Considered by many educators one of the finest elementary scientific treatises ever written, this work contains all of the characteristic freshness and elegance of Maxwell's writings and gives illuminating glimpses of a great mind's approach to fundamental subjects. After 115 years, Matter and Motion still retains its power of suggestion; it deserves a place in any well-rounded modern scientific library.
As drawn up by one of the masters of science, the book is a carefully thought-out survey of Newtonian dynamics. Its generalizations proceed gradually from simple particles of matter to physical systems beyond complete analysis.
In this edition, the treatment of the fundamental principles of dynamics has been enlarged along the author's own lines by the inclusion of the chapter On the Equations of Motion of a Connected System, from Volume II of Electricity and Magnetism. Two apprendices have been added by the editor, one dealing with the principles of the relativity of motion and the other with the wider aspects of the principle of least action.
About the Author: James Clerk Maxwell: In His Own Words -- And Others
Dover reprinted Maxwell's Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism in 1954, surely one of the first classics of scientific literature over a thousand pages in length to be given new life and accessibility to students and researchers as a result of the paperback revolution of the 1950s. Matter and Motion followed in 1991 and Theory of Heat in 2001.
Some towering figures in science have to speak for themselves. Such is James Clerk Maxwell (1813-1879), the Scottish physicist and mathematician who formulated the basic equations of classical electromagnetic theory.
In the Author's Own Words:
We may find illustrations of the highest doctrines of science in games and gymnastics, in traveling by land and by water, in storms of the air and of the sea, and wherever there is matter in motion.
The 2nd law of thermodynamics has the same degree of truth as the statement that if you throw a tumblerful of water into the sea, you cannot get the same tumblerful of water out again. -- James Clerk Maxwell
Critical Acclaim for James Clerk Maxwell:
From a long view of the history of mankind -- seen from, say, ten thousand years from now -- there can be little doubt that the most significant event of the 19th century will be judged as Maxwell's discovery of the laws of electrodynamics. The American Civil War will pale into provincial insignificance in comparison with this important scientific event of the same decade. -- Richard P. Feynman
Maxwell's equations have had a greater impact on human history than any ten presidents. -- Carl Sagan
