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Just Chat! / Re: What to do if your question is too long to fit in the title bar?
« on: Today at 14:25:28 »
A classical interpretation of em propagation requires a medium, Maxwell doesn't.
You can't label it as Newtonian physics since Newton's hypothesis was "corpuscular" - remarkably close to our photon model - and doesn't need a medium. Problem is that it doesn't predict interference, including "Newton's Rings" (!) but his corpuscles did travel in straight lines at a constant speed.
The joy of Maxwell is that c depends only on μ and ε, so in the absence of a medium, it is a constant and hence a reasonable starting point for Einstein.
You can't label it as Newtonian physics since Newton's hypothesis was "corpuscular" - remarkably close to our photon model - and doesn't need a medium. Problem is that it doesn't predict interference, including "Newton's Rings" (!) but his corpuscles did travel in straight lines at a constant speed.
The joy of Maxwell is that c depends only on μ and ε, so in the absence of a medium, it is a constant and hence a reasonable starting point for Einstein.
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