Electromagnetic Theory (Ams Chelsea Publishing)

Oliver Heaviside is probably best known to the majority of mathematicians for the Heaviside function in the theory of distribution. However, his main research activity concerned the theory of electricity and magnetism, the area in which he worked for most of his life. Results of this work are presented in his fundamental three-volume Electromagnetic Theory. The book brings together many of Heaviside's published and unpublished notes and short articles written between 1891 and 1912. One of Heaviside's main achievements was the recasting of Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism into the form currently used by everyone. He is also known for the invention of operational calculus and for major contributions to solving theoretical and practical problems of cable and radio communication. All this is collected in three volumes of Electromagnetic Theory. However, there is even more. For example, Chapter V in Volume II discusses the age of Earth, and several sections in Volume III talk about the teaching of mathematics in school. In addition to Heaviside's writings, two detailed surveys of Heaviside's work, by Sir Edmund Whittaker and by B. A. Behrend, are included in Volume I, and a long account of Heaviside's unpublished notes (which he presumably planned to publish as Volume IV of Electromagnetic Theory) is included in Volume III.