User:Reuqr/Not Joules-Bernoulli

Removing the claim that the Lorentz transformation of the fields is "also called the Joules-Bernoulli equation"

This claim was first added on 27 March 2010‎ by '186.136.83.209', in other words, a user without an account. The addition of that claim was the only change made in that edit, and it was provided without any references. All this—an anonymous user; this being the only change; no references—is already suspicious. Since then, no one has added any references for this claim. Indeed, there is little doubt that the claim is, in fact, false. This is for several reasons.

History of the development of the Lorent transformations doesn't record significant contributions of anyone named either Bernoulli, or Joules, or Joule

As a first step, if you check the Wikipedia article on the history of Lorentz transformations, you will notice that there is no mention of anyone by the name of Bernoulli, Joules, or Joule.

Wikipedia, of course, should not be the last place one looks, so let's look at Arthur I. Miller's Albert Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity: Emergence (1905) and Early Interpretation (1905-1911) (readable for free here, at the Internet Archive, provided you go through a free sign-up). The book begins by describing developments of the late 19th century. It has a rich cast of characters that includes Fresnel, Airy, Arago, Bestelmeyer, Föppl, Boltzmann, Voigt, von Laue, Mach, Born, Brace, Varićak, Kaufmann, Abraham, Heaviside, Thomson, Searle, Larmor, Bucherer, Wien, Cohn, Gans, and many others (including, of course, Maxwell, Hertz, Lorentz, Poincaré, and Einstein). But what the book doesn't mention at all is anyone named Bernoulli, Joules, or Joule.

Even the most recent well-known scientist or mathematician named Bernoulli died much too early to have been involved

Again, let's start (but not end) with Wikipedia. If you look at the list of people named Bernoulli, you will notice that the last famous person so named, and who was a scientist or a mathematician, died in 1807, way before Maxwell's equations or Lorentz transformations were discovered.

To confirm, we can look at the Dictionary of Scientific Biography. It is available online, but behind a paywall. I have access to it, and I searched for the keyword "Bernoulli." It returned the same eight Bernoullis that Wikipedia lists:

Bernoulli, Johann (Jean) I (b. Basel, Switzerland, 6 August 1667; d. Basel, 1 January 1748) mathematics
Bernoulli, Johann (Jean) II (b. Basel, Switzerland, 28 May 1710; d. Basel, 17 July 1790) mathematics.
Bernoulli, Johann (Jean) III (b, Basel, Switzerland, 4 November 1744; d. Berlin, Germany, 13 July 1807) mathematics, astronomy.

Bernoulli, Daniel (b. Groningen, Netherlands, 8 February 1700; d. Basel. Switzerland, 1 March 1782) medicine, mathematics, physics.

Bernoulli, Jakob (Jacob, Jacques, James) I (b. Basel, Switzerland, 27 December 1654; d. Basel, 16 August 1705) mathematics, mechanics, astronomy.
Bernoulli, Jakob (Jacques) II (b. Basel, Switzerland, 17 October 1759; d. St. Petersburg, Russia, 15 August 1789) mathematics.

Bernoulli, Nikolaus I (b. Basel, Switzerland, 21 October 1687; d. Basel, 29 November 1759) mathematics.
Bernoulli, Nikolaus II (b. Basel. Switzerland, 6 February 1695; d. St Petersburg. Russia, 31 July 1726) mathematics.

We see that the most recent one was Johann III, who died in 1807. That was much too early to have been involved in the development of the Lorentz transformations of the electric and magnetic fields.

No well-known scientist was named Joules

This is confirmed by the fact that 1. there is simply no person so named with a Wikipedia article, and 2. searching for Joules in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography returns no hits.

No one named Joule was involved

Wikipedia has pages for two people named Joule: the famous James Prescott Joule, and John Joule, a still-living chemist. A search in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography only returns the former. John Joule was born way too late (got his PhD in 1961) and is active in much too unrelated a field (heterocyclic chemistry) to have had any chance to significantly contribute to the development of the Lorentz transformations. James Prescott Joule, on the other hand, was alive at about the right time (died in 1889) to be able to contribute to the beginnings of the development of the Lorentz transformations. However, the fact is that he didn't; the articles about him on Wikipedia and in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography make no mention of any activity relevant to the development of the Lorentz transformations of the electric and magnetic fields.

No textbook (including the best-known ones) on electromagnetism mentions anything called either the "Joules-Bernoulli equation" or the "Joule-Bernoulli equation" (or any permutation thereof)

Author	Title	Year	Units	Publication	Reception and use
Richard P. Feynman	The Feynman Lectures on Physics (volume 2 and parts of volume 1)	1963	SI	Addison-Wesley	ref
Edward Mills Purcell	Electricity and Magnetism	1985 (2nd ed.)	Gaussian	McGraw-Hill	ref

I have checked the following textbooks—all of which treat the Lorentz transformations of the electric and magnetic field—to see if any of them mention anything called the "Joules-Bernoulli equation" or the "Joule-Bernoulli equation." In fact, I looked at whether they mention "Bernoulli," and if so in what context, and then whether they mention "Joules" or "Joule". In each book, I also checked the text surrounding the equations for the Lorentz transformations of the $\mathbf {E}$ and $\mathbf {B}$ fields.

Jackson, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd eds.; Landau and Lifshitz vols. 2 and 8; Stratton; Purcell 1st, 2nd, and (with Morin) 3rd eds.; Griffiths; Feynman (Leighton, and Sands); Vanderlinde; Chow; Grant and Phillips; Garg; Fetter; Smythe; Jeans 1st and 5th eds.; Greiner; Lorrain, Corson, and Lorrain; Lorrain and Corson; Dávalos and Zanette; Davidson; Nayfeh and Brussel; Pollack and Stump; Heald and Marion; Schwichtenberg; Zangwill; Schwartz; Slater and Frank; Barut; Schwinger, DeRaad, Milton, and Tsai; Wegner; Chaichian, Merches, Radu, and Tureanu; Land and Horwitz; Panofsky and Phillips; Jentschura; Demtröder; Leble; Bhattacharya and Mukhopadhyay; Wangsness; Wen; Lechner; Likharev; Melia; Müller-Kirsten; Brau; Reitz and Milford 1st, 2nd; (with Christy) 3rd, and 4th eds.; Rosser; Matveev (E&M); Matveev (Princ. Electrodyn.); Fujimoto; Fitzpatrick; Chattopadhyay and Rakshit; Walecka; Duffin; Rosser; Kogut; Hammond; Toptygin; Van Bladel; Franklin (Solved Prob. Class. Electromagn.); Pierrus; Cottingham and Greenwood; Shadowitz; Becker; Grandy; Kovetz (Princ. Electromag. Theo.); Kovetz (Electromag. Theo.); Eyges; Wald; Stupakov and Penn; Biggs; Wang; Franklin (Class. Electromagn.); Helrich; Macchi, Moruzzi, and Pegoraro; Low; Baldassare; Dobbs; Pramanik; Novozhilov and Yappa; Ohanian; Sommerfeld; Raychaudhuri; Mahajan and Choudhury; Barnes; []; []; []; []; []; []; []; [];

Jackson, Classical Electrodynamics, 1st (1962), 2nd (1975), and 3rd (1999) editions
Landau and Lifshitz, The Classical Theory of Fields (Course of Theoretical Physics, Volume 2), Fourth Revised English Edition (1975)
Landau and Lifshitz, Electrodynamics of Continuous Media (Course of Theoretical Physics, Volume 8), Second Edition revised and enlarged (1984)
Stratton, Electromagnetic Theory (2007)
Purcell (and, in 3rd ed., Morin), Electricity and Magnetism (Berkeley Physics Course, Vol. II), 1st (1965), 2nd (1985), and 3rd (2013) editions
Griffiths, Introduction to Electrodynamics, 4th edition (2013)
Feynman, Leighton, and Sands, The Feynman Lectures on Physics. Volume II, Mainly Electromagnetism and Matter (1964)
Vanderlinde, Classical Electromagnetic Theory, Second Edition (2005)
Chow, Introduction to Electromagnetic Theory: A Modern Perspective (2006); this is the reference given for that section (now as well as back in 2010)
Grant and Phillips, Electromagnetism, 2nd edition (1990)
Garg, Classical electromagnetism in a nutshell (2012)
Fetter, Classical Electromagnetism (1999)
Smythe, Static and dynamic electricity, Third Edition, Revised Printing (1989)
Jeans, The Mathematical Theory of Electricity and Magnetism, both 1st (1908) and 5th (1927) editions
Greiner, Classical electrodynamics (1998)
Lorrain, Corson, and Lorrain, Electromagnetic Fields and Waves, Including Electric Circuits (1988)
Lorrain and Corson, Electromagnetism: Principles and Applications (1979)
Dávalos and Zanette, Fundamentals of electromagnetism: Vacuum electrodynamics, media, and relativity (1999)
Davidson, An Introduction to Electrodynamics (2019)
Nayfeh and Brussel, Electricity and Magnetism (1985)
Pollack and Stump, Electromagnetism (2002)
Heald and Marion, Classical Electromagnetic Radiation, 3rd ed. (1995)
Schwichtenberg, No-Nonsense Electrodynamics: A Student Friendly Introduction (2020)
Zangwill, Modern Electrodynamics (2013)
Schwartz, Principles of Electrodynamics (1987)
Slater and Frank, Electromagnetism, First Edition, Second Impression (1947)
Barut, Electrodynamics and Classical Theory of Fields and Particles (1980)
Schwinger, DeRaad, Milton, and Tsai, Classical electrodynamics (1998)
Wegner, Classical Electrodynamics (manuscript) (2003)
Chaichian, Merches, Radu, and Tureanu, Electrodynamics: an intensive course (2016)
Land and Horwitz, Relativistic Classical Mechanics and Electrodynamics (2019)
Panofsky and Phillips, Classical Electricity and Magnetism, 2nd ed. (1962)
Jentschura, Advanced classical electrodynamics: Green functions, regularizations, multipole decompositions (2017)
Demtröder, Electrodynamics and Optics (2019)
Leble, Practical Electrodynamics with Advanced Applications (2020)
Bhattacharya and Mukhopadhyay, Introduction to Advanced Electrodynamics (2021)
Wangsness, Electromagnetic Fields, 2nd ed. (1986)
Wen, Foundations of Applied Electrodynamics (2010)
Lechner, Classical Electrodynamics: A Modern Perspective (2018)
Likharev, Part EM: Classical Electrodynamics (Essential Graduate Physics) (2013)
Melia, Electrodynamics (2001)
Müller-Kirsten, Electrodynamics: An Introduction Including Quantum Effects (2004)
Brau, Modern Problems in Classical Electrodynamics (2004)
Reitz and Milford (and, in 4th ed., Christy), Foundations of Electromagnetic Theory, 1st (1960) and 4th (2009) editions
Rosser, Interpretation of Classical Electromagnetism (1997)
Matveev, Electricity and Magnetism (1986)
Matveev, The Principles Of Electrodynamics (1966)
Fujimoto, Physics of Classical Electromagnetism (2007)
Fitzpatrick, Classical Electromagnetism: An intermediate level course (2015) (course notes)
Chattopadhyay and Rakshit, Electricity and magnetism: with electromagnetic theory and special theory of relativity, 4th ed. (2000)
Walecka, Introduction to Electricity and Magnetism (2018)
Duffin, Electricity and Magnetism, 4th ed. (1990)
Rosser, Classical Electromagnetism via Relativity: An Alternative Approach to Maxwell's Equations (1968)
Kogut, Special Relativity, Electrodynamics, and General Relativity: From Newton to Einstein, 2nd ed. (2018)
Hammond, Applied Electromagnetism (1971)
Toptygin, Foundations of Classical and Quantum Electrodynamics (2014)
Van Bladel, Electromagnetic Fields, 2nd ed. (2007)
Franklin, Solved Problems in Classical Electromagnetism (2018)
Pierrus, Solved Problems in Classical Electromagnetism: Analytical and numerical solutions with comments (2018)
Cottingham and Greenwood, Electricity and Magnetism (1991)
Shadowitz, The Electromagnetic Field (2010)
Becker, Electromagnetic Fields and Interactions (1964, reissued 2012)
Grandy, Introduction to Electrodynamics and Radiation (1970)
Kovetz, The principles of electromagnetic theory (1990)
Kovetz, Electromagnetic Theory (2000)
Eyges, The Classical Electromagnetic Field (2010)
Wald, Advanced Classical Electromagnetism (2022)
Stupakov and Penn, Classical Mechanics and Electromagnetism in Accelerator Physics (2018)
Biggs, The Electromagnetic Field (1934)
Wang, Mathematical Principles of Mechanics and Electromagnetism: Part B: Electromagnetism and Gravitation (1979)
Franklin, Classical Electromagnetism, 2nd ed. (2017)
Helrich, The Classical Theory of Fields: Electromagnetism (2012)
Macchi, Moruzzi, and Pegoraro, Problems in Classical Electromagnetism: 157 Exercises with Solutions (2017)
Low, Classical Field Theory: Electromagnetism and Gravitation (1997)
Baldassare, Classical Theory of Electromagnetism, 3rd ed. (2018)
Dobbs, Basic Electromagnetism (1993)
Pramanik, Electromagnetism: Theory and Applications, 2nd ed. (2009)
Novozhilov and Yappa, Electrodynamics (1981; 2nd printing 1986)
Ohanian, Classical Electrodynamics (1988)
Sommerfeld, Electrodynamics (Lectures on Theoretical Physics, Vol. III) (1952)
Raychaudhuri, Classical Theory of Electricity and Magnetism: A Course of Lectures (2022)
Mahajan and Choudhury, Electricity, Magnetism and Electromagnetic Theory (2012)
Barnes, Foundations of Electricity and Magnetism (1965)

A few textbooks treat covariant electrodynamics, but don't provide explicit transformation equations for the fields. For completeness, I checked them anyway:

Jefimenko, Electricity and Magnetism: An Introduction to the theory of Electric and Magnetic Fields, 2nd ed. (1989)
Thidé, Electromagnetic Field Theory (2000)
Susskind and Friedman, Special Relativity and Classical Field Theory (Theoretical Minimum) (2017)
Bettini, A Course in Classical Physics 3: Electromagnetism (2016)
Baylis, Electrodynamics: A Modern Geometric Approach (2002)
Garrit, Electricity and Magnetism for Mathematicians: A Guided Path from Maxwell's Equations to Yang-Mills (2015) (treats the connection between electromagnetism and special relativity, but stops short of giving full covariant treatment)
Page, An Introduction to Electrodynamics From the Standpoint of the Electron Theory (1922) (different from the rest, but covariant)
Page and Adams, Electrodynamics (1945; reprinted in 1965) (similar to the above)
Kip, Fundamentals of electricity and magnetism (1969) (treats the connection between electromagnetism and special relativity, but stops short of giving full covariant treatment)

In addition, again for completeness, here is a number of textbooks—some of them well-known—that don't treat the Lorentz transformation of the electric and magnetic fields at all:

Saslow, Electricity, Magnetism, and Light (2002)
Holt, Introduction to electromagnetic fields and waves (1967)
Peck, Electricity and Magnetism (1953)
Kelly, Electricity and Magnetism (2015)
Nelkon, Electricity and magnetism (1952)
Prytz, Electrodynamics: The Field-Free Approach: Electrostatics, Magnetism, Induction, Relativity and Field Theory (2015)
Irodov, Basic Laws of Electromagnetism (1986)
Loeb, Fundamentals of Electricity and Magnetism, 3rd ed. (1947)
Ramsey, Electricity and Magnetism: An Introduction to the Mathematical Theory (1937)
Tewari, Electricity and Magnetism, Rev. ed. (2011)
Ball, Maxwell's Equations of Electrodynamics: an explanation (2012)
Fleisch, A Student's Guide to Maxwell's Equations (2008)
Crowell, Electricity and Magnetism, 2.3 ed. (2006)
Harnwell, Principles of Electricity and Electromagnetism (1949)
Whitehead, Electricity and Magnetism: An Introduction to the Mathematical Theory (1939)
Hallén, Electromagnetic theory (1962)
Liao, Dourmashkin, and Belcher, Introduction to Electricity and Magnetism (MIT 8.02 Course Notes) (2011)
Mason and Weaver, The Electromagnetic Field (1929)
Schott, Electromagnetic Radiation and the Mechanical Reactions Arising From It (1912)
Coey, Magnetism and Magnetic Materials (2010)
Matsushita, Electricity and Magnetism: New Formulation by Introduction of Superconductivity, 2nd ed. (2021)
Haus and Melcher, Electromagnetic Fields and Energy (1989)
Ilie and Schrecengost, Electromagnetism: Problems and solutions (2016)
Sarin, Electromagnetic Field Theory (2019)
Smith, Electromagnetic Theory for Complete Idiots (2020)
Planck, Theory of Electricity and Magnetism, Being Volume III of Introduction to Theoretical Physics, 2nd ed. (1932)
Ramo, Whinnery, and Van Duzer Fields and waves in communication electronics (1994)
Chew, Waves and Fields in Inhomogenous Media (1990)
Harrington, Time-Harmonic Electromagnetic Fields (2001)
Balanis, Advanced engineering electromagnetics, 2nd ed. (2012)
Johnk, Engineering electromagnetic fields and waves, 2nd ed. (1989)
Hammond, Electromagnetism for engineers: an introductory course, 3rd ed. (1986)
Sadiku, Elements of Electromagnetics, 7th ed. (2018)
Iskander, Electromagnetic fields and waves (1992)
Bleaney and Bleaney, Electricity and Magnetism, 3rd ed. (1976)
Carter, Electromagnetism for Electronic Engineers (2009)
Compton, Basic Electromagnetism and its Applications (1990)
Cervantes, Unconventional Introduction To Electricity And Magnetism For Scientists, 2nd ed. (2012)
Carter, Electromagnetic Waves: Microwave Components and Devices (1990)
Binns and Lawrenson, Analysis and Computation of Electric and Magnetic Field Problems, 2nd ed. (1973)
Hammond, Energy Methods in Electromagnetism (1981)
Buck and Hayt, Engineering Electromagnetics, 9th ed. (2018)
Raju, Electromagnetic Field Theory and Transmission Lines (2006)
Ghosh and Datta, Electromagnetic field theory (2012)
Bakshi and Bakshi, Electromagnetic Field Theory (2009)
Ulaby and Ravaioli, Fundamentals of Applied Electromagnetics, 8th ed. (2019)
Duckworth, Electricity and Magnetism (1960)
Benumof, Concepts in electricity and magnetism (1961)
Hopf, Applied classical electrodynamics. Volume I: Linear Optics (1985)
Culver, Theory And Applications Of Electricity And Magnetism (1947)
Franklin and Macnutt, The elements of electricity and magnetism; a text-book for colleges and technical schools (1916)

None of these textbooks mention anything named either the "Joules-Bernoulli equation" or the "Joule-Bernoulli equation." Indeed, few of them mention Bernoulli at all; those that do, mention it in contexts that have nothing to do with Lorentz transformations. In particular, the last two chapters of Feynman's book are on the physics of fluids, including a discussion of Bernoulli's principle (which Feynman calls Bernoulli's theorem); Kelly also mentions this, although under the name "Bernoulli's equation"; Davidson, in a chapter on magnetohydrodynamics, mentions Bernoulli′s function; Chaichian et al. deal with "Bernoulli’s equation in relativistic magnetofluid dynamics"; Jentschura mentions Bernoulli polynomials and Bernoulli numbers; Heald and Marion mention that Jacob and Daniel Bernoulli were the first to study special cases of that which later came to be known as Bessel functions; Brau mentions that the calculus of variation started with Johann Bernoulli's challenge to his brother Jakob; Wegner says that "Daniel Bernoulli conjectured that there might be a $1/r^{2}$ -law for the electrostatic interaction"; Coey states that Daniel Bernoulli invented the horseshoe magnet.

None of the books mention anyone named Joules. On the other hand, Joule is mentioned in many of them, but only in the context of the unit of energy, and also Joule heating. Only Coey mentions him in the context of magnetostriction.

I conclude that the edit of 27 March 2010‎ by '186.136.83.209' was either an honest mistake or—more likely—an act of vandalism. One way or another, that incorrect edit has now been reverted (after almost 13 years!). Reuqr (talk) 22:33, 15 February 2023 (UTC)