Unpublished paper, 'On the magnetic action of displacement-currents in a dielectric' by Silvanus P [Phillips] Thompson

Description

Thompson writes: 'According to Maxwell’s well-known views of electrostatic action, the variations of electric displacement which occur during the charge or discharge of a dielectric are to be regarded as equivalent to electric currents. No direct experimental proof of this point has hitherto been forthcoming The author having calculated out on the assumption of the equivalence between displacement-currents and conduction-currents, what the effect would be of the charge or discharge of a condenser upon a delicately astatised needle place near the edge of the condenser, concludes the effects would be too delicate to be measurable.'

Annotations in ink throughout.

Subject: Physics / Magnetism

Received 19 February 1889. Read 28 February 1889. Communicated by Professor G [George] Carey Foster.

Whilst the Royal Society declined to publish this paper in full, an abstract of the paper was published in volume 45 of the Proceedings of the Royal Society as 'On the magnetic action of displacement-currents in a dielectric'.

Reference number

AP/66/18

Earliest possible date

1889

Physical description

Ink on paper

Page extent

12 pages

Format

Manuscript