Proceedings of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society

Table of Contents - Volume 6 - 1887  

Research Article

The Potential of a Spherical Magnetic Shell deduced from the Potential of a Coincident Layer of Attracting Matter

A. C. Elliott

This is the problem of § 670 in Clerk Maxwell's Electricity and Magnetism. The author proposes to proceed by another method and to obtain the result in a different form. Let O be the centre of the spherical surface on which the shell lies and Z the point where the magnetic potential Vm is to be found. Also let xs2205 be the strength of the shell (magnetic moment per unit area), α its internal, and α + δα its external radius. To represent the magnetic distribution let a layer of negative magnetic matter of density σ cover the inside face, and a corresponding positive layer the outside face. Finally, let Z be without the matter of the shell and on the positive side.