James Clerk Maxwell
1831–1879, Edinburgh, Scotland, Cambridge, England
Electrodynamics
Scottish physicist who unified electricity, magnetism, and optics into a single electromagnetic theory.
Building on Faraday's experimental results, Maxwell constructed a complete mathematical system describing electric and magnetic fields (now called Maxwell's equations), fully published in 1865. From these equations he deduced that light itself is a form of electromagnetic wave — one of the greatest unifications in the history of physics, and a direct foundation leading to Einstein's special relativity.
Workplaces: King's College London, University of Cambridge
United Kingdom