Quantum Living - Part Three - Energy Fields

MAXWELL'S ENERGY VIEW

James Clerk Maxwell chiselled some of the first few cracks in the Newtonian picture of things.

Maxwell formed the first theories which dealt with intangible energy in the form of electro-magnetism. Prior to Maxwell's equations, the relationships between electricity, magnetism and motion were essentially Newtonian, in the sense that such relationships were simple proportional statements (E or V = I x R, for example) which maintained the clear determinism which served as the only acceptable model for thought. Probability thinking had not yet arrived on the scene.

The simple relationships developed for electro-magnetism by Ampere, Volta, and Faraday were all designed to relate the motion of magnets near wires with the currents and voltages measured as a result, and their inverse in terms of motor activity. Voltage, current, power, resistance, all were tested and noted. None violated the basic Newtonian paradigm, except possibly for the fact that invisible energies were being dealt with.

There evolved a 'billiard ball' view of the material world, regarding matter as made up tiny balls which became known as protons, neutrons, electrons - all the building blocks of matter. Heat could be explained as the result of these 'balls' in rapid motion.

Radio transmission, however, was another matter. Once electro-magnetism became detached from magnets, wires, and moving coils, it leapt into another, more bizarre world. A new sort of thought process was called for. To paraphrase Einstein's later comments, "No problem is ever solved from the level of thought that created it."

Maxwell's equations covering radio transmission required a new brand of mathematics, and as calculus came into use, it revolutionized the world of mechanical behaviour as well. In conceptual terms, the work of Maxwell, and certainly others, opened the door to a movement away from the straightforward and simpler Newtonian physics. Maxwell created a new mathematics which dealt with invisible fields operating through empty space, but in some way still linked to those imaginary billiard balls of matter.

Maxwell's work also was a gateway to the electrical and electronic revolution, ultimately bringing us radio, television, telephony, and the computer. This revolution is still going on today, while the mechanical one of Newton has paled into a sort of routine sameness, with the odd minor discovery here and there. How strange that the electronic and communications transformation stems from a relatively minor paradigm shift, not radical at all compared with the shift that still must come!