- #1
Nickelodeon
- 181
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The following statement came out of Wikipedia
"Maxwell's correction to Ampère's law was particularly important: In 1864 Maxwell derived the electromagnetic wave equation by linking the displacement current to the time-varying electric field that is associated with electromagnetic induction. This is described in A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field, where he commented:
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."
What I find difficult to understand is that light, or any em wave, cannot be bent or distorted by a magnetic or electric field in a vacuum.
Now, get some iron filings, sprinkle them round a magnet and get another magnet and the iron filings will change their pattern indicating that the field has been distorted. I would have thought that light being an 'electromagnetic disturbance propagating through the field according to electromagnetic laws' would be seriously effected by an adjacent magnetic or electric field.
So the question is, 'why isn't it?'
Nick
"Maxwell's correction to Ampère's law was particularly important: In 1864 Maxwell derived the electromagnetic wave equation by linking the displacement current to the time-varying electric field that is associated with electromagnetic induction. This is described in A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field, where he commented:
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."
What I find difficult to understand is that light, or any em wave, cannot be bent or distorted by a magnetic or electric field in a vacuum.
Now, get some iron filings, sprinkle them round a magnet and get another magnet and the iron filings will change their pattern indicating that the field has been distorted. I would have thought that light being an 'electromagnetic disturbance propagating through the field according to electromagnetic laws' would be seriously effected by an adjacent magnetic or electric field.
So the question is, 'why isn't it?'
Nick