""His researches"," as Sir William Thomson has observed, ""have led to the elementary proposition which must constitute the legitimate foundation of every perfect mathematical structure that is to be made from the materials furnished in the experimental laws of Coulomb.Not only do they afford a natural and complete explanation of the beautiful quantitative experiments which has been so interesting at all times to practical electricians, but they suggest to the mathematician the simplest and most powerful methods of dealing with problems which, if attacked by the mere force of the old analysis, must have remained forever unsolved"."