James Clerk Maxwell

James Clerk Maxwell was a Scottish physicist and mathematician, born in 1831, who was responsible for the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, the first theory to describe electricity, magnetism and light as different manifestations of the same phenomenon. His equations for electromagnetism achieved the second great unification in physics, after the first realised by Isaac Newton, and he was a key figure in the creation of statistical mechanics. He graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1854 with distinction in mathematics and the Smith's Prize, and at Marischal College in Aberdeen he studied the rings of Saturn and correctly proposed that they were made of numerous small particles, which earned him the Adams Prize in 1859. His 1865 paper A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field showed that electric and magnetic fields travel through space as waves moving at the speed of light.