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James Clerk Maxwell

1831–1879 · Physics, Mathematics, Electrical engineering
Scottish physicist who unified electricity, magnetism, and optics into a single electromagnetic theory. He predicted the existence of electromagnetic waves and showed that light is a special case of them, thereby establishing the speed of light as a fundamental constant.

Biography

Studied at the Universities of Edinburgh and Cambridge. Worked in Aberdeen, at King's College London, and then returned to Cambridge, where he founded and headed the Cavendish Laboratory. Died at the age of 48 from cancer. His work was underestimated for a long time, but today he is considered one of the greatest physicists.

Key discoveries

💡 Maxwell developed the theory of color vision and took the world's first color photograph by combining three frames through red, green, and blue filters — long before the advent of color photographic materials.
"He compared a truly great discovery to a dotted line rather than an end point."
Concepts
electromagnetismspectroscopyspeed of light
Laws
principle of constancy of the speed of lightMaxwell's equationsBoltzmann distributionfirst law of thermodynamicsFaraday's law of electromagnetic inductionAmpere's law
Scientists
Henri PoincaréRobert HookeJohann Jakob BalmerJocelyn Bell BurnellArno PenziasCharles TownesErwin SchrödingerCecilia Payne-Gaposchkin

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