Collective Electrodynamics: Quantum Foundations of Electromagnetism by Carver A. Mead (PDF)

Description

In this book Carver Mead offers a radically new approach to the standard problems of electromagnetic theory. Motivated by the belief that the goal of scientific research should be the simplification and unification of knowledge, he describes a new way of doing electrodynamics—collective electrodynamics—that does not rely on Maxwell’s equations, but rather uses the quantum nature of matter as its sole basis. Collective electrodynamics is a way of looking at how electrons interact, based on experiments that tell us about the electrons directly. (As Mead points out, Maxwell had no access to these experiments.) The results Mead derives for standard electromagnetic problems are identical to those found in any text. Collective electrodynamics reveals, however, that quantities that we usually think of as being very different are, in fact, the same—that electromagnetic phenomena are simple and direct manifestations of quantum phenomena. Mead views his approach as a first step toward reformulating quantum concepts in a clear and comprehensible manner. The book is divided into five sections: magnetic interaction of steady currents, propagating waves, electromagnetic energy, radiation in free space, and electromagnetic interaction of atoms. In an engaging preface, Mead tells how his approach to electromagnetic theory was inspired by his interaction with Richard Feynman.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: About the Author Carver A. Mead is the Gordon and Betty Moore Professor of Engineering and Applied Science, Emeritus, at the California Institute of Technology. He won the 1999 Lemelson-MIT Prize for Invention and Innovation.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐For those of us who were fascinated by Feynman’s presentation of the vector potential field A, this book is irresistable. Mead tries to build the foundations of electricity and magnetism anew, and does a fascinating job of it.There is a lot of history and historiography mixed in with this short book, but I myself find that fascinating. If you’re interested in how the currents of thought might have eddied, or where key suggestions were missed, or what from Einstein may have been underappreciated, you’ll enjoy this side of the book.All that said, this book is chewy, and does only a mild amount of hand-holding in walking through the math. This is NOT anybody’s first book of mathematical physics – but if you have enjoyed reading books by (e.g.) Feynmann, Misner/Thorne/Wheeler, Herb Kroemer, Andy Grove, Morse/Feshbach, Francon, Ichimaru, Khinchin, Papoulis, Polya, Sapriel, or Wiener, you’re part of the natural audience for this book. If you liked “The Elegant Universe” you may love this book (and find some common themes), but this book is more mathematically demanding. On the other hand this is no mere tome, and does not require more than undergraduate competence.I would have liked to see more visualization aids – some of the concepts in this formulation lend themselves very well to a visual presentation. I’m going to be rereading this book, and I’m really looking forward to expository textbooks which may follow this line of presentation.If you’re in doubt, buy this – it’s challenging, but very broad and brilliant, and is not only about electrodynamics.

⭐This is a fascinating book. Dr. Mead attempts to rethink electrodynamics, assuming that fields have no existence independent of the particles that generate them — thus, electromagnetic effects act “at a distance” along lines of zero interval in 4-space. One of the most interesting tidbits is the treatment of a “quantum transition” as the nonlinear interaction of two dipoles. It is difficult to put aside a lifetime’s training in picturing electric and magnetic fields, and I’m divided on whether the approach is really superior to the conventional method, but it’s certainly fun to think about.

⭐I hope to use this book as a reference for my writings on Medium.

⭐This book has an exciting and promising title and it starts with an interesting discussion about how Feynman and other great physicists inspired the author. One therefore starts reading with great expectations. Unfortunately these are soon gone. There is no coherent exposition of electromagnetism to be found in the book. A few specific areas are treated in an original but non-convincing way. The author conveys some scattered insights but does not produce anything useful in the way of a new and better theory of electromagnetism.I happen to agree with the author that the vector potential is an important concept which perhaps sometimes is not given the full attention it deserves in some texts, but that is about it. I cannot recommend the book as textbook on any level of education. As an historical document it might have some interest. The author says that Feynman smiled in an embarassed way when he told him that he was the reason he had gone into physics. I now understand why Feynman was embarassed: Carver Mead may be a brilliant inventor and engineer but he does not have a clue as to what one would mean by “foundations of electromagnetism” in the way Feynman would have understood these words.

⭐Wow. Lots to think about. Mead is definitely out of the mainstream but mainstream electromagnetic theory is missing something, maybe this is it. CE is definitely a different way of thinking about it and this theory suggests a better conceptual model than what is normally taught. Read it with an open mind and maybe it will spark an idea to finally explain what electromagnetic radiation really is.

⭐This is a courageous book for 2002 and a thoroughly commendable read. It takes guts to write a book like this in the present environment of widespread theoretical zealotry. The book makes an admirable attempt to reason directly from empirical phenomena of macroscopic quantum systems towards underlying principles of collective electrodynamics. In my view, the author does a great job but is handicapped somewhat by the general lack of comprehension, in our time, for this style of thinking. Mead is an outstanding example of a rare bird, a classical thinking physicist in the spirit of Lorentz, or other greats who spanned the transition from classical to quantum physics. His book is therefore very very instructive for how the new generation of physicists coming on will need to re-learn “How to think physically”. They have been taught very bad habits and now need to unlearn those. For this purpose, the book is an excellent short and entertaining tutorial on how to think scientifically. However, I fear it will date quickly. There is so very much work that can be done following this line of thought that Collective Electrodynamics is likely to become a rite-of-passage work like that of Jack Kerouac. Like “On the Road”, this book is accessible enough to teach the new generation how to think like a physicist. For that purpose alone, it is outstanding. However, as a genre, it will soon fade with what comes next. Mead has done every young physicist a great service by going in hard with this work. Future generations will thank him for it. The new quantum theory is imminent now. Hail Mead as its prophet.

⭐Professor Mead develops the most important results of electrodynamics from a simple proposition: The wave function of the electron is continuous. Only one of Maxwell’s equations appears in the book, but all of the important results that would follow from them are here. The mathematics are easy to follow, without giant leaps over important steps in derivations. The writing is clear, even excellent. It’s amazing how much one can learn from such a tiny book.

⭐what a book, it is not light reading or for those that do not like math, it is a very interesting subject one that should be thought of as a possible future.

⭐I studied Physics at A level 20 years back and kind of switched all knowledge of it off. But, having somehow started thinking about quantum theory I began to think about how something just did not seem to make sense about it – Heidenberg’s uncertainity principle, Schrodingers cat, wave-particle duality, quantum jumps, things like that seemed to lead to inferences that rang bells for me, but when I dug back in the general explanation was “this stuff is weird, just take what we tell you is right”. So I dug a little deeper…As I dug deeper I found that I was not alone in my thoughts, as Einstein held similar thoughts but he was put down by Nils Bohr in a debate which set an agenda which lead, as Professor Mead puts it, led to the last 70 years of the 20th Century being the dark ages of theoretical physics. So digging a little deeper I found a transcript of an interview with Professor Carver Mead from The Spectator on a blog called Laputan Logic which was very intriguing and is probably worth reading before you buy this book as it will inspire you. It seemed that Mead was able to explain a lot of what was confusing me so I bought this book…What this book does is start from a conceptually new starting point and reach experimentally proven conclusions without building up a lot of confusing junk along the way, as scientists over the last 70 years seem to have done by towing the line which Bohr laid down back in 1935. Much of the work here is based upon superconducting systems which are effectively quantum systems manifesting themselves at a classical level and can be observed without the usual statistical errors that have came about with past observational experiments. Whilst some of the mathematics here is a little on the hard side and is probably aimed more at physics graduates than interested idiots like me, there is enough discussion of the inferences and conclusions to make it worth working through, and I’m already moving on to some of the books recommended in the references to get an even better understanding of something which is now starting to seem more logicaland sensible.

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