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The speed calculated for electromagnetic waves, which could be predicted from experiments on charges and currents, [note 4] matches the speed of light; indeed, light is one form of electromagnetic radiation (as are X-rays, radio waves, and others). Maxwell understood the connection between electromagnetic waves and light in 1861, thereby ...
This may be the most remarkable contribution of Maxwell's work, enabling him to derive the electromagnetic wave equation in his 1865 paper A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field, showing that light is an electromagnetic wave. This lent the equations their full significance with respect to understanding the nature of the phenomena he ...
James Clerk Maxwell FRS FRSE (13 June 1831 – 5 November 1879) was a Scottish physicist and mathematician [1] who was responsible for the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, which was the first theory to describe electricity, magnetism and light as different manifestations of the same phenomenon.
The agreement of the results seems to show that light and magnetism are affections of the same substance, and that light is an electromagnetic disturbance propagated through the field according to electromagnetic laws. Maxwell's derivation of the electromagnetic wave equation has been replaced in modern physics by a much less cumbersome method ...
These experiments established that light and these waves were both a form of electromagnetic radiation obeying the Maxwell equations. [ 22 ] Hertz's directional spark transmitter (center) , a half-wave dipole antenna made of two 13 cm brass rods with spark gap at center (closeup left) powered by a Ruhmkorff coil , on focal line of a 1.2 m x 2 m ...
The electromagnetic wave equation is a second-order partial differential equation that describes the propagation of electromagnetic waves through a medium or in a vacuum. It is a three-dimensional form of the wave equation. The homogeneous form of the equation, written in terms of either the electric field E or the magnetic field B, takes the form:
Working on the problem further, Maxwell showed that the equations predict the existence of waves of oscillating electric and magnetic fields that travel through empty space at a speed that could be predicted from simple electrical experiments; using the data available at the time, Maxwell obtained a velocity of 310,740,000 m/s.
Electromagnetic waves in free space must be solutions of Maxwell's electromagnetic wave equation. Two main classes of solutions are known, namely plane waves and spherical waves. The plane waves may be viewed as the limiting case of spherical waves at a very large (ideally infinite) distance from the source.