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Full Idea
Faradays' measurements predicted the speed of electro-magnetic waves, which happened to be the speed of light, so Maxwell made an inspired leap: light is an electromagnetic wave!
Gist of Idea
Electro-magnetic waves travel at light speed - so light is electromagnetism!
Source
Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 3 'Light!')
Book Ref
Close,Frank: 'Theories of Everything' [Profile Books 2017], p.39
A Reaction
Put that way, it doesn't sound like an 'inspired' leap, because travelling at exactly the same speed seems a pretty good indication that they are the same sort of thing. (But I'm not denying that Maxwell was a special guy!)
| 20627 | Electric fields have four basic laws (two by Gauss, one by Ampère, one by Faraday) [Close] |
| 20630 | Light isn't just emitted in quanta called photons - light is photons [Close] |
| 20629 | Electro-magnetic waves travel at light speed - so light is electromagnetism! [Close] |
| 20632 | In QED, electro-magnetism exists in quantum states, emitting and absorbing electrons [Close] |
| 20637 | In general relativity the energy and momentum of photons subjects them to gravity [Close] |
| 20642 | Photon exchange drives the electro-magnetic force [Close] |
| 20649 | The interference of light through two slits confirmed that it is waves [Watson] |
| 21209 | Electron emit and reabsorb photons, which create and reabsorb virtual electrons and positrons [Martin,BR] |
| 19478 | Light moves at a constant space-time speed, but its direction is in neither space nor time [New Sci.] |
| 21155 | Photons have zero rest mass, so virtual photons have infinite range [New Sci.] |
| 21147 | Quantum electrodynamics incorporates special relativity and quantum mechanics [New Sci.] |
| 21191 | Photons are B and W° bosons, linked by the Higgs mechanism [Hesketh] |
| 21199 | Spinning electric charge produces magnetism, so all fermions are magnets [Hesketh] |