The Maxwellians
Book by Bruce J. Hunt
The Maxwellians is a book by Bruce J. Hunt, published in 1991 by Cornell University Press; a paperback edition appeared in 1994, and the book was reissued in 2005. A Portuguese translation, under the title Os Seguidores de Maxwell, was published by Editora Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, in 2015. The book chronicles the development of electromagnetic theory in the years after the publication of A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism by James Clerk Maxwell. The book draws heavily on the correspondence and notebooks as well as the published writings of George Francis FitzGerald, Oliver Lodge, Oliver Heaviside, Heinrich Hertz, and Joseph Larmor.
Hunt previously won the Nathan Reingold Prize (then known as the Schuman Prize) for his essay "Theory invades practice: the British response to Hertz" in 1980.
Contents
The book has nine chapters; their titles and section headings are:
FitzGerald and Maxwell's Theory
FitzGerald and the Dublin School, Maxwell's Theory, Reflection and Refraction, FitzGerald's Accomplishment.
FitzGerald, Lodge, and Electromagnetic Waves
Oliver Lodge, Maxwell and Electromagnetic Waves, Lodge and "Electromagnetic Light", FitzGerald and "The Impossibility . . .", The Undetected Waves.
Heaviside the Telegrapher
Oliver Heaviside, Cable Empire, At Newcastle, Cables and Field Theory, Heaviside on Propagation, Turning to Maxwell.
Ether Models and the Vortex Sponge
Models, Wheels and Bands, Charging Displacement, "We Find Ourselves in a Factory", The Vortex Sponge, "Mathematical Machinery".
The public source identifies “The Maxwellians” as book by Bruce J. Hunt. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Maxwellians, Book and Bruce.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q19902710. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1991, 1994, 2005 and 2015.
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