An Introduction to the Mathematical Theory of Electricity and Magnetism

Abstract

THE want of a text-book especially designed for the use of candidates for examinations in which a knowledge of the more elementary portions of the mathematical theory of electricity and magnetism is demanded has been felt for some time. Though the absence of such a book has caused some inconvenience, we are not at all sure that it has been detrimental to the study of electricity, for hitherto the candidate for a mathematical examination in electricity has been compelled to learn the subject from books such as those of Maxwell, or of Mascart and Joubert, in which electricity is treated as what it really is outside the examination-room—a subject in which mathematics and experiment are closely mixed and mutually helpful: it is to this that, we think, is to be ascribed a good deal of that interest which electricity, above all other subjects, seems to excite in its students. When, however, the analytical parts of the subject are divorced from the experimental, we do not believe they will be found to excite any special enthusiasm, or that the result will be much more interesting than an ordinary text-book for the Mathematical Tripos on, say, hydrostatics.

An Introduction to the Mathematical Theory of Electricity and Magnetism.

By W. T. A. Emtage (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1891.)