On: Why is Maxwell's theory so hard to understand? (2007) [pdf]

[tim333]

Spoken language has a lot going for it. I note the featured article and it's discussion are all words not maths.

By the way looking at Maxwell's paper it seems awful complicated https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rstl.1865...

compared to the modern form of the equations https://ethw.org/w/images/d/d6/Maxwell_image_02.jpg

[GregBuchholz → tim333]

>compared to the modern form of the equations

Are the Geometric Algebra...

    ∇F = μ₀cJ

..and Differential Form...

    dF = 0
    d⋆F = J

...equivalents post-modern?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_descriptions_of_t...

[Gibbon1 → tim333]

Heaviside thought that too which is why he invented the modern form. Not that he just used a different set of math to describe the problem, he invented the math too.

[ncmncm → tim333]

The modern form of the equations was worked out by commoners, so had to be filtered through the work of others before it could be taught.

[scabarott → ncmncm]

You're really caught up on this commoner/non-commoner dynamic (from your other comments). Was it really that important? - many of the well known scientists of that time were 'commoners'.

[ncmncm → scabarott]

I'm not, but they were. But it was not discussed openly in print at the time, and so must be inferred.

[tim333 → ncmncm]

I just read his Wikipedia and he was sponsored by his uncle Sir Charles Wheatstone of Wheatstone bridge fame and ended up a Fellow of the Royal Society so was not so badly situated.