Product Description

In this book Carver Mead offers a radically new approach to the standard problems of electromagnetic theory. Motivated by the belief that the goal of scientific research should be the simplification and unification of knowledge, he describes a new way of doing electrodynamics - collective electrodynamics - that does not rely on Maxwell's equations, but rather uses the quantum nature of matter as its sole basis. Collective electrodynamics is a way of looking at how electrons interact, based on experiments that tell us about the electrons directly. (As Mead points out, Maxwell had no access to these experiments). The results Mead derives for standard electromagnetic problems are identical to those found in any text. Collective electrodynamics reveals, however, that quantities that we usually think of as being very different are, in fact, the same - that electromagnetic phenomena are simple and direct manifestations of quantum phenomena. Mead views his approach as a first step toward reformulating quantum concepts in a clear and comprehensible manner. The book is divided into five sections: magnetic interaction of steady currents; propagating waves; electromagnetic energy; radiation in free space; and electromagnetic interaction of atoms. In an engaging preface, Mead tells how his approach to electromagnetic theory was inspired by his interaction with Richard Feynman.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1497698 in Books
• Published on: 2000-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 158 pages

Customer Reviews

sensational book
This book is clearly a labor of love, and restates "familiar" electromagnetic theory in a completely unfamiliar but compellingly logical context, using superconductors. The result is extraordinary, like visiting a familiar landscape and seeing it completely differently. This book blows the cobwebs off electromagnetism, and takes up a train of thought abandoned 100 years ago about the reality of fields and particles. A book to savor for years !

An inspired updating of quantum theory
I studied Physics at A level 20 years back and kind of switched all knowledge of it off. But, having somehow started thinking about quantum theory I began to think about how something just did not seem to make sense about it - Heidenberg's uncertainity principle, Schrodingers cat, wave-particle duality, quantum jumps, things like that seemed to lead to inferences that rang bells for me, but when I dug back in the general explanation was "this stuff is weird, just take what we tell you is right". So I dug a little deeper...

As I dug deeper I found that I was not alone in my thoughts, as Einstein held similar thoughts but he was put down by Nils Bohr in a debate which set an agenda which lead, as Professor Mead puts it, led to the last 70 years of the 20th Century being the dark ages of theoretical physics. So digging a little deeper I found a transcript of an interview with Professor Carver Mead from The Spectator on a blog called Laputan Logic which was very intriguing and is probably worth reading before you buy this book as it will inspire you. It seemed that Mead was able to explain a lot of what was confusing me so I bought this book...

What this book does is start from a conceptually new starting point and reach experimentally proven conclusions without building up a lot of confusing junk along the way, as scientists over the last 70 years seem to have done by towing the line which Bohr laid down back in 1935. Much of the work here is based upon superconducting systems which are effectively quantum systems manifesting themselves at a classical level and can be observed without the usual statistical errors that have came about with past observational experiments. Whilst some of the mathematics here is a little on the hard side and is probably aimed more at physics graduates than interested idiots like me, there is enough discussion of the inferences and conclusions to make it worth working through, and I'm already moving on to some of the books recommended in the references to get an even better understanding of something which is now starting to seem more logicaland sensible.