[Letters to Editor]

Abstract

No one has a greater admiration for Maxwell's magnificent achievements than I have, and so far from wishing to decry them, my main object has been to help to restore them to their rightful place as the greatest scientific generalization we have seen. But there has been a decided tendency to neglect them of late, and I am convinced that this has been due to the complexity of the mathematical processes associated with Maxwell's equations, which has obscured their simple physical basis and conclusions. Dr. Wilcken is to be congratulated on being able to make them easily intelligible to students, but quite recently a professor of physics at a leading London college told me frankly that he had never been able to understand Maxwell's electromagnetic theory of light, and I have found that considerable confusion exists among all with whom I have discussed it. The simplified treatment has given me a much clearer realization of the physical processes involved and has convinced me that Maxwell's conclusions were entirely sound although his equations were not completely fundamental.