Paper, 'On the transformation of optical wave-surfaces by homogeneous strain' by Oliver Heaviside

Description

Heaviside writes: 'All explanations of double refraction (proximate, not ultimate) rest upon the hypothesis that the medium in which it occurs is so structured as to impart eolotropy to one of the two properties, associated with potential and kinetic energy, with which the ether is endowed in order to account for the transmission of waves through it in the simplest manner. It may be elastic eolotropy, or it may be something equivalent to eolotropy as regards the density. In Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory the two properties are those connecting the electric force with the displacement, and the magnetic force with the induction, say the permittivity and the inductivity, or c and μ.'

Annotations in pencil and ink.

Subject: Physics / Optics

Received 20 December 1893. Read 18 January 1894.

A version of this paper was published in volume 55 of the Proceedings of the Royal Society as 'On the transformation of optical wave-surfaces by homogeneous strain'.

Reference number

PP/23/3

Earliest possible date

1893

Physical description

Ink and graphite pencil on paper

Page extent

16 pages

Format

Manuscript