XI. On the forces, stresses, and fluxes of energy in the electromagnetic field

Abstract

1. The remarkable experimental work of late years has inaugurated a new era in the development of the Faraday-Maxwellian theory of the ether, considered as the primary medium concerned in electrical phenomena—electric, magnetic, and electromagnetic. Maxwell’s theory is no longer entirely a paper theory, bristling with unproved possibilities. The reality of electromagnetic waves has been thoroughly demonstrated by the experiments of Hertz and Lodge, Fitzgerald and Trouton, J. J. Thomson, and others; and it appears to follow that, although Maxwell’s theory may not be fully correct, even as regards the ether (as it is certainly not fully comprehensive as regards material bodies), yet the true theory must be one of the same type, and may probably be merely an extended form of Maxwell’s. No excuse is therefore now needed for investigations tending to exhibit and elucidate this theory, or to extend it, even though they be of a very abstract nature. Every part of so important a theory deserves to be thoroughly examined, if only to see what is in it, and to take note of its unintelligible parts, with a view to their future explanation or elimination.