MAXWELL, JAMES CLERK

born June 13, 1831, Edinburgh, Scot. died November 5, 1879, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, Eng. Scottish physicist best known for his formulation of electromagnetic theory. He is regarded by most modern physicists as the scientist of the 19th century who had the greatest influence on 20th-century physics, and he is ranked with Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein for the fundamental nature of his contributions. In 1931, on the 100th anniversary of Maxwell's birth, Einstein described the change in the conception of reality in physics that resulted from Maxwell's work as the most profound and the most fruitful that physics has experienced since the time of Newton. The concept of electromagnetic radiation originated with Maxwell, and his field equations, based on Michael Faraday's observations of the electric and magnetic lines of force, paved the way for Einstein's special theory of relativity, which established the equivalence of mass and energy. Maxwell's ideas also ushered in the other major innovation of 20th-century physics, the quantum theory. His description of electromagnetic radiation led to the development (according to classical theory) of the ultimately unsatisfactory law of heat radiation, which prompted Max Planck's formulation of the quantum hypothesisi.e., the theory that radiant-heat energy is emitted only in finite amounts, or quanta. The interaction between electromagnetic radiation and matter, integral to Planck's hypothesis, in turn has played a central role in the development of the theory of the structure of atoms and molecules. born June 13, 1831, Edinburgh, Scot. died Nov. 5, 1879, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, Eng. Scottish physicist best known for his formulation of electromagnetic theory. He is often ranked with Sir Isaac Newton for the fundamental nature of his contributions to science. Maxwell's first scientific paper, On the Description of Oval Curves, was published when he was but 14 years of age. He attended the University of Edinburgh for three years but obtained a mathematics degree from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1854. He became professor of natural philosophy at Marischal College, Aberdeen, Scot., in 1856 and in 1860 was appointed to King's College, London. During the next five years he published his two classic papers on the electromagnetic field. He retired in 1865. In 1871 he became the first Cavendish Professor of Physics at Cambridge. Maxwell's interests ranged from colour vision (he produced one of the first colour photographs) and the nature of Saturn's rings to mechanics and the kinetic theory of gases. His publications include Theory of Heat (1870) and Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism (1873). The electromagnetic unit of magnetic flux in the centimetre-gram-second system of units was named maxwell in his honour. Additional reading Maxwell's works include Theory of Heat, 3rd ed. (1872, reprinted 1970), and A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, 3rd ed., 2 vol. (1892, reissued 1954). Maxwell's original papers are collected in W.D. Niven (ed.), The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell, 2 vol. (1890, reissued 2 vol. in 1, 1965).A standard biography is Lewis Campbell and William Garnett, The Life of James Clerk Maxwell (1882, reprinted 1969). Modern biographies include C.W.F. Everitt, James Clerk Maxwell: Physicist and Natural Philosopher (1975), with a useful bibliography; Ivan Tolstoy, James Clerk Maxwell (1981), for the general reader; and Martin Goldman, The Demon in the Aether (1983). Commemorative publications include J.j. Thomson et. al., James Clerk Maxwell: A Commemorative Volume, 18311931 (1931), containing lectures given at Cambridge University; Cyril Domb (ed.), Clerk Maxwell and Modern Science (1963), lectures concerning his electromagnetic theory; and Cyril Domb, James Clerk Maxwell: 100 Years Later, Nature, 282:235239 (Nov. 15, 1979).More details of his contributions to electromagnetism are in R.a.r. Tricker, The Contributions of Faraday and Maxwell to Electrical Science (1966); Edmund Whittaker, A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity, rev. and enlarged ed., 2 vol. (195153, reprinted 1987); and Jed Z. Buchwald, From Maxwell to Microphysics: Aspects of Electromagnetic Theory in the Last Quarter of the Nineteenth Century (1985), exploring Maxwellian theory and the transition into modern field theory. Cyril Domb The Editors of the Encyclopdia Britannica