James Clerk Maxwell

Published on Monday 14 February 2005 12:10

JAMES Clerk Maxwell, the Scot considered by his successors one of the most influential physicists of the 19th century, was born in Edinburgh on 13 June, 1831, but grew up in rural Glenlair, Kirkcudbrightshire.

A curious child with a keen interest in natural history, whose mother died when he was aged eight, Maxwell first attended Edinburgh Academy in 1841.

Aged 14, Maxwell's complex theory on ovals distinguished him from his classmates, and he went on to stand out at Edinburgh University, where he continued his studies in mathematics, physics and logic.

Maxwell graduated with some distinction, and moved in 1850 to Trinity Cambridge, via a short stay at Peterhouse, where he brought, according to Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a "mass of knowledge which was really immense for so young a man".

Graduating a fellow four years later, after completing one of his most famous works on electricity and magnetic lines of force, he successfully applied for the post of Professor of Natural Philosophy at Marischal College, in Aberdeen. This was Maxwell's effort to spend more time with his father, who was shortly to pass.

Maxwell returned to Cambridge in 1856, where he learned of his appointment to the chair at Marischal College. It was in Aberdeen in 1856 that Maxwell formulated his first major contribution to science, a study of Saturn's rings, and subsequently his second, the Maxwell-Boltzmann kinetic theory of gases.

He would remain chair of Marischal until its merger with King's College in 1860, to become the University of Aberdeen. Following the merger, Maxwell would become Professor of Physics and Astronomy at King's College in London.

Further lauded research, which was to play a major part in development of 21st century "stealth" technology, included the extension of theories that showed electricity and magnetic forces could be represented by a simple series of calculations, known as "Maxwell's Equations".

Maxwell’s discoveries on radio ways fomented the idea that light was an electric phenomenon, which is believed to have made possible the discovery of radio waves, Albert Einstein's theory of relativity and further tenets of modern-day physics.

Einstein described Maxwell's work as the "most profound and the most fruitful that physics has experienced since the time of [Isaac] Newton". The Scot’s major works include A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism (1873), On the Stability of Motion of Saturn's Rings (1859), and Matter and Motion (1876).

Latterly becoming the first Cavendish Professor of Physics at Cambridge in 1871, Maxwell died on 8 October 1879.