🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Aug10.202413.10772@pollux.lu.se> magnus@thep.lu.se (Magnus Olsson) writes:

>"If you had been a contemporary of Maxwell's, would you have seen any
>practical relevance of his equations to engineering (or to medicine)?
>Woudln't you rather have said 'this is theoretical playing around with
>maths; let's do something *useful* instead'?" 

Assuming you understood Maxwell's work *and* were interested in
practical applications, I suspect you would have invented the radio
in short order.  After all, that's essentially what Hertz did when
he experimentally verified Maxwell's work.  His apparatus was
basically a radio.  Hertz, however, was interested in "pure"
science, not engineering.  The world had to wait for Marconi to give
it the "wireless telegraph."

I think the difficulty in finding practical applications for
Maxwell's equations was more cultural than anything else.  In that
culture "gentlemen" did research but would not lower themselves to
doing practical work.  Those who did the work usually had little
opportunity to learn the latest scientific advances.  Vestiges of
this cultural barrier remain even today in the very term, "pure
science," meaning the exalted pursuit of knowledge for its own sake.
Somehow if the results are useful it becomes less "pure."  As far as
I know the first top scientist to break this barrier was Ben
Franklin who demonstrated the electrical properties of lightning 
then promptly invented the lightning rod.