[5] E.g., see Paul J. Nahin, Oliver Heaviside: Saqe in
Solitude, IEEE Press, New York. Quoting from p. 9:
"...nowhere in Maxwell's writings do the equations for the
electromagnetic field appear as we write them today.
Maxwell used an amalgamation of Cartesian component and
quaternion notation, and it was Heaviside who first wrote
the electromagnetic field equations in modern vector form."
Quoting from p. 92: "In actuality , however, the fields
were not the primary reality to Maxwell at all (that is an
idea that developed after Maxwell's death and is due to
Hertz and Heaviside), but rather it was Faraday's
'electrotonic state' that he thought to be the real thing.
Like Faraday, Maxwell believed that electromagnetic effects
are observable results of an altered state of the ether.
The mathematical formulation of this electrotonic state, for
Maxwell, is what we today (as he did) call the vector
potential." And again, from p. 96: "To Maxwell, however,
the vector potential had a most definite physical meaning."