OBSOLETE. Instead please use http://amasci.com/miscon/maxwell.html SCIENTISTS' QUOTES REGARDING "ELECTRICITY" AND ENERGY 1999 W. Beaty http://amasci.com/miscon/maxwell.txt During my original research about "electricity" back in 1988, I found an excellent quote from James Clerk Maxwell stating specifically that electricity is not a form of energy. This is from A TREATISE ON ELECTRICITY AND MAGNETISM, 1891: Part I, ELECTROSTATICS, Chapter I DESCRIPTION OF PHENOMENA Conductors and Insulators "35] While admitting electricity, as we have now done, to the rank of a physical quantitity, we must not too hastily assume that it is, or is not, a substance, or that it is, or is not, a form of energy, or that it belongs to any known catagory of physical quantities. All that we have hitherto proved is that it cannot be created or annihilated, so that if the total quantity of electricity within a closed surface is increased or diminished, the increase or diminution must have passed in or out through the closed surface.""There is, however, another reason which warrants us in asserting that electricity, as a physical quantity synonymous with the total electrification of a body, is not, like heat, a form of energy. An electrified system has a certain amount of energy, and this energy can be calculated by multiplying the quantity of electricity in each of its parts by another physical quantity, called the Potential of that part, and taking half the sum of the products. The quantities 'Electricity' and 'Potential', when multiplied together, product the quantity 'Energy.' It is impossible, therefore, that electricity and energy should be quantities of the same category, for electricity is only one of the factors of energy, the other factor being 'Potential.' " ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Maxwell goes on to point out that *force* is not energy, because energy equals force times distance. And *mass* is not energy because potential energy equals mass times height. So even though Maxwell was writing in 1891, and even though electricity still contained many mysteries, science HAD progressed far enough to realize that electricity was not a form of energy. What is "electricity"? Of course Maxwell defines all of his terminology elsewhere in the document. It is clear from the following that Maxwell defines the word "electricity" to mean "electric charge"... CHAPTER II Elementary Mathematical Theory of Statical Electricity Definition of Electricity as a Mathematical Quantity 63.] "We have seen that the properties of charged bodies are such that the charge of one body may be equal to that of another, or to the sum of the charges of two bodies, and that when two bodies are equally and oppositely charged they have no electrical effect on external bodies when placed together within a closed insulated conducting vessel. We may express all these results in a concise and consistent manner by describing an electrified body as "charged" with a certain "quantity of electrcity" which we may denote by "e." ------------------------------------------------------------------------- OK, what about J. J. Thompson, the discoverer of the electron? As we see below, he defined "electricity" as charge... and charge is not energy: "As the cathode rays carry a charge of negative electricity, are deflected by an electrostatic force as if they were negatively electrified, and are acted on by a magnetic force in just the way in which this force would act on a negatively electrified body moving along the path of these rays, I can see no escape from the conclusion that they are charges of negative electricity carried by particles of matter." - J. Thompson, Phil. Mag, 44, 293 (1897) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- How about Robert Millikan, the physicist who determined the electron's charge? He is yet another example of an expert who uses the word "electricity" to mean charge rather than electromagnetic energy: "...Faraday found that the passage of a given quantity of electricity through a solution containing a compound of hydrogen, for example, would always cause the appearance at the negative terminal of the same amount of hydrogen gas irrespective of the kind of hydrogen compound which had been dissolved, and irrespective also of the strength of the solution; that, further, the quantity of electricity required to cause the appearance of one gram of hydroben would always deposit from a solution containing silver, exactly 107.1 grams of silver. This meant, since the weight of the silver atom is exactly 107.1 times the weight of the hydrogen atom, that the hydrogen atom and the silver atom are associated in the solution with exactly the same quantity of electricity." R. A. Millikan, THE ELECTRON, 1917 p15 Throughout "THE ELECTRON" and also in his Autobiography, Millikan repeatedly uses the word "Electricity" to mean electric charge rather than EM energy. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- And Michael Faraday himself? In his book "Experimental Researchers in ELectricty" from 1839, Faraday investigates the nature of electricity and frequently uses the term "quantity of electricity" to refer to quantities of electric charge rather than quantities of energy. As in Millikan's quote above, Faraday passes a certain "quantity of electricity" through an electrolysis apparatus to create a distinct amount of gas or electroplating. In addition he investigates "static" from electrostatic generators and "current" from batteries and moving coils, and he concludes all of the various "kinds" of electricity do not exist: instead there is only one kind, but the values of current and charge can differ in different situations. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you're swayed by authorities, then listen to Albert Einstein, from his 1938 book Evolution of Physics: "The electric fluid flowing through the wire is the negative one, directed, therefore, from lower to higher potential... The next important question is whether the structure of this negative fluid is "granular," whether or not it is composed of electric quanta. Again a number of independent experiments show that there is no doubt as to the existence of an elementary quantum of negative electricity. The negative electric fluid is constructed of grains, just as the beach is composed of grains of sand, or a house built of bricks. This result was forumlated most clearly by J. J. Thomson, about forty years ato. The elementary quanty of negative electricity are called *electrons.*" - Einstein/Infeld, EVOLUTION OF PHYSICS 1938, p 253 So Einstein believes that electricity is charge rather than electromagnetic energy, Coulombs rather than Joules. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- And how about the "ultimate authority" in physics? It's the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics! (Heh. Well, most physicists rely on it as the ultimate authority.) What does the CRC Handbook say about the quantity called "electricity?" Is it EM energy measured in Joules, or is it charges measured in Coulombs? The CRC defines "Quantity of Electricity..." as Coulombs.