Who was James Clerk Maxwell?
Physicist. Creator of the Electromagnetic Theory
of Light.
Date and Place of Birth:
13th November 1831, 14 India Street, Edinburgh,
Scotland.
Family Background:
An only child. His father was a lawyer and his
mother was forty years old at his birth.
Education:
16 year old private tutor then Edinburgh Academy.
Edinburgh University. Peterhouse and Trinity Colleges, Cambridge
University.
Chronology/Biography of James Clerk Maxwell:
1832:
The family move Glenlair in Kirkcudbrightshire near from Dumfries.
1839:
Death of his Mother.
1846:
Maxwell writes his first scientific paper at the age of 14 called
"On the description of oval curves, and those having a plurality
of foci" which was read out at the Royal Society of Edinburgh
on 6 April.
1847-50:
Attends Edinburgh University.
1850-54:
Attends Cambridge University.
1855:
Becomes a Fellow of Trinity College. Publishes "On Faraday's
lines of force" which shows that the behaviour of electricity
and magnetism can be described by a few mathematical equations.
This was read to the Cambridge Philosophical Society in two parts
in 1855 and 1856.
1856: Becomes a
Fellow of Edinburgh University. Death of his father. Takes up the
post as Professor at Marischal College in Aberdeen which he decided
to take to be near his father before he died.
1857: Enters the
Adams Prize of St John's College Cambridge on "The Motion of
Saturn's Rings". this topic. Maxwell showed that stability
of the could only be achieved if they consisted of numerous small
solid particles. THis has now been confirmed by the Voyager spacecraft.
1858: Becomes engaged
to Katherine Mary Dewar in February.
1860: Appointed
to the vacant chair of Natural Philosophy at King's College in London.
1861: Elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society.
1862: Maxwell worked
out that the speed of the propagation of an electromagnetic field
is approximately that of the speed of light and therefore the conclusion
that light consists in the transverse undulations of the same medium
which is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena.
1860-65: Becomes
a Professor at Kings College, London.
1866: Appointed
Royal Society Bakerian lecturer. Proposed the kinetic theory of
gases. which said that temperatures and heat involved only molecular
movement.
1871-79: Appointed
the first Cavendish Professor of Physics at Cambridge.
1873: Maxwell publishes
"Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism". This work establishes
"Maxwell's equations".
1874: Opens the
Cavendish Laboratory which he designed. Begins editing the papers
of Henry Cavendish.
1879: Maxwell's
health begins to fail, but he continues to lecture up to the end
of the term. Returns with his wife to Glenlair for the summer. Returns
to Cambridge on 8 October but can hardly walk.
Written Works:
- 1855:
"On Faraday's Lines of Force"
- 1873: “Treatise on
Electricity and Magnetism”.
- 1879: “Electrical
Researches of Henry Cavendish”.
- 1855: “On
Faraday's Lines of Force”.
- 1864:
“Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field”.
- 1879: "The
Electrical Researches of the Honourable Henry Cavendish".
Statue to Maxwell in George Street,
Edinburgh
(© Anthony Blagg)
Marriage:
June 1859 to Katherine Mary Dewer in Aberdeen
who is the daughter of the Principal; of Marischal College.
Places of Interest:
Date and Place of Death:
5th November 1879, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire,
England.
Age at Death:
48.
Site of Grave:
Funeral service held at Trinity College Chapel,
Cambridge and then taken home to Glenlair, Scotland for burial in
Parton Churchyard.
