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Maxwell's Equations have already been superseded by Quantum Electrodynamics, in the same way that Newtonian gravity has been superseded by General Relativity.
by DiogenesKynikos 3y ago
Maxwell's Equations have already been superseded by Quantum Electrodynamics, in the same way that Newtonian gravity has been superseded by General Relativity.
Both Newtonian gravity and Maxwell's Equations are still very good approximations in their regimes of validity.
- kragen 3y ago[dead]
- kragen 3y agowe are commenting on an article which describes in depth how quantum mechanics, including qed, falls squarely within the paradigm maxwell pioneered. that's why my comment specifically talks about the 'maxwellian paradigm' and not 'maxwell's equations', which is, by the way, not a brand name i thought it was too obvious to be worth saying that classical physics is still an excellent approximation to reality, but hopefully you've enlightened someone reading this thread
- denton-scratch 3y ago> 'maxwell's equations', which is, by the way, not a brand name Are you commenting on the capitalization of "Maxwell"? It is a proper name, and it should be capitalized.
- kragen 3y agoadmittedly so, but no, on the capitalization of 'equations' (and 'quantum' and 'electrodynamics'), which are not
- DiogenesKynikos 3y agoIt is common to capitalize the names of famous equations or theories. Maxwell wrote tons of equations during his life, but there's only one set of "Maxwell's Equations." Maxwell himself never even wrote down Maxwell's Equations in the form we now know them.
- kragen 3y agocoherent and reasonable, but as a guide to current usage, wrong
- DiogenesKynikos 3y agoCapitalization of "Equations" is clearly style-dependent, and thus neither right nor wrong, unlike, say, capitalizing the first letter in a sentence.
- nyssos 3y ago> quantum mechanics, including qed, falls squarely within the paradigm maxwell pioneered Does it, though? Sure, QED is a field theory, but it's perturbative where classical EM is exact, its fields are operator-valued distributions where classical fields are number-valued functions, its interactions are transition probabilities rather than forces - it's not clear to me that these are smaller jumps than introducing fields in the first place.
- kragen 3y agomany people have argued that qm is a larger jump than maxwell's approach, and i agree that that's a very reasonable position, which is why i found it interesting to read dyson arguing the opposite