Faraday to William Whewell   3 February 1857

My dear Dr. Whewell

The following are references1.

Thomson - On Poissons2 Magnecrystallic views - Phil. Mag. March 1851, page 1773. Perhaps Thomson has something more about the matter in 1854, Comptes Rendus xxxviii pp. 632. 6374.

As to lines of Magnetic force you will find the test experiments described at p 28 of the accompanying paper Par 3351 &c. of Exp Res5.

Van Rees6 has a mathematical paper in Poggendorfs Annalen 1853, vol xc p 4157, - he is opposed to my views but says they give the same mathematical results8 as the views of Ampere9 or Coulomb10 or Weber11[.]

Thomson says that the lines represent truly the Magnetic forces & even more simply than the representative idea of Coulomb Phil Mag 1854, viii. p 5312

Another paper besides that on some points has turned up - I send it because pp. 4.5.6.7 has reference to what we said about Gravity[.]

Ever faithfully Yours | M. Faraday

Royal Institution | London W | 3 Feby 1857.

1
Which Whewell presumably needed while preparing Whewell (1857), especially 3: 521-35.
2
Siméon-Denis Poisson (1781-1840, DSB). French mathematical physicist.
3
Thomson (1851).
4
Thomson (1854b).
5
Faraday (1855b), ERE[29b], 3351-62.
6
Richard van Rees (1797-1875, BNB). Professor of Mathematics and Physics at the University of Utrecht, 1838-1867.
7
Rees (1853).
8
Ibid., 433.
9
André-Marie Ampère (1775-1836, DSB). French physicist.
10
Charles Augustin Coulomb (1736-1806, DSB). French physicist.
11
Wilhelm Eduard Weber (1804-1891, DSB). German physicist.
12
Thomson (1854a), 53.

Bibliography

FARADAY, Michael (1855b): “On some Points of Magnetic Philosophy”, Phil. Mag., 9: 81-113.

REES, Richard van (1853): “Ueber die Faraday’sche Theorie der magnetischen Kraftlinien”, Pogg. Ann., 90: 415-36.

THOMSON, William (1851): “On the Theory of Magnetic Induction in Crystalline and Non-crystalline Substances”, Phil. Mag., 1: 177-86.

THOMSON, William (1854a): “On the Mathematical Theory of Electricity in Equilibrium”, Phil. Mag., 8: 42-62.

THOMSON, William (1854b): “Remarques sur les oscillations d’aiguilles non cristallisées de faible pouvoir inductif paramagnétique ou diamagnétique, et sur d’autres phénomènes magnétiques produits par des corps cristallisés ou non cristallisés”, Comptes Rendus, 38: 632-40.

WHEWELL, William (1857): History of the Inductive Sciences, from the Earliest to the Present Time, 3rd edition, 3 volumes, London.

Please cite as “Faraday3231,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 29 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday3231