系列：物理学基础理论，66
“电子科学取得了巨大的进步，主要是在德国，培养了远距离作用理论。韦伯的有价值的电学测量由他根据这一理论进行解释，而由高斯发起、韦伯、里曼、F.和C.纽曼、洛伦兹等人进行的电磁推测是建立在远距离作用理论的基础上的。”距离，但直接取决于粒子的相对速度，或取决于某种东西从一个粒子到另一个粒子的逐渐传播，无论是势还是力。这些杰出人士在将数学应用于电学现象方面取得的巨大成功，自然而然地为他们的理论推测增添了分量，因此，作为电学专业的学生，那些把他们视为数学电学领域最伟大权威的人，很可能会吸收他们的数学方法和物理假设。然而，这些物理假设与我所采用的看待事物的方式完全不同，我所看到的一个目标是，一些希望研究电学的人，通过阅读这篇论文，可能会发现有另一种处理这个问题的方式，它同样适合解释现象，尽管在某些方面它可能看起来不那么确定，正如我所认为的那样，它更忠实地反映了我们的实际知识，无论是在它所确认的还是在它所留下的未确定的方面。
Weber’s Electrodynamics
Series: Fundamental Theories of Physics, 66
“Great progress has been made in electrical science, chiefly in Germany, by cultivators of the theory of action at a distance. The valuable electrical measurements of W. Weber are interpreted by him according to this theory, and the electromagnetic speculation which was originated by Gauss, and carried on by Weber, Riemann, F. and C. Neumann, Lorenz, etc. , is founded on the theory of action at a distance, but depending either directly on the relative velocity of the particles, or on the gradual propagation of something, whether potential or force, from the one particle to the other. The great success which these eminent men have attained in the application of mathematics to electrical phenomena, gives, as is natural, additional weight to their theoretical speculations, so that those who, as students of electricity, turn to them as the greatest authorities in mathematical electricity, would probably imbibe, along with their mathematical methods, their physical hypothesis. These physical hypotheses, however, are entirely alien from the way of looking at things which I adopt, and one object which I have in view is that some of those who wish to study electricity may, by reading this treatise, come to see that there is another way of treating the subject, which is no less fitted to explain the phenomena, and which, though in some parts it may appear less definite, corresponds, as I think, more faithfully with our actual knowledge, both in what it affirms and in what it leaves undecided.
OR
