expedition: a lifelong search for a clear and coherent view of the physical world. Maxwell’s voyage would almost precisely fill his lifetime, but it would in the end be rewarded by his recognition of one single principle, the principle of least action, which would be key to a virtually complete inversion of the Newtonian world order from which he was escaping.
BEGINNINGS
In a sense, Maxwell was born into a dialectically-divided family. His father was Scottish, and Maxwell spent his early, formative years at the family home of Glenlair in rural southwestern Scotland. His mother on the other hand was English, and though she died while Maxwell was very young, her family was to have a strong influence on his career. While the English spirit would lead him eventually to Cambridge and the epicenter of an aristocratic, Newtonian concept of both science and society, the Scottish channel would lead him to a democratic view of society, and with it an appreciation of experiment and the evidence of the senses, together with a profound mistrust of the mathematical abstractions Newtonian theory.
These two themes met in abrupt confrontation when he was dispatched to Edinburgh to enter a new academy, designed to prepare students for entrance to English universities. In an encounter which must been a rude awakening, he was beaten up by his new fellow-students for his rural attire and his country ways. He stood his ground and soon became a leading student, but the encounter must have thrown light on an issue which would abide throughout his life.
Edinburgh University
Maxwell was clearly ready for entrance to Cambridge, for which his interest in science and his skill in mathematics surely qualified him; but he delayed for a year at Edinburgh University, and then, against the advice of family and friends, persisted in continuing there for a second year. At Edinburgh, he was encountered with excitement a truly liberal education; he loved, as he affirmed later, his professor of natural philosophy, and he became confirmed in his skepticism by the metaphysics of Kant as taught by Sir William Hamilton. Maxwell was not so much following Kant as agreeing with him: he left Edinburgh with a lifelong disbelief in the inert particles and forces upon them, on which Newtonian science rested.
After these two years he went on to Cambridge, where his skill in mathematics earned him entrance to Trinity College–the college of Newton–and high standing in the rigors of the tripos examinations. But he had brought his Edinburgh education with him, utterly abandoning Newton’s world, as we shall see when we turn to the first of his scientific papers.
Three Papers on Electricity and Magnetism
At this point, we find Maxwell, having obtained a fellowship at Cambridge, fully embarked on his voyage on the open seas. He is fascinated especially by the phenomena of electricity and magnetism, but he has no interest in joining the scientific community of his time elaborating Newtonian “laws of force” acting on electric “charges” or magnetic “poles”. He has met Michael Faraday, the self-proclaimed unmathematical philosopher, who has been dong brilliant experiments at the Royal Institution in London. Maxwell has, I think we can say, begun a lifelong devotion to this unassuming character, who represents the very opposite of the Cambridge/Newtonian concept of science–and almost defiantly takes up Faraday’s cause as his own. These are open seas: how to proceed?
Paper 1: An Analogy
Maxwell turns, not to theory, but to analogy. He shares common ground with Faraday regarding an interest in visual thinking–Faraday has presented his insights into the magnetic field by way of patterns formed by iron filings. Maxwell perceives these as the very lines of flow of a fluid. Here, then, is a gift from Faraday, a visual scientific language Maxwell can use! So is conceived the first of three papers on electromagnetism: On Faraday’s Lines of Force. This instrument of analogy, and with it, the goal of writing for the common man (for the democratic intellect, as one student of Scottish thought has put it) is to become one of the sure signs of the new world-view, towards which Maxwell has already begun steering.
Paper 2: A Physical Theory Maxwell has a great propensity for wit, though his friends remark on the difficulty of catching his intent. It may be a shield for a person who is living between worlds: not fully a member of the world friends suppose him to share with them. Maxwell is now in the position of having arrived at a whole view of the interrelations among the electric and magnetic phenomena: yet having no structure of theory in which to compose such a vision. I have proposed that his recourse is that of Aristophanes, in Peace, or the Birds–to stage his vision in the mode of comedy. Maxwell has been playing with the subject of mechanism (he and Karl Marx happen to have taken a course from the same teacher in London, though perhaps not at the same time!). He cannot mean that he proposes that such a mechanism actually exists, but he invents a great machine, for which he writes all the appropriate equations, which would do all the things the electromagnetic field actually does. Maxwell calls it A Physical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field, but he is not proposing that these vortices and idler-wheels actually exist. Like Aristophanes’ world of peace, it is an object for the mind, a project of pure thought. Again, this is a major step toward the goal Maxwell is seeking: in the new world, we will not take mechanisms seriously.
Maxwell’s jeu d’esprit is so successful that he can calculate from it the speed at which vibrations would be transmitted: it is very close to the speed of light! He is the point now of announcing the electromagnetic theory of light. But his discovery hangs in the air (or floats on the waves) it is no more than a beautiful play of thought.
Paper 3:Dynamical Theory
At last, the gods smile on Maxwell’s endeavor. He meets dynamical theory–and a new world begins to take shape. The mode of this encounter is deeply ironic, and correspondingly confusing. One of the most obdurate and imperious of Newtonian advocates is Lord Kelvin, once more modestly Maxwell’s colleague, William Thomson. He, with Maxwell’s close scientific friend P. G. Tait, have undertaken to write an ambitious, one might say proud, Treatise on Natural Philosophy. It’s intended to lay, once for all, the secure foundations of Newtonian science. An edifice of all physical science is to be built on this solid foundation, of which they’ve published only Volume 1.
At sea in uncharted waters, very strange things can happen! Kelvin and Tait, building their arguments on solid Newtonian foundations, expound a new approach to physical problems in terms of energy, rather than force: it is termed dynamical theory (they are importing it to England from the Continent, where it has been developed.) Though Kelvin resolutely insists that it is really still Newtonian, and nothing new, Maxwell sees light at the end of his tunnel (or a beacon on a new continent!) If equations can be written in terms of energy rather than force, nothing further needs to be said about forces acting upon those underlying particles, which he has always been convinced, do not exist!
The Treatise
The new dynamical equations are named after Pierre Lagrange, who wrote them, and Maxwell now uses them to characterize the electric and magnetic fields as regions on energy and momentum. Lagrange makes no explicit reference to ponderable mass, but that no longer matters–the equations carry all the energy that reaches Earth from the Sun. Maxwell publishes his Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field, and confidently announces his electromagnetic theory of light, based on the new equations.
Maxwell’s problem is not yet solved. Either the equations stand, as Kelvin maintains, on Newtonian theory – in which case we have only avoided the issue by not referring to some underlying particles, hardly more than a subterfuge, certainly not worthy of Maxwell, or they flow from some higher principle which Maxwell has not yet named. This is perhaps the darkest night of his voyage: he has glimpsed the new shore, but it has slipped away in the obscurity of this night.
The Principle of Least Action
Blessedly, Lagrange’s dynamical equations of motion can be derived from another source: indeed, this new source is their natural home, for this new origin is itself expressed in dynamical terms, i.e., in terms of the potential and kinetic energies of the system as a whole. Causality of the whole natural world is at stake here, so this “derivation” of Lagrange’s equations is no mere mathematical question! For Newton, causality flows from below to the whole: the “reason” things happen is mechanical, the whole moves as a consequence of the motions of its parts. So it was with Maxwell’s joking physical theory; he knows very well there are no such underlying parts. The new derivation of Lagrange’s equations flows from above–and with it, causality likewise flows downward, from some inclusive whole.
That inclusive whole–from which all the motions of he natural world flow–is the Principle of Least Action. The motions of the natural world arise ultimately from potential energies, such as the calories in a loaf of bread, or the BTUs in a gallon of gasoline. The conventional symbol for potential energy is V. Motions arise as potential energy is converted to kinetic energy, whose symbol is T. The difference (T–V) is called the Lagrangian, and the action (A) associated with any motion is nothing more complicated than the product of the Lagrangian and the time (t) the motion takes:
A = (T – V) x t
With that modest introduction, we can now state the principle on which it seems, nature runs. For any system:
The motion will be such that the action is least.
It can get complicated when systems are complex, or when relativity or quantum principles are involved, but it works, too, for systems as simple as a falling stone. Since each system is characterized first of all as a whole, it is inherently organic, and applies especially well to ecologies, which nature appears to see primarily as wholes, and organic.
Maxwell learned of this from the writings of William Rowan Hamilton of Dublin; he jokes of his “two Hamilton’s, saying their metaphisics are valuable in proportion to their physics. He means, I think, that the Kantian metaphysic espoused by Sir William Hamilton of Edinburgh was geared to the Newtonian world-view. The “new” Hamilton of Dublin is geared to a new, very different world-view in which the whole is primary as such, and not an assemblage of parts, and causality flows organically from whole to part. Wholes of course do not have to be big, the quantized hydrogen atom, a protein molecule, or the living cell, are instances.
We spoke earlier of Maxwell’s devotion to Faraday. Now we must ask, has he brought Faraday with him to this new land of Least Action? The answer, I can say confidently, is Yes.
How do we characterize a “system”? In the old, Newtonian way in which the parts were causal, it was important to describe a system in terms of those parts which constituted it and caused it to move. But now, parts are no longer causal. Our concern will be, instead, to characterize the state of a whole connected system. Interestingly, there is no one right way to do that! Any set of measurements sufficient to characterize the state of the system will serve. They don’t have to be readings of meters; Faraday’s diagrams of lines of force will serve very well to characterize a magnetic field. His intuitive interpretations of the behavior of his galvanometers serve him better than columns of numbers. Further, Maxwell’s analogy to fluid flow may serve very well to comprehend the structure of the magnetic field. Indeed, the Principle of Least Action in effect restores life to nature, which tends to move, as Faraday observed of his magnets. We have indeed arrived at a whole new world, yet one which Faraday, and Maxwell in his devotion to Faraday, already had in view.
Why has the modern world so resisted recognition of this principle, leaving it to rather esoteric studies within mathematical physics rather than teaching and embracing it generally as a far better way of understanding and caring for the natural world? Any thoughts on this will be very much appreciated.