History of field concept. From action at a distance by gravitational attraction to vector fields

The subtleties that distinguish the different electromagnetic fields are often difficult for many students to grasp; however, they result from the historical necessities that accompanied the progressive conceptualization of the phenomena.

This article aims to understand the evolution of the concepts that led to these tools, the mastery of which can be improved if their use is justified by their historical necessity.

The proposed reflection will lead from the first intuition of the existence of action at a distance on the scale of the solar system to the subtleties distinguishing mechanical effect fields and excitation fields in electromagnetism.

It appears that the notion of a vector field, so familiar to us, was far from self-evident and that it took a long succession of scientific advances to arrive at it. On the other hand, even if they never used the vector tool themselves, it is to Faraday that we owe the notion of fields in electromagnetism and then to Maxwell the use of the term, as well as the introduction of the concepts of excitation fields to distinguish the effect from the cause.

The concept of the D field arose from the need to introduce displacement current, and this indirect conceptualization made its interpretation as an electrical excitation field more difficult. The confusing terminology used today to designate the four electromagnetic fields is a consequence of this historical difficulty.