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One practical consequence of electricity and magnetism being the same force is that a current flowing near a compass will cause it to deflect. The history of e
by 10ren 17y ago
One practical consequence of electricity and magnetism being the same force is that a current flowing near a compass will cause it to deflect.
The history of electricity and magnetism reads as a sequence of empirical observations, with explanations eventually following.
- 10ren 17y agoAlthough relativity was based on an empirical observation, Einstein is also famous for his theory predicting additional, as-yet unobserved phenomena. From researching this thread today, I learnt that a similar thing happened when Hertz discovered radio waves: they were predicted by Maxwell's theory (which was based on an observation by Faraday): > When Faraday discovered that a magnetic field can affect the polarization of light, he proposed in 1845 that light may be waves in the lines of force of electromagnetism. > [...] In 1864 James Clerk Maxwell followed up Faraday's ideas with mathematical formulas that described light as waves of electromagnetism and that implied other forms of electromagnetic waves. Maxwell's work was experimentally verified in 1888 when Heinrich Hertz, following a suggestion from George Francis Fitzgerald, discovered radio waves by directly applying Maxwell's formulas. http://www.answers.com/topic/electricity-and-magnetism http://www.answers.com/topic/electricity-and-magnetism Can you imagine how much Hertz's mind was blown when the prediction turned out to be true? I got goosebumps just typing that.