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Born: 13 June 1831 in Edinburgh, Scotland
Died: 5 Nov 1879 in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England
James Clerk Maxwell was born at 14 India Street in Edinburgh, a house built by
his parents in the 1820s, but shortly afterwards his family moved to their home
at Glenlair in Kirkcudbrightshire about 20 km from Dumfries. There he enjoyed
a country upbringing and his natural curiosity displayed itself at an early age.
In a letter written on 25 April 1834 when 'The Boy' was not yet three years old
he is described as follows, see :
He is a very happy man, and has improved much since the weather got moderate;
he has great work with doors, locks, keys etc., and 'Show me how it doos' is never
out of his mouth. He also investigates the hidden course of streams and bell-wires,
the way the water gets from the pond through the wall and a pend or small bridge
and down a drain ...
When James was eight years old his mother died. His parents plan that they would
educate him at home until he was 13 years old, and that he would then be able
to go the Edinburgh University, fell through. A 16 year old boy was hired to act
as tutor but the arrangement was not a successful one and it was decided that
James should attend the Edinburgh Academy.
James, together with his family, arrived at 31 Heriot Row, the house of Isabella
Wedderburn his father's sister, on 18 November 1841. He attended Edinburgh Academy
where he had the nickname 'Dafty'. P G Tait, although almost the same age, was
one class below James. Tait, who would become a close school friend and friend
for life, described Maxwell's school days a39i:-
At school he was at first regarded as shy and rather dull. he made no friendships
and spent his occasional holidays in reading old ballads, drawing curious diagrams
and making rude mechanical models. This absorption in such pursuits, totally
unintelligible to his schoolfellows, who were then totally ignorant of mathematics,
procured him a not very complimentary nickname. About the middle of his school
career however he surprised his companions by suddenly becoming one of the most
brilliant among them, gaining prizes and sometimes the highest prizes for scholarship,
mathematics, and English verse.
In early 1846 at the age of 14, Maxwell wrote a paper on ovals. In this work
he generalised the definition of an ellipse by defining the locus of a point
where the sum of m times the distance from one fixed point plus n times the
distance from a second fixed point is constant. If m = n = 1 then the curve
is an ellipse. Maxwell also defined curves where there were more than two foci.
This became his first paper On the description of oval curves, and those having
a plurality of foci which was read to the Royal Society of Edinburgh on 6 April
1846. These ideas were not entirely new as Descartes had defined such curves
before but the work was remarkable for a 14 year old.
Maxwell was not dux of the Edinburgh Academy, this honour going to Lewis Campbell
who later became the professor of Greek at the University of St Andrews. Lewis
Campbell was a close friend of Maxwell's and he wrote the biography a3i and
its second edition a4i. These biographies make fascinating reading filled with
personal memories.
At the age of 16, in November 1847, Maxwell entered the second Mathematics class
taught by Kelland, the natural philosophy (physics) class taught by Forbes and
the logic class taught by William Hamilton. Tait, also at the University of
Edinburgh, later wrote in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
(1879-80) a4i:-
The winter of 1847 found us together in the classes of Forbes and Kelland, where
he highly distinguished himself. With the former he was a particular favourite,
being admitted to the free use of the class apparatus for original experiments.
... During this period he wrote two valuable papers which are published in our
Transactions, on The Theory of Rolling Curves and The Equilibrium of Elastic
Solids.
The University of Edinburgh still has a record of books that Maxwell borrowed
to take home while an undergraduate. These include
Calcul Differentiel,Theorie de la Chaleur,Géometrie Descriptive,Optics,Mechanics,Scientific
Memoirs ,Willis, Principles of Mechanism .
Maxwell went to Peterhouse Cambridge in October 1850 but moved to Trinity where
he believed that it was easier to obtain a fellowship. Again we quote Tait's
article in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1879-80):-
... he brought to Cambridge in the autumn of 1850, a mass of knowledge which
was really immense for so young a man, but in a state of disorder appalling
to his methodical private tutor. Though the tutor was William Hopkins, the pupil
to a great extent took his own way, and it may safely be said that no high wrangler
of recent years ever entered the Senate-house more imperfectly trained to produce
'paying' work than did Clerk Maxwell. But by sheer strength of intellect, though
with the very minimum of knowledge how to use it to advantage under the conditions
of the Examination, he obtained the position of Second Wrangler, and was bracketed
equal with the Senior Wrangler, in the higher ordeal of the Smith's Prizes.
Thomson a39i describes Maxwell's undergraduate days:-
... Scholars dined together at one table. This bought Maxwell into daily contact
with the most intellectual set in the College, among whom were many who attained
distinction in later life. These in spite of his shyness and some eccentricities
recognised his exceptional powers. ... The impression of power which Maxwell
produced on all he met was remarkable; it was often much more due to his personality
than to what he said, for many found it difficult to follow him in his quick
changes from one subject to another, his lively imagination started so many
hares that before he had run one down he was off on another.
Maxwell obtained his fellowship and graduated with a degree in mathematics from
Trinity College in 1854. The First Wrangler in that year was Edward Routh, who
as well as being an excellent mathematician was a genius at mastering the cramming
methods required to succeed in the Cambridge Tripos of that time. Maxwell remained
at Cambridge where he took pupils, then was awarded a Fellowship by Trinity
to continue work.
One of Maxwell's most important achievements was his extension and mathematical
formulation of Michael Faraday's theories of electricity and magnetic lines
of force. His paper On Faraday's lines of force was read to the Cambridge Philosophical
Society in two parts, 1855 and 1856. Maxwell showed that a few relatively simple
mathematical equations could express the behaviour of electric and magnetic
fields and their interrelation.
However, in early 1856, Maxwell's father became ill and Maxwell wanted to be
able to spend more time with him. He therefore tried to obtain an appointment
in Scotland, applying for the post of Professor of Natural Philosophy at Marischal
College in Aberdeen when Forbes told him it was vacant. Maxwell travelled to
Edinburgh for the Easter vacation of 1856 to be with his father and the two
went together to Glenlair. On 3 April his father died and, shortly after, Maxwell
returned to Cambridge as he had planned. Before the end of April he learnt that
he had been appointed to the chair at Marischal College.
In November 1856 Maxwell took up the appointment in Aberdeen. When the subject
announced by St John's College Cambridge for the Adams Prize of 1857 was The
Motion of Saturn's Rings Maxwell immediately interested. Maxwell and Tait had
thought about the problem of Saturn's rings in 1847 while still pupils at the
Edinburgh Academy. Maxwell decided to compete for the prize and his research
at Aberdeen in his first two years was taken up with this topic. He showed that
stability could be achieved only if the rings consisted of numerous small solid
particles, an explanation now confirmed by the Voyager spacecraft. In a letter
to Lewis Campbell, written on 28 August 1857, while he was at Glenlair, Maxwell
wrote:-
I have effected several breaches in the solid ring, and now am splash into the
fluid one, amid a clash of symbols truly astounding. When I reappear it will
be in the dusky ring, which is something like the siege of Sebastopol conducted
from a forest of guns 100 miles one way, and 30,000 miles the other, and the
shot never to stop, but go spinning away round a circle, radius 170,000 miles...
Maxwell's essay won him the Adams Prize and Airy wrote:-
It is one of the most remarkable applications of mathematics to physics that
I have ever seen.
Maxwell became engaged to marry Katherine Mary Dewar in February 1858 and they
married in June 1859. Despite the fact that he was now married to the daughter
of the Principal of Marischal College, in 1860, when Marischal College and King's
College combined, Maxwell, as the junior of the department, had to seek another
post. His scientific work, however, had been proceeding with great success.
Stokes had written to him on 7 November 1857:-
I have just received your papers on the dynamical top, etc., and the account
of experiments on the perception of colour. The latter, which I missed seeing
at the time when it was published, I have just read with great interest. The
results afford most remarkable and important evidence in favour of the theory
of three primary colour-perceptions, a theory which you, and you alone, as far
as I know, have established on an exact numerical basis.
When the Chair of Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh became vacant in 1859, Forbes
having moved to St Andrews, it seemed that fate had smiled on Maxwell to bring
him back to his home town. He asked Faraday to act as a referee for him, in
a letter written on 30 November 1859. Many of Maxwell's friends were also applicants
for this post including Tait and Routh. Maxwell lost out to Tait despite his
outstanding scientific achievements. When the Edinburgh paper, the Courant,
reported the result it noted that:-
Professor Maxwell is already acknowledged to be one of the most remarkable men
known to the scientific world.
The reason he was not appointed must have been those given by the paper when
they wrote:-
... there is another quality which is desirable in a Professor in a University
like ours and that is the power of oral exposition proceeding on the supposition
of imperfect knowledge or even total ignorance on the part of pupils.
The claim that he was not the best person to teach poorly qualified pupils may
have been a fair one but it is certainly not the case that he was a poor lecturer.
Stokes wrote in 1854 that he had:-
... once been present when aMaxwelli was giving an account of his geometrical
researches to the Cambridge Philosophical Society, on which occasion I was struck
with the singularly lucid manner of his exposition.
Again Fleming, who had attended Maxwell's lectures, expressed similar thoughts
a19i:-
Maxwell in short had too much learning and too much originality to be at his
best in elementary teaching. For those however who could follow him his teaching
was a delight.
In 1860 Maxwell was appointed to the vacant chair of Natural Philosophy at King's
College in London. The six years that Maxwell spent in this post were the years
when he did his most important experimental work. The duties of the post were
more demanding than those at Aberdeen. Campbell writes in a3i:-
There were nine months of lecturing in the year, and evening lectures to artisans,
etc., were recognised as a part of the Professor's duties.
In London, around 1862, Maxwell calculated that the speed of propagation of
an electromagnetic field is approximately that of the speed of light. He proposed
that the phenomenon of light is therefore an electromagnetic phenomenon. Maxwell
wrote the truly remarkable words:-
We can scarcely avoid the conclusion that light consists in the transverse undulations
of the same medium which is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena.
Maxwell also continued work he had begun at Aberdeen, considering the kinetic
theory of gases. By treating gases statistically in 1866 he formulated, independently
of Ludwig Boltzmann, the Maxwell-Boltzmann kinetic theory of gases. This theory
showed that temperatures and heat involved only molecular movement.
This theory meant a change from a concept of certainty, heat viewed as flowing
from hot to cold, to one of statistics, molecules at high temperature have only
a high probability of moving toward those at low temperature. Maxwell's approach
did not reject the earlier studies of thermodynamics but used a better theory
of the basis to explain the observations and experiments.
Maxwell left King's College, London in the spring of 1865 and returned to his
Scottish estate Glenlair. He made periodic trips to Cambridge and, rather reluctantly,
accepted an offer from Cambridge to be the first Cavendish Professor of Physics
in 1871. He designed the Cavendish laboratory and helped set it up. The Laboratory
was formally opened on 16 June 1874.
The four partial differential equations, now known as Maxwell's equations, first
appeared in fully developed form in Electricity and Magnetism (1873). Most of
this work was done by Maxwell at Glenlair during the period between holding
his London post and his taking up the Cavendish chair. They are one of the great
achievements of 19th-century mathematics.
One of the tasks which occupied much of Maxwell's time between 1874 and 1879
was his work editing Henry Cavendish's papers. Cavendish, see a13i:-
... published only two papers aandi left twenty packages of manuscript on mathematical
and experimental electricity. ... Maxwell entered upon this work with the utmost
enthusiasm: he saturated his mind with the scientific literature of Cavendish's
period; he repeated many of his experiments, and copied out the manuscript with
his own hand. ... The volume entitled The Electrical Researches of the Honourable
Henry Cavendish was published in 1879, and is unequalled as a chapter in the
history of electricity.
Fleming attended Maxwell's last lecture course at Cambridge. He writes a19i:-
During the last term in May 1879 Maxwell's health evidently began to fail, but
he continued to give his lectures up to the end of the term. ... To have enjoyed
even a brief personal acquaintance with Professor Maxwell and the privilege
of his oral instruction was in itself a liberal education, nay more, it was
an inspiration, because everything he said or did carried the unmistakable mark
of a genius which compelled not only the highest admiration but the greatest
reverence as well.
Maxwell returned with his wife, who was also ill, to Glenlair for the summer.
His health continued to deteriorate and he suffered much pain although remained
remarkably cheerful. On 8 October 1879 he returned with his wife to Cambridge
but, by this time he could scarcely walk. One of the greatest scientists the
world has known passed away on 5 November. His doctor, Dr Paget, said:-
No man ever met death more consciously or more calmly.
