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Assumptions made when deriving the speed of light
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[QUOTE="jedishrfu, post: 6023912, member: 376845"] Every physical theory must have some assumptions that pin the theory to the real world. My feeling is that it is reasonable to say that there is no net charge or displacement currents in space, since space is considered empty (in an idealized sense) and without any charge present there can be no displacement currents. However, in Maxwell's time, these assumptions were much harder to accept since there was an understanding that waves traveled through a medium and that the medium being physical might have these properties of charge and displacement current. Now of course we know that space is empty. In making these assumptions (a special case to test), we discover waves whose speed matches that of light and then make the jump to light being an electromagnetic phenomena. Here's a discussion of the derivation that explains some of the reasoning: [URL]http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/classes/109N/more_stuff/Maxwell_Eq.html[/URL] While searching on this question, I ran into this presentation of Maxwell's equations that you might find interesting: [URL]https://web.ewu.edu/groups/technology/Claudio/ee209/f09/Lectures/physics.pdf[/URL] [/QUOTE]
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Assumptions made when deriving the speed of light
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