thatguy said:
No time now for writeup:
James Clerk Maxwell - Scientist
Here is the writeup and a little bump of this name, so maybe Larry can stop arguing about what is evil and why the term Anti-Semite needs to be retired immediatelyI consider Maxwell's accomplishments in physics to be a notch below those of Newton and on par with those of Einstein. He developed the four equations used to describe Electromagnetism, which as most of you know is very significant branch of physics. If Newton is the Father of Classical Mechanics, this man is The Father of Electricity and Magnetism. Einstein kept pictures of 3 men in his office: Newton, Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell. Faraday made the experimental breakthroughs in Electromagnetism, but it was Maxwell's theoretical work that gave it the push the field needed to become the science that it is today. His accomplishments are truly remarkable, and without them we likely have none of the technological breakthroughs that we now take for granted. I have no idea where this man will be slotted ultimately by the judges, but for my money he is as worthy of 3rd as anyone else drafted, and should be no worse than 5th. Seriously, his breakthroughs in Electromagnetism paved the way for technology as we know it today.
James Clerk Maxwell (13 June 1831 – 5 November 1879) was a Scottish theoretical physicist and mathematician.
His most significant achievement was the development of the classical electromagnetic theory, synthesizing all previous unrelated observations, experiments and equations of electricity, magnetism and even optics into a consistent theory. His set of equations—Maxwell's equations—demonstrated that electricity, magnetism and even light are all manifestations of the same phenomenon: the electromagnetic field. From that moment on, all other classical laws or equations of these disciplines became simplified cases of Maxwell's equations. Maxwell's work in electromagnetism has been called the "second great unification in physics", after the first one carried out by Isaac Newton.
Maxwell demonstrated that electric and magnetic fields travel through space in the form of waves, and at the constant speed of light. Finally, in 1864 Maxwell wrote A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field where he first proposed that light was in fact undulations in the same medium that is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena. His work in producing a unified model of electromagnetism is considered to be one of the greatest advances in physics.
Maxwell also developed the Maxwell distribution, a statistical means to describe aspects of the kinetic theory of gases. These two discoveries helped usher in the era of modern physics, laying the foundation for future work in such fields as special relativity and quantum mechanics. He is also known for creating the first true colour photograph in 1861.
Maxwell is considered by many physicists to be the nineteenth century scientist with the greatest influence on twentieth century physics. His contributions to the science are considered by many to be of the same magnitude as those of Newton and Albert Einstein. In 1931, on the centennial of Maxwell's birthday,
Einstein himself described Maxwell's work as the "most profound and the most fruitful that physics has experienced since the time of Newton." Einstein kept a photograph of Maxwell on his study wall, alongside pictures of Michael Faraday and Newton.
Contributions
Electromagnetism
Maxwell had studied and commented on the field of electricity and magnetism as early as 1855/6 when On Faraday's lines of force was read to the Cambridge Philosophical Society. The paper presented a simplified model of Faraday's work, and how the two phenomena were related. He reduced all of the current knowledge into a linked set of differential equations with 20 equations in 20 variables. This work was later published as On Physical Lines of Force in March 1861.
Around 1862, while lecturing at King's College, Maxwell calculated that the speed of propagation of an electromagnetic field is approximately that of the speed of light. He considered this to be more than just a coincidence, and commented "We can scarcely avoid the conclusion that light consists in the transverse undulations of the same medium which is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena."
Working on the problem further, Maxwell showed that the equations predict the existence of waves of oscillating electric and magnetic fields that travel through empty space at a speed that could be predicted from simple electrical experiments; using the data available at the time, Maxwell obtained a velocity of 310,740,000 m/s. In his 1864 paper A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field, Maxwell wrote, The agreement of the results seems to show that light and magnetism are affections of the same substance, and that light is an electromagnetic disturbance propagated through the field according to electromagnetic laws.
His famous equations, in their modern form of four partial differential equations, first appeared in fully developed form in his textbook A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism in 1873. Most of this work was done by Maxwell at Glenlair during the period between holding his London post and his taking up the Cavendish chair. Maxwell was proven correct, and his quantitative connection between light and electromagnetism is considered one of the great accomplishments of 19th century mathematical physics.
At that time, Maxwell believed that the propagation of light required a medium for the waves, dubbed the luminiferous aether. Over time, the existence of such a medium, permeating all space and yet apparently undetectable by mechanical means, proved more and more difficult to reconcile with experiments such as the Michelson-Morley experiment. Moreover, it seemed to require an absolute frame of reference in which the equations were valid, with the distasteful result that the equations changed form for a moving observer. These difficulties inspired Albert Einstein to formulate the theory of special relativity, and in the process Einstein dispensed with the requirement of a luminiferous aether.
Colour analysis
Maxwell contributed to the area of optics and colour vision, and is credited with the discovery that colour photographs could be formed using red, green, and blue filters. In 1861 he presented the world's first colour photograph during a Royal Institution lecture. He had Thomas Sutton, inventor of the single-lens reflex camera, photograph a tartan ribbon three times, each time with a different colour filter over the lens. The three images were reversal developed to form three colour separation transparencies, and then projected onto a screen with three different projectors, each equipped with the same colour filter used to take its image. When brought into focus, the three images formed a full colour image. The three photographic plates now reside in a small museum at 14 India Street, Edinburgh, the house where Maxwell was born.
However, in the strictest sense, this demonstration did not produce a tangible photograph, but a photographic image produced by three carefully aligned projectors. It served as a "proof of concept" of the possibility of colour photography, using the additive principle, where white is produced by the presence of all three additive primaries (red, green and blue).
From 1855 to 1872, he published at intervals a series of valuable investigations connected with the Perception of Colour and Colour-Blindness, for the earlier of which the Royal Society awarded him the Rumford Medal. The instruments which he devised for these investigations were simple and convenient in use. For example, Maxwell's discs were used to compare a variable mixture of three primary colours with a sample colour by observing the spinning "colour top."
Kinetic theory and thermodynamics
One of Maxwell's major investigations was on the kinetic theory of gases. Originating with ####, this theory was advanced by the successive labours of ####, ####, ####, and particularly ####, to such an extent as to put its general accuracy beyond a doubt; but it received enormous development from Maxwell, who in this field appeared as an experimenter (on the laws of gaseous friction) as well as a mathematician.
In 1866, he formulated statistically, independently of Ludwig Boltzmann, the Maxwell-Boltzmann kinetic theory of gases. His formula, called the Maxwell distribution, gives the fraction of gas molecules moving at a specified velocity at any given temperature. In the kinetic theory, temperatures and heat involve only molecular movement. This approach generalized the previously established laws of thermodynamics and explained existing observations and experiments in a better way than had been achieved previously. Maxwell's work on thermodynamics led him to devise the thought experiment (Gedanken) that came to be known as Maxwell's demon.
In 1871, he established Maxwell's thermodynamic relations, which are statements of equality among the second derivatives of the thermodynamic potentials with respect to different thermodynamic variables.
Control theory
Maxwell published a famous paper On governors in the Proceedings of Royal Society, vol. 16 (1867–1868). This paper is quite frequently considered a classical paper of the early days of control theory. Here governors refer to the governor or the centrifugal governor used in steam engines.
Legacy
* The maxwell (Mw), a compound derived CGS unit measuring magnetic flux.
* Maxwell Montes, a mountain range on Venus, one of only three features on the planet that are not given female names.
* The Maxwell Gap in the Rings of Saturn.
* The James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, the largest submillimetre-wavelength astronomical telescope in the world, with a diameter of 15 metres.
* The 1977 James Clerk Maxwell Building of the University of Edinburgh, housing the schools of mathematics, physics, computer science and meteorology.
* The James Clerk Maxwell building at the Waterloo campus of King's College London, in commemoration of him being Professor of Natural Philosophy at King's from 1860 to 1865. The university also has a chair in Physics named after him, and a society for undergraduate physicists.
* The £4 million James Clerk Maxwell Centre of the Edinburgh Academy was opened in 2006 to mark his 175th anniversary.
* James Clerk Maxwell Road in Cambridge, which runs beside the Cavendish Laboratory.
* The University of Salford's main building was named after him.
* Maxwell bridge, a bridge circuit involving resistors, a capacitor and an inductor
* A statue on Edinburgh's George Street
Great pick
as soon as you posted that my first thought was that it was about the draft, then I went "wait... he's a lawyer... probably was work"...and then I wasn't sure at all...I mean, we all know that this draft >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> real life....
