codelieb
Dec 27, 2009
Undergraduate / Common Application: A Historical Figure, Richard Feynman [4]
Gauss's law for magnetism can be put in many ways: "the divergence of the magnetic field is everywhere zero," "the total flux of the magnetic field through any closed surface is always zero," "magnetic fields can circulate around a point but they can never diverge from a point," "there are no magnetic charges," "magnetic field lines are always closed loops," "there are no magnetic monopoles," etc. In any case, Gauss's law is a statement about the properties of (all) magnetic fields, and not a statement about the properties of "loops," so it is not true that "at its core, [Gauss's law for magnetism] simply stated that a loop has no end."
Mike Gottlieb
Editor, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Definitive Edition
Gauss's law for magnetism can be put in many ways: "the divergence of the magnetic field is everywhere zero," "the total flux of the magnetic field through any closed surface is always zero," "magnetic fields can circulate around a point but they can never diverge from a point," "there are no magnetic charges," "magnetic field lines are always closed loops," "there are no magnetic monopoles," etc. In any case, Gauss's law is a statement about the properties of (all) magnetic fields, and not a statement about the properties of "loops," so it is not true that "at its core, [Gauss's law for magnetism] simply stated that a loop has no end."
Mike Gottlieb
Editor, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Definitive Edition