Coulomb's Visit to Portugal
A long-distance colleague of mine, Andre Assis, has for years been exploring the “forgotten history” of electricity & magnetism, studying and translating the works of Weber, as well as the early experimental evidence for our theories of E&M. I would put Andre’s work up there with Thomas Phipps Jr in the sense of clearly showing both the experimental and theoretical bases upon which modern E&M and Special Relativity are build, or NOT built, as the case may be.
Earning a PhD in science means that you learn about the philosophy of science, including the ability to understand the limitations of a particular theory, and also the comprehension that all scientific theories are limited. All. Without exception.
Our daily-usage-E&M/Relativity are no exception. The Stellar Aberration problem is probably the best known, as observations appear to directly contradict the SR predictions. Our versions of Maxwell’s equations ignore all terms describing the velocity of the field detector and include only the velocity of the field emitter. “What does that matter?” you might well sk. If you think you know the experimental and theoretical foundations of EM/SR, then I challenge you to read Phipps Jr and Assis. We were all done a great disservice in school by being lied to that EM/SR were somehow perfectly consistent theories with no problems with the experimental data.
I am not saying that our EM/SR are useless. All models are incorrect, some are useful. A Natural Philosopher is willing to ponder a theory’s assumptions and shortcomings, and seriously explore other theories that might do better in some respects. True philosophers of science also tend to be historians of science. Andre Assis is both, and is making truly admirable efforts to educate the rest of us.
He has recently released a new book, in his native Portuguese,
"Commented Translation of Coulomb's Main Works on Electricity and Magnetism" (Apeiron, Montreal)
The book is freely available in PDF format at: https://www.ifi.unicamp.br/~assis/Coulomb.pdf
The printed book can be ordered from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/198798031X
This book contains complete and commented translations, from French to Portuguese, of the main works of Charles-Augustin de Coulomb (1736-1806). They include
his French Academy prize-winning memoir of 1777 on the best manner of constructing magnetic needles,
his torsion work of 1784 and his 7 major Memoirs on electricity and magnetism read at the Academy from 1785 to 1791.
his description of his famous torsion balance and his proof plane device utilized for quantitative studies in physics.
the experimentally arrived at the law of torsion of silk threads and metal wires, at the central force between electrified bodies varying as the inverse square of their distance (known in the textbooks as Coulomb's law),
the law of force between magnetic poles also varying as the inverse square of their separation,
the law of exponential decay with which an electrified body loses charge to the support and environment (charge leakage),
the distribution of electricity at the surface of charged conducting bodies of differing sizes and shapes in several configurations of electrostatic equilibrium,
and in advanced methods of magnetization and production of artificial magnets.
Included also is his theory of magnetism based on molecular polarization.
I enjoy your writing. While mine pursues science and technology at times, yours is a much deeper and insightful approach. My POV is starting with Newton, without knowing it, humanity faced the challenge to explain what we now recognize as the four fundamental forces of nature. Each time, the "discovery" was done in the absence of the remaining unknown forces. Each one, has required the development or a refinement of mathematics. Newton withdrew to develop calculus to formulate an understanding of gravity. I think that electromagnetism brought us to embrace imaginary numbers and that is why the trailblazers fail to get the acknowledgement for their achievements including Coulomb and Maxwell for examples. The truth is as soon as you reference the √-1 a significant number of people in the conversation are lost. The strong and weak nuclear forces and their "understanding" evades all but the most commited. When time allows I am going to dig into your references. Thank you.
Michael, have you looked at any of Eric Dollard's ideas and info around electricity? Your discussion of re-examining the foundations of the science of electricity and physical fundamentals reminded me of some of the things Dollard has talked about and experimented with.