
Date sent:        Tue, 14 May 1996 19:50:20 -0400






                                                              Dave XXXXXXX
                                                           Prof.XXXXXX
                                                           Ac Electronics
                                                             XXX-XXX-XXXX

                                                                           James Clerk
                                                                           Maxwell was born 
                                                                           in Edinburgh,
Scotland, on the thirteenth
  of  November in 1831.  His original name was James Clerk.  "Maxwell" was
  added  after his mother died when James was a mere  eight years old. In 1841,
  Maxwell was sent to the Edinburgh Academy when he was eleven.  At the
  Edinburg Academy,  Maxwell had two papers published by the Royal Society
  of Edinburg.  From the Edinburg Academy, Maxwell began furthering his
  academic career at the University of Cambridge in 1850.  There, at the
  University of Cambridge, he won honors and prizes in mathematics.   He went
  on to become a lecturer at Trinity College and in 1854 at Trinity College  he
  obtained a mathematics degree.  Two years later he joined the faculty of
  Marischal College and married the daughter of the principal of Marischal
  College.  King's College of London and Marischal College of Aberdeen
  combined.  Maxwell was appointed to King's College in London in 1860.  
     He retired in 1865 to carry on his laboratory work but returned back to
  Cambridge in 1871.  While at Cambridge, Maxwell planned the famous
  Cavendish laboratory and became the first Cavendish Professor.  Maxwell's
  theory of electromagnetic waves established him as one of the greatest scientists
  in history.  
     Maxwell's first major contribution to science was a study of the planet
  Saturn's rings.  Maxwell's  theory was one of which the rings are composed of
  numerous small solid particles.  This theory was confirmed one hundred years
  later by the first Voyager space probe to reach Saturn.  
      Next, Maxwell considered 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.   Although Maxwell
  did not originate the kinetic theory of gases, he was the first to apply methods
  of probability and statistics to describe the properties of gas molecules.
     The Maxwell-Boltzmann 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 earlier studies of
  thermodynamics but used a better theory of the basis to explain the observations
  and experiments. 
     Maxwell contributed also to the study of color blindness and color vision. 
  Out of his research and experimentation of the color theory came the first color
  photograph, which was produced by photographing one subject through filters
  of the three primary colors of light (red, yellow, and blue) and then recombining
  the images.  
     Maxwell's most important achievement was in his extension and
  mathematical formulation of Michael Faraday's theories of electricity and
  magnetic lines of force.  Maxwell suggested that electromagnetism moved
  through space  in waves that could be generated in the laboratory.  By
  calculating their velocity he found that the speed of electromagnetic waves was
  the same as the speed of light.  He proposed that the phenomenon of light is
  therefore an electromagnetic phenomenon.  Maxwell said:
     "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."
     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 not express the behavior of
  electric and magnetic fields and their interrelation.
     At the time there was no evidence of comparable waves that could be
  transmitted or detected over any considerable distance.  Maxwell died in
  Cambridge on the fifth of November in 1879, before his theory was successfully
  tested.
     The four partial differential equations, known as Maxwell's equations, first
appeared in fully developed form in Electricity and Magnetism (1873).  These
equations are one of the greatest achievements of nineteenth-century mathematics.
     In 1888 Heinrich Hertz conducted investigations based on Maxwell's theories
and demonstrated that an electric disturbance is transmitted through space in the form
of waves.  Today,  electromagnetic waves are known to cover  a wave spectrum of
radiation.  Maxwell expressed all the fundamental laws of light, electricity, and
magnetism in a few mathematical equations which are commonly called the "Maxwell
Field Equations".  These equations were long considered  a fundamental law of the
universe, like Newton's laws of motion and gravitation.  They do not apply, however,
to phenomena that are governed by quantum theory, wave mechanics, and relativity.
     Maxwell is generally regarded as one of the greatest physicists the world has
ever seen.  Einstein placed on record his view that the Scot's work resulted in the most
profound change in the conception of reality in physics.  Maxwell's theory is a unification
that remains one of the greatest landmarks in the whole of science. Maxwell paved the way
for Einstein's special theory of relativity.  Maxwell's  ideas also ushered in the other
major innovation of twentieth-century physics, the quantum theory.  One of  the greatest
scientists in history, James Clerk Maxwell died on the fifth of November in 1879 in
Cambridge, England before seeing the conformation of his greatest theory - the "Maxwell
Equations".           

