No actual measurement ... was required: Maxwell and Cavendish's null method for the inverse square law of electrostatics
No actual measurement ... was required: Maxwell and Cavendish's null method for the inverse square law of electrostatics
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DOI：
10.1016/j.shpsa.2017.05.001
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发表时间：
2017-10-01
影响因子：
1
通讯作者：
Falconer, Isobel
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Falconer, Isobel
1877年，詹姆斯·克拉克（James Clerk）麦克斯韦和他的学生唐纳德·麦卡利斯特（Donald马卡利斯特）完善了亨利·卡文迪什（Henry Cavendish）1773年的零实验，证明了带电导体内部没有电。这个无效的结果是静电平方反比定律的数学预测，卡文迪什和麦克斯韦都把这个实验当作验证这个定律。然而，麦克斯韦已经根据迈克尔法拉第的结果，表达了对该定律的绝对信念。那么，重复卡文迪什的实验对他有什么价值呢？在评估了法律是否像他声称的那样安全之后，本文探讨了它对麦克斯韦所追求的电气计划的核心重要性。它追溯了历史和概念上的重新排序，通过这种重新排序，麦克斯韦通过构建一个传统的零检验和断言该方法的上级准确性来建立该定律。麦克斯韦利用他不断发展的“方法学说”，将卡文迪什的实验确定为更广泛的无效方法类别的一员。通过这样做，他呼吁电报工程师的无效实践，将注意力从有缺陷的逻辑方法中转移出来，并试图将围绕数字映射到仪器指示的问题局部化，理由是“没有实际的测量......被要求”。(C)2017爱思唯尔有限公司版权所有
In 1877 James Clerk Maxwell and his student Donald MacAlister refined Henry Cavendish's 1773 null experiment demonstrating the absence of electricity inside a charged conductor. This null result was a mathematical prediction of the inverse square law of electrostatics, and both Cavendish and Maxwell took the experiment as verifying the law. However, Maxwell had already expressed absolute conviction in the law, based on results of Michael Faraday's. So, what was the value to him of repeating Cavendish's experiment? After assessing whether the law was as secure as he claimed, this paper explores its central importance to the electrical programme that Maxwell was pursuing. It traces the historical and conceptual re-orderings through which Maxwell established the law by constructing a tradition of null tests and asserting the superior accuracy of the method. Maxwell drew on his developing 'doctrine of method' to identify Cavendish's experiment as a member of a wider class of null methods. By doing so, he appealed to the null practices of telegraph engineers, diverted attention from the flawed logic of the method, and sought to localise issues around the mapping of numbers onto instrumental indications, on the grounds that 'no actual measurement ... was required'. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.