PREFACE.

They were satisfied with each other’s language. I was also convinced that this discrepancy did not arise from either party being wrong. I was first convinced of this by Sir William Thomson Later known as Lord Kelvin (1824–1907), a foundational figure in thermodynamics and electricity., to whose advice and assistance, as well as to his published papers, I owe most of what I have learned on the subject.

As I proceeded with the study of Faraday, I perceived that his method of conceiving the phenomena was also a mathematical one, though not exhibited in the conventional form of mathematical symbols. I also found that these methods were capable of being expressed in the ordinary mathematical forms, and thus compared with those of the professional mathematicians.

For instance, Faraday, in his mind’s eye, saw lines of force traversing all space where the mathematicians saw centers of force attracting at a distance. Faraday saw a medium A physical substance or field filling space. where they saw nothing but distance. Faraday sought the seat of the phenomena in real actions going on in the medium; they were satisfied that they had found it in a power of "action at a distance" The theory that objects can be moved, changed, or affected without being physically touched by another object. impressed on the electric fluids.

When I had translated what I considered to be Faraday’s ideas into a mathematical form, I found that in general the results of the two methods coincided. Thus, the same phenomena were accounted for, and the same laws of action deduced by both methods, but Faraday’s methods resembled those

I take this opportunity of acknowledging my obligations to Sir William Thomson and to Professor Tait Peter Guthrie Tait (1831–1901), a Scottish mathematical physicist. for many valuable suggestions made during the printing of this work.