James Clerk Maxwell Biography

Questions on this topic? Just ask!

World of Mathematics on James Clerk Maxwell

James Clerk Maxwell created groundbreaking work in an impressive number of fields from a very young age. He is considered one of the founders of the kinetic theory of gases, and his work in electrodynamics laid the groundwork for the theories of Albert Einstein.

James Clerk Maxwell was the son of James Clerk (Maxwell), who added the name Maxwell in order to hold on to family property, and Frances Cay Maxwell. He was born June 13, 1831, in Edinburgh, Scotland, and spent most of his childhood on the family's estate near Dalbeatie, in the Galloway region. In 1841 he was enrolled at the Edinburgh Academy.

James published his first scientific paper at age 15. It was a description of a new way of drawing ovals, and it was presented to the Edinburgh Royal Society in March 1846.

This first paper was the beginning of a wide-ranging but sadly short-lived career in science. Maxwell's work included research on thermodynamics, Saturn's rings, color vision, geometrical optics, photo-and visco-elasticity, servomechanisms, relaxation processes, and reciprocal diagrams in engineering processes.

In 1847 he enrolled at the University of Edinburgh, where he continued his studies of optics and branched out into elastic solids (such as gelatin). He remained at the university until 1850, when he entered Cambridge University as an undergraduate, first enrolling at Peterhouse College but moving to Trinity College. In 1854, he graduated, receiving numerous honors, and was named a fellow at Trinity College, teaching optics and hydrostatics. In 1856, he left Trinity to become a professor of natural philosophy at Marischal College in Aberdeen, Scotland.

There, he met Katherine Mary Dewar, whom he would marry in 1858. They had no children.

During his time at Marischal, he became interested in the question of the state of Saturn's rings--were they solid, fluid, or something else? Pierre Simon de Laplace, a French mathematician, had done calculations that showed that the rings could not be solid, or they would be unstable. Maxwell's calculations showed that the rings were probably made up of small solid particles. Not only did this work earn him the Adams Prize, but it also allowed him to develop statistical methods that he would later use in his kinetic theory of gases.

At about this time, Marischal College joined with King's College to create the University of Aberdeen, and Maxwell lost his position. However, he moved to King's College in London, where he became professor of physics and astronomy.

Despite his heavy teaching load there, he continued his research. He presented a device for mixing colors of the spectrum to the British Association in 1860. (He had long been interested in color, and discovered that people who are color-blind lack certain color receptors in their eyes.) But he devoted most of his time to studying electromagnetism.

In 1870 the chancellor of Cambridge decided to build a physics laboratory for Cambridge. The Cavendish Laboratory was completed in 1874, and Maxwell became its first director, and chair of experimental physics, in 1871. At the laboratory Maxwell led investigations into the nature of electricity, including electrical resistance and establishing the ohm as a unit of measurement for electricity.

Maxwell had long been interested in electricity and magnetism, starting in 1856 when he investigated Michael Faraday's theory of lines of force. But Maxwell went beyond Faraday.

He devised four equations, now called Maxwell's equations, that summarized the nature of the electric and magnetic fields. He showed that this electromagnetic field moved through space at the speed of light, and concluded that light was really a type of electromagnetic field. He also theorized that light was not the only electromagnetic field of this sort; fields made of longer waves existed, he believed. He was proved right in 1887, when Heinrich Hertz discovered the existence of radio waves.

Maxwell's work was both groundbreaking and difficult to understand. But a bright young Dutchman, Hendrik Antoon Lorentz, built on Maxwell's work and laid the foundations of theoretical physics that would culminate in Albert Einstein's theory of relativity.

Maxwell explained his theory in his Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, a two-volume tome that appeared in 1873.

Another of Maxwell's great contributions to science was his work on the kinetic theory of gases. In 1865 he and his wife Katherine (who was her husband's able assistant from his early days of color study) measured gas viscosity at various temperatures and pressures. This work showed that perceiving gas molecules simply a randomly bouncing balls was not sufficient. Maxwell produced a formula regarding the distribution of velocities among gas molecules at a uniform pressure. Describing physical processes as formulas and functions was something new. He was able to apply his statistical method to various properties of gases, include head conduction and viscosity, and the motion of molecules.

Besides his work on electricity and magnetism, Maxwell also published Theory of Heat (1871) and Matter and Motion (1874).

In 1877, Maxwell began to suffer stomach pains, and in 1879 was diagnosed with stomach cancer. He died November 5, 1879, in Cambridge, only 49 years old.