3 ms·
To give Maxwell a little more credit (not that you aren’t), the wave equations and PDEs of today are much nicer thanks to modern knowledge and computational tec
by dan-robertson 5y ago
To give Maxwell a little more credit (not that you aren’t), the wave equations and PDEs of today are much nicer thanks to modern knowledge and computational techniques. Maxwell didn’t have div, grad or curl and so he had dozens of equations to look at instead of just a few, and I think the terms and patterns weren’t as well known as they are today.
- aidenn0 5y agoDo you know if the surface/line integral forms taught to those without vector-calculus under their belts an actual stepping stone to the modern ones? The number of equations are the same, they are just a lot more hairy.
- dan-robertson 5y agoI don’t know enough about the history and I don’t know what forms you are talking about. When I learned ‘vector calculus’ at university, we were introduced to surface/line integrals and div/grad/curl at around the same time.