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Preface

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 November 2009

G. J. N. Gooday
Affiliation:
University of Leeds
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Summary

When electrification is produced by friction, or by any other known method, equal quantities of positive and negative electrification are produced … The electrification of a body is therefore a physical quantity capable of measurement … While admitting electricity, as we have now done, to the rank of a physical quantity, we must not too hastily assume that it is, or is not, a substance, or that it is, or is not, a form of energy, or that it belongs to any known category of physical quantities.

James Clerk Maxwell, Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, 1873

The first step is to measure whatever can be easily measured. This is O.K. as far as it goes. The second step is to disregard that which can't be measured or give it an arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading. The third step is to presume that what can't be measured easily isn't very important. This is blindness. The fourth step is to say that what can't easily be measured doesn't really exist. This is suicide.

Daniel Yankelovich, interview with George Goodman, c. 1973

As James Clerk Maxwell knew perhaps better than anyone else, dealing with electricity was no dull or easy matter. Like many contemporaries in industrial and academic spheres who sought to harness electricity to technological ends, he laboured extensively to comprehend its complex and occasionally shocking behaviour. Yet as Maxwell hinted early on in his famous Treatise, there was much uncertainty about what electricity actually was.

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Chapter
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The Morals of Measurement
Accuracy, Irony, and Trust in Late Victorian Electrical Practice
, pp. xiii - xxvi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2004

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  • Preface
  • G. J. N. Gooday, University of Leeds
  • Book: The Morals of Measurement
  • Online publication: 23 November 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511550690.001
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  • Preface
  • G. J. N. Gooday, University of Leeds
  • Book: The Morals of Measurement
  • Online publication: 23 November 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511550690.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Preface
  • G. J. N. Gooday, University of Leeds
  • Book: The Morals of Measurement
  • Online publication: 23 November 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511550690.001
Available formats
×