Physicist, born at Edinburgh, June 13, 1831, was educated there at the Academy and the University, and ere he was fifteen wrote papers of scientific value. At Cambridge he was (1845) second wrangler and bracketed with the senior wrangler for the Smith’s prize. In 1856 he became a professor in Marischal College, Aberdeen, in 1860 in King’s College, London, and in 1871 professor of Experimental Physics at Cambridge. He died November 5, 1879. In the great work of his life “Electricity and Magnetism” (2 vols. 1873), he constructed a theory of electricity in which “action at a distance” should have no place. He was the first to make colour-sensation the subject of actual measurement. He obtained the Adams prize for his splendid discussion of the dynamical conditions of stability of the ring-system of Saturn. But he was best known to the public by his investigations on the kinetic theory of gases. His Bradford “Discourse on Molecules” is a classic. Besides many papers, he published a text-book of the “Theory of Heat” and a little treatise on “Matter and Motion.” In 1879 he edited Cavendish’s “Electrical Researches.” See his “Scientific Papers” edited by Niven (8 vols. 1890); his Life by Lewis Campbell and Garnett (1882); and Glazebrook’s “Clerk-Maxwell and Modern Physics” (1896).

Personal

  As a professor he was wonderfully admired by those who were truly his disciples. He had not the power of making himself clearly understood by those who listened but casually to his pithy sentences, and consequently he was not a so-called popular lecturer; nor was he a most successful teacher of careless students. But when he had those about him who could enter into his mind, and, receiving the golden truths from his lips, could alloy them in such a way as to make them acceptable to the ordinary student, no better teacher could be desired, even for the most elementary instruction. His wonderful imagination was of great value, not only in supplying illustrations for didactic purposes, but in suggesting analogies and opening up new fields for research.

  One great charm of Maxwell’s society was his readiness to converse on almost any topic with those whom he was accustomed to meet, although he always showed a certain degree of shyness when introduced to strangers. He would never tire of talking with boyish glee about the d—l on two sticks and similar topics, and no one ever conversed with him for five minutes without having some perfectly new ideas set before him; sometimes so startling as to utterly confound the listener, but always such as to well repay a thoughtful examination. Men have often asked, after listening to a conversation on some scientific question, whether Maxwell were in earnest or joking. The charm of his conversation rendered it very difficult to carry on any independent work when he was present, but his suggestions for future work far more than compensated for the time thus spent…. The leading note of Maxwell’s character is a grand simplicity. But in attempting to analyse it we find a complex of qualities which exist separately in smaller men. Extraordinary gentleness is combined with keen penetration, wonderful activity with a no less wonderful repose, personal humility and modesty with intellectual scorn. His deep reserve in common intercourse was commensurate with the fulness of his occasional outpourings to those he loved…. Great as was the range and depth of Maxwell’s powers, that which is still more remarkable is the unity of his nature and of his life. This unity came, not from circumstances, for there were breaks in his outward career, but from the native strength of the spirit that was in him. In the eyes of those who knew him best, the whole man gained in beauty year by year. As son, friend, lover, husband; in science, in society, in religion; whether buried in retirement or immersed in business—he is absolutely single-hearted. This is true of his mental as well as his emotional being, for indeed they were inseparably blended. And the fixity of his devotion both to persons and ideas was compatible with all but universal sympathies and the most fearless openness of thought.

  As a man Maxwell was loved and honoured by all who knew him; to his pupils he was the kindest and most sympathetic teacher, to his friends he was the most charming of companions; brimful of fun, the life and soul of a Red Lion dinner at the British Association meetings, yet in due season grave and thoughtful, with a keen interest in problems that lay outside the domain of his work, and throughout his life a stern foe to all that was superficial or untrue. On religious questions his beliefs were strong and deeply rooted; the words which close his lecture on molecules, expressing his faith in “Him, who in the beginning created not only the heaven and the earth, but the materials of which heaven and earth consists,” have often been quoted. There is a bust by Boehm in the Cavendish Laboratory, and also a portrait painted by his cousin, Miss Wedderburn. The bust was executed after his death from Jeens’s engraving, which forms the frontispiece to his works; and a portrait by Mr. Lowes Dickenson, based on the same engraving, was presented to Trinity College by the subscribers to the memorial fund.

General

  Maxwell’s reputation in the scientific world rests chiefly upon his contributions to electrical science and his speculation in “Molecular Physics.”… If we inquire what were the qualities of the man which enabled him to accomplish so much, we think the most important moment will be found in an almost unique union of certain mental and physical powers.

  Maxwell’s work, as a whole, is characterised by two qualities which, taken together, convey to the mind an extraordinary impression of his genius: the first, a direct gift of insight which enabled him to picture to himself with vividness the most complicated phenomena; the second, a corresponding command of precise and luminous expression. To attribute to him these two qualities may seem at first sight paradoxical, for it is admitted that he never was a good lecturer, and that even in private oral exposition he was often hesitating, and sometimes confused. But the hesitation and apparent confusion arose from no want of inner clearness, but from an exuberance of imagination which made him interrupt himself, and hurried him on from one illustration to another in a way which often taxed the attention of his hearers. Something of this turbid overflow of thought or fancy shows itself in his letters, nor can it be contended that, when he leaves the solid ground of physical reasoning for the more airy regions of mental and religious philosophy, his vision has the same distinctness, or his expressions the same convincing clearness. But on his own ground he fully justified the remark about him attributed to Mr. Hopkins, the great Cambridge tutor of the last generation: “It is impossible that that man should think incorrectly on physical subjects.”

  Of the “Electricity and Magnetism” it is difficult to predict the future, but there is no doubt that since its publication it has given direction and colour to the study of Electrical Science. It was the master’s last word upon a subject to which he had devoted several years of his life, and most of what he wrote found its proper place in the treatise. Several of the chapters, notably those on electromagnetism, are practically reproductions of his memoirs in a modified or improved form. The treatise is also remarkable for the handling of the mathematical details no less than for the exposition of physical principles, and is enriched incidentally by chapters of much originality on mathematical subjects touched on in the course of the work.

  “One who has enriched the inheritance left by Newton and has consolidated the work of Faraday—one who impelled the mind of Cambridge to a fresh course of real investigation—has clearly earned his place in human memory.” It was thus that Professor Lewis Campbell and Mr. Garnett began in 1882 their life of James Clerk Maxwell. The years which have passed, since that date, have all tended to strengthen the belief in the greatness of Maxwell’s work and in the fertility of his genius, which has inspired the labours of those who, not in Cambridge only, but throughout the world, have aided in developing the seeds sown by him…. Since Maxwell’s death volumes have been written on electrical questions, which have all been inspired by his work. The standpoint from which electrical theory is regarded has been entirely changed. The greatest masters of mathematical physics have found, in the development of Maxwell’s views, a task that called for all their powers, and the harvest of new truths which has been garnered has proved most rich.

  Maxwell called himself the interpreter of Faraday’s views; but he was more than this; he built up a mathematical theory of magnetism and electricity which will be a lasting monument to his genius. He also propounded his electro-magnetic theory of light, in which he supposes that electrical energy is propagated by vibrations of the same æther which is supposed to transmit energy in the form of light. His theory supposes, in fact, that electricity and light are simply different aspects of the same phenomenon—a vibrating æther. In recent years Hertz, a pupil of Helmholtz, has, in a series of brilliant experiments, gone far towards verifying the results of Maxwell’s theory of light. Electric waves have been obtained, and have been shown to be capable of reflection and refraction in exactly the same way as waves of light. Maxwell died in 1879, and the scientific world lost its most brilliant genius.

  The natural philosophy of electricity, which may be said to have begun with Örsted and Ampère, is due in no small measure to the experimental researches and truly philosophical ideas of Faraday. The first consistent statement of it was given by Thomson, who expressed in mathematical language Faraday’s ideas of lines of force, and deduced by a dynamical process the consequences of Faraday’s experimental discoveries. Thomson’s theory was at bottom one of action in a medium, and from it he obtained by deduction and experimental verification important discoveries of his own. Upon this quantitative philosophical discussion Maxwell to a great extent based his form of the theory, the essence of which is its dynamical character, and its explicit transference of the phenomena from the conductors and magnets and circuits to the electromagnetic field. The theory of light, though far from being the end, is the crown of the whole work.