Talk:Maxwell equations

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Revision as of 12:00, 17 November 2008 by imported>Paul Wormer
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 Definition Mathematical equations describing the interrelationship between electric and magnetic fields; dependence of the fields on electric charge- and current- densities. [d] [e]
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I don't see anything here about the question of magnetic monopoles. Peter Jackson 12:01, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Classically there are no magnetic monopoles, cf. first (magnetic) law and third (electric) law . Where the third law has a charge ( = monopole) on the right-hand side, the first law has zero. When you are not satisfied with the text about this point, please go ahead change it, CZ is a wiki. --Paul Wormer 14:25, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
I'm not an expert on this, & wouldn't know what answers to put in. All I can do without research is ask questions, eg did Maxwell consider the question? Peter Jackson 16:06, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
Very early on (around 1780) it was clear that cutting magnets into two pieces always gave two poles, a North pole and a South pole, so Gauss around 1830 and Maxwell around 1870 definitely knew that a magnetic monopole was never observed. As far as I know there is no deeper reason known for the non-existence than the empirical fact that it has never been observed. --Paul Wormer 17:00, 17 November 2008 (UTC)