James Clerk Maxwell

author

James Clerk Maxwell

1831–1879

A brilliant Scottish physicist whose ideas helped explain electricity, magnetism, and light, leaving a lasting mark on modern science. He also made important contributions to color vision, thermodynamics, and the study of Saturn's rings.

3 Audiobooks

An elementary treatise on electricity

An elementary treatise on electricity

by James Clerk Maxwell

Five of Maxwell's Papers

Five of Maxwell's Papers

by James Clerk Maxwell

On a Dynamical Top, for exhibiting the phenomena of the motion of a system of invariable form about a fixed point, with some suggestions as to the Earth's motion

On a Dynamical Top, for exhibiting the phenomena of the motion of a system of invariable form about a fixed point, with some suggestions as to the Earth's motion

by James Clerk Maxwell

About the author

Born in Edinburgh in 1831, James Clerk Maxwell showed unusual curiosity from an early age and studied at the University of Edinburgh and later at Cambridge. He went on to teach and do research at several leading institutions, including Marischal College in Aberdeen, King's College London, and the University of Cambridge.

Maxwell is best known for developing the set of ideas now called Maxwell's equations, which brought electricity and magnetism together into one powerful theory and showed that light is an electromagnetic wave. Beyond that landmark achievement, he made major contributions to the kinetic theory of gases, early color photography, and the stability of Saturn's rings.

He died in 1879 at the age of 48, but his work shaped much of modern physics and influenced later scientists including Albert Einstein. Today he is widely regarded as one of the great scientific minds of the nineteenth century.