Maxwell unified electricity and magnetism from "summary" of To Explain the World by Steven Weinberg
Maxwell's achievement in unifying electricity and magnetism into a single theory is one of the most remarkable accomplishments in the history of science. Prior to Maxwell, electricity and magnetism were thought of as separate phenomena, with their own distinct laws governing their behavior. Electricity was understood through the experiments of Benjamin Franklin and others, while magnetism was studied by the likes of Hans Christian Oersted and Michael Faraday. Maxwell's key insight was to recognize that electricity and magnetism were not separate but rather two sides of the same coin. He formulated a set of equations that described how electric and magnetic fields interact with each other and with charged particles. These equations not only unified electricity and magnetism but also predicted the existence of electromagnetic waves, whic...
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