James Maxwell - The Forgotten Great Physicist

The physicist with a rather strange name actually contributed only a small part as explaining the principle of radio waves, magnets and battery charging. But why is he so great?

Talking about great inventors and physicists, we immediately mention Albert Einstein's name, when he was the most "idolized".

It is undeniable that Einstein has made great inventions for mankind, in at least 4 new areas of physics, created the theory of gravity from. his own imagination and taught man himself. the true nature of time and space.

But if you wonder, who "idol" Albert Einstein? The main answer is James Clerk Maxwell.

The Forgotten Physicist

Most people either don't remember or have never heard of Maxwell, a 19th century Scottish scientist and savant (1831-1879). However, he was perhaps the greatest scientist of his generation and revolutionized physics in a way no one expected.

James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879).

In fact, it took Maxwell's colleagues many years to realize how amazing his inventions were, how correct they were.

At the time, one of the greatest focuses of science was explaining the strange and puzzling properties of electricity/magnetism.

Since ancient times, people have known that some animals, such as electric eels, give you a shock if you touch them, but have not been able to explain this. Lightning and electric sparks can also cause fires if they interact with certain objects.

Meanwhile, certain materials, like amber, can attract small objects, if you rub them together. In addition, there are also stones that can firmly attract metal, which we later called magnets .

At that time, people could only apply some concepts of magnetism and electromagnetism, such as mastering the use of magnets in compasses, without really understanding how it worked.

Then came Maxwell, and did a lot of extensive experiments on the strangeness of these concepts.

Inventions that laid the foundation for mankind

He was asked by many colleagues and relatives about the confusion about electricity and magnetism while researching another scientific topic.

Realizing the excitement of the new field, it took Maxwell only a few years to apply basic physics and mathematics to account for all experiments involving electricity and magnetism.

To do that, he had to think like a future scientist. For example, he soon envisioned the direction of electricity/magnetism carried and transmitted through electric/magnetic fields

Magnet.

Maxwell said that an electric charge creates an electric field around it. Any other charge can sense this field, and based on the magnitude and direction of the current, it will have force responses to the original charge.

Maxwell also realized that the same thing happened with magnetic fields. But he was the first scientist to prove that electricity and magnetism are not two separate forces, but simply "two sides of the same coin".

He also realized that a changing electric field could produce a magnetic field and vice versa. He also figured out that this was a wave - and the concept of electromagnetic waves was born.

Then, Maxwell began to calculate the speed of these electromagnetic waves, using the power of electric and magnetic forces, and figured out the speed of light .

And yet, Maxwell also discovered that light - in all its forms, from infrared, to radio waves, to the colors of the rainbow - is called electromagnetic radiation .

Besides fundamental physics, Maxwell also made contributions in the field of cosmology, as demonstrated that Saturn's rings are composed of many small dust particles.

The first durable color photograph, introduced by James Clerk Maxwell in a lecture in 1861.

Maxwell's insights are summed up in the form of 20 closely linked equations. A few years later, they were reduced to the four electromagnetic equations, and became the basic knowledge, taught to scientists and engineers today.

Maxwell's equations have been called the second greatest unification in physics, second only to Isaac Newton in terms of the Earth's gravity.