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https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/
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Electromagnetism
1–6 Electromagnetism in science and technology
«The electrical forces,
enormous as they are, can also be very tiny, and we can control them
and use them in very many ways. So delicate are our instruments that
we can tell what a man is doing by the way he affects the electrons in
a thin metal rod hundreds of miles away. All we need to do is to use
the rod as an antenna for a television receiver!
From a long view of the history of mankind—seen from, say, ten
thousand years from now—there can be little doubt that the most
significant event of the 19th century will be judged as
Maxwell’s
discovery of the laws of electrodynamics. The American Civil War will
pale into provincial insignificance in comparison with this important
scientific event of the same decade.»
