A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, Vol. I

It is best to study a science while it is in its beginning stages. In the case of Faraday's Researches, Michael Faraday (1791–1867), a pioneering English scientist who contributed to the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. this is comparatively easy, as they are published in a collected form and may be read in order. If anything I have written here assists any student in understanding Faraday's ways of thinking and expressing himself, I shall regard it as the fulfillment of one of my main goals: to share with others the same joy I found myself while reading Faraday's Researches.

The description of the physical phenomena, along with the basic elements of the theory for each subject, can be found in the opening chapters of each of the four Parts into which this treatise is divided. The student will find enough in these chapters to gain a fundamental understanding of the entire science.

The remaining chapters of each Part deal with the more advanced aspects of the theory, the methods of mathematical calculation, and the instruments and techniques used in experimental research.

The relationships between electromagnetic phenomena and those of radiation This refers to the author's groundbreaking discovery that light is an electromagnetic wave., the theory of molecular electric currents, and the results of theoretical inquiry into the nature of "action at a distance" The concept of objects affecting one another without physical contact, which the author sought to replace with the concept of "fields." are discussed in the final four chapters of the second volume.

February 1, 1873.