English

Ludvig Lorenz, Electromagnetism, and the Theory of Telephone Currents

History and Philosophy of Physics 2016-06-02 v1

Abstract

Ludvig V. Lorenz (1829-1891) was Denmark's first theoretical physicist and the only one whose work attracted international attention in the second half of the nineteenth century. This paper presents a survey of Lorenz's contributions to physics with an emphasis on his work in electrodynamics and electrical science. His 1867 electrodynamic theory of light was of a theoretical and foundational nature, while his unpublished theory of telephone currents was oriented toward practical problems in long-distance telephony. Lorenz's theories are briefly compared to those of better known physicists such as H. A. Lorentz, J. C. Maxwell, and O. Heaviside.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1606.00205,
  title  = {Ludvig Lorenz, Electromagnetism, and the Theory of Telephone Currents},
  author = {Helge Kragh},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1606.00205},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

16 pages, 4 figures, International Conference on the History of Physics held at Trinity College Cambridge in September 2014