5 ms·

No mention that he reformulated Maxwell's equations into the form we know today. IIRC he was shunned from scientific society for most of his life.

IncreasePosts 2y ago
Has much been written about his shunning? I've heard just a little bit that it was due to him being from a working class background, but then again an uncle of his (through marriage) was a Fellow at the Royal Society. You think that would at least give you an in.
- selimthegrim 2y ago
  His behavior with women, including his relatives, was not praiseworthy. (Not criminal except arguably in one case but not worthy of emulation
  - djmips 2y ago
    What's your source for that? I hadn't run across that - I know Heaviside never married and I thought most of the friction he was involved in was with other male Victorian era scientists.
    - selimthegrim 2y ago
      https://drvitelli.typepad.com/providentia/2017/09/the-problem-with-oliver-heaviside.html https://drvitelli.typepad.com/providentia/2017/09/the-proble...
- pclmulqdq 2y ago
  He wasn't ever active in the scientific community. He was always a "dirty" telegraph operator and engineer. That distinction somewhat persists today.
nhecker 2y ago
I had gotten a negative impression of him back when reading 'Mother Earth Mother Board'[1]; it's interesting to read a different accounting of his life. [1]: https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/ https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/ (now regrettably behind a pay-wall)
- wbl 2y ago
  Heaven forbid you have to pay to read one of the great pieces of computer journalism ever.
  - nhecker 2y ago
    Oh, I've given Wired my money over the years. I have no qualms rewarding good journalism. But your point is well taken -- I'll temper my previous comment: one should not feel bad about paying for this piece!
    - ZeroGravitas 2y ago
      When I used to buy Wired in its paper form, they had this thing about how "information wants to be free". Did the original author approve the work being behind a digital pay wall and get rewarded for their work, or was it some later private equity style ghoul who couldn't help but gatekeep and rent seek the duplication of bits as a middleman? If the latter then maybe we should be sad and angry.
      - wiml 2y ago
        I think you misunderstand the saying. Information wants to be free — it is naturally so cheap to copy and transmit that its marginal cost is effectively zero. That doesn't mean you want it to be free, or that WIRED wants it to be free. Like nature abhors a vacuum, or water seeks the sea, information wants to be free. Yet we still build thermoses and reservoirs.
  - dTal 2y ago
    Yes, it is very much a shame for important cultural works to be accessible only to those with money. Once upon a time it was considered such a social problem that governments allocated funding to civic institutions where copyrighted material could be read entirely for free. A short and easy registration process would even grant anyone permission to physically take these works home to study at their leisure for a while. Really, it's amazing society survived...
squidgedcricket 2y ago
There's a conspiracy theory that some types of phenomena are lost in the Heaviside formulation of Maxwell's equations, but describable with the original form that used quaternions. e.g. 'scalar waves' that are used for wireless power transmission and death rays. Is anyone able to make an informed comment on that? I can barely handle the Heaviside formulation, the original quaternions are was over my head.
- adrian_b 2y ago
  The form with quaternions from 1873 was not really correct, because at that time Maxwell did not understand yet the difference between vectors and pseudovectors (the "imaginary" components of a quaternion are the components of a pseudovector, not of a vector). This difference was clarified in the geometric algebra of Clifford, but both Maxwell and Clifford have died about at the same time and too early, so Maxwell did not have the opportunity to correct his treatise in a new edition. I always wonder how physics could have evolved if both Maxwell and Clifford had not died in 1879. Many years later, Heaviside still did not understand the nature of vectors and pseudovectors (a.k.a. polar vectors and axial vectors, a.k.a. vectors and bivectors), so he has used extensively what he named as the "vector product", which is actually a pseudovector product, and not always in the right way. On the other hand, the original version of the Maxwell equations was in integral form, not in differential form. The integral form is applicable even when the equations of Heaviside do not exist and based on the integral form it is possible to derive forms of the equations that are valid even for bodies in movement, for which it is quite difficult to apply the Heaviside equations without obtaining erroneous results (because the Heaviside equations as normally presented in textbooks depend on additional unwritten assumptions, e.g. about the reference system, so their correct application e.g. to a motor is non-obvious). The integral form given by Maxwell is the fundamental form of the equations, while the Heaviside differential form is a derived form whose applicability has serious restrictions and its only advantage is that it is easier to write and memorize by students.
- tensh 2y ago
  Interesting. I can't comment on the equations, but in the (of course bullshit theory) variant I know, the "loss in translation" supposedly occurred already by Maxwell not 100% getting Faraday's experimental results.

IncreasePosts 2y ago

Has much been written about his shunning? I've heard just a little bit that it was due to him being from a working class background, but then again an uncle of his (through marriage) was a Fellow at the Royal Society. You think that would at least give you an in.

selimthegrim 2y ago
His behavior with women, including his relatives, was not praiseworthy. (Not criminal except arguably in one case but not worthy of emulation
- djmips 2y ago
  What's your source for that? I hadn't run across that - I know Heaviside never married and I thought most of the friction he was involved in was with other male Victorian era scientists.
  - selimthegrim 2y ago
    https://drvitelli.typepad.com/providentia/2017/09/the-problem-with-oliver-heaviside.html https://drvitelli.typepad.com/providentia/2017/09/the-proble...
pclmulqdq 2y ago
He wasn't ever active in the scientific community. He was always a "dirty" telegraph operator and engineer. That distinction somewhat persists today.

nhecker 2y ago

I had gotten a negative impression of him back when reading 'Mother Earth Mother Board'[1]; it's interesting to read a different accounting of his life. [1]: https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/ https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/ (now regrettably behind a pay-wall)

wbl 2y ago
Heaven forbid you have to pay to read one of the great pieces of computer journalism ever.
- nhecker 2y ago
  Oh, I've given Wired my money over the years. I have no qualms rewarding good journalism. But your point is well taken -- I'll temper my previous comment: one should not feel bad about paying for this piece!
  - ZeroGravitas 2y ago
    When I used to buy Wired in its paper form, they had this thing about how "information wants to be free". Did the original author approve the work being behind a digital pay wall and get rewarded for their work, or was it some later private equity style ghoul who couldn't help but gatekeep and rent seek the duplication of bits as a middleman? If the latter then maybe we should be sad and angry.
    - wiml 2y ago
      I think you misunderstand the saying. Information wants to be free — it is naturally so cheap to copy and transmit that its marginal cost is effectively zero. That doesn't mean you want it to be free, or that WIRED wants it to be free. Like nature abhors a vacuum, or water seeks the sea, information wants to be free. Yet we still build thermoses and reservoirs.
- dTal 2y ago
  Yes, it is very much a shame for important cultural works to be accessible only to those with money. Once upon a time it was considered such a social problem that governments allocated funding to civic institutions where copyrighted material could be read entirely for free. A short and easy registration process would even grant anyone permission to physically take these works home to study at their leisure for a while. Really, it's amazing society survived...

squidgedcricket 2y ago

There's a conspiracy theory that some types of phenomena are lost in the Heaviside formulation of Maxwell's equations, but describable with the original form that used quaternions. e.g. 'scalar waves' that are used for wireless power transmission and death rays. Is anyone able to make an informed comment on that? I can barely handle the Heaviside formulation, the original quaternions are was over my head.

adrian_b 2y ago
The form with quaternions from 1873 was not really correct, because at that time Maxwell did not understand yet the difference between vectors and pseudovectors (the "imaginary" components of a quaternion are the components of a pseudovector, not of a vector). This difference was clarified in the geometric algebra of Clifford, but both Maxwell and Clifford have died about at the same time and too early, so Maxwell did not have the opportunity to correct his treatise in a new edition. I always wonder how physics could have evolved if both Maxwell and Clifford had not died in 1879. Many years later, Heaviside still did not understand the nature of vectors and pseudovectors (a.k.a. polar vectors and axial vectors, a.k.a. vectors and bivectors), so he has used extensively what he named as the "vector product", which is actually a pseudovector product, and not always in the right way. On the other hand, the original version of the Maxwell equations was in integral form, not in differential form. The integral form is applicable even when the equations of Heaviside do not exist and based on the integral form it is possible to derive forms of the equations that are valid even for bodies in movement, for which it is quite difficult to apply the Heaviside equations without obtaining erroneous results (because the Heaviside equations as normally presented in textbooks depend on additional unwritten assumptions, e.g. about the reference system, so their correct application e.g. to a motor is non-obvious). The integral form given by Maxwell is the fundamental form of the equations, while the Heaviside differential form is a derived form whose applicability has serious restrictions and its only advantage is that it is easier to write and memorize by students.
tensh 2y ago
Interesting. I can't comment on the equations, but in the (of course bullshit theory) variant I know, the "loss in translation" supposedly occurred already by Maxwell not 100% getting Faraday's experimental results.