Gérard's “Électricité”

Abstract

THE author of this book says in his preface that when he took charge of the classes in electric technology at Liége he felt the want of a text-book which would give a clear and definite account of electrical phenomena without requiring more extensive mathematical knowledge than his pupils might be expected to possess. We think that in this respect the experience of most teachers of electricity will coincide with that of M. Gérard. There are very few text-books on electricity in which the happy mean between utter vagueness and methods requiring the use of high mathematical knowledge has been hit; this, however, has been done so successfully in the book before us, that we think the difficulty to which we have just alluded will be almost removed. In this book we have the main outlines of electricity explained in language at once intelligible and precise, and without introducing more mathematics than every student of the subject ought to be competent to follow. In a subject like electricity, where forces have to be compared, the geometrical properties of bodies of various shapes utilized, &c., it is evident that if any numerical results at all are to be attained, some mathematics must be introduced; the question as to how much mathematical knowledge should be expected of students who, as a working hypothesis, may be assumed not to have any special aptitude for that study is one on which opinions will differ. For our part, we think that, even regarding it solely from the point of view of the engineer or physicist, such students ought to be advised to acquire an elementary knowledge of the differential and integral calculus; the possession of this knowledge will make many parts of the subject easy which without it would be difficult, and the time spent in acquiring the mathematics will be much more than saved in the time spent over the physics. In the book before us the mathematics are as plain and straightforward as possible. At the same time, M. Gérard, very wisely we think, does not scruple to use the elements of the differential and integral calculus.

Leçons sur l'Électricité professées à l'Institut Électrotechnique Montefiore annexé à l'Université de Liége.

Par Eric Gérard, Directeur de cet Institut. (Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1890.)