James Clerk Maxwell Maxwell, James Clerk (klärk) [key], 1831–79,
great Scottish physicist. After a brilliant career at Edinburgh
and Cambridge, where he won early recognition with mathematical
papers, he was professor at Marischal College, Aberdeen
(1856–60), and at King's College, London (1860–65). In 1871 he
was appointed first professor of experimental physics at
Cambridge, where he directed the organization of the Cavendish
Laboratory. He is known especially for his work in electricity
and magnetism, summarized in A Treatise on Electricity and
Magnetism (1873). Basing his own study and research on that of
Faraday, he developed the theory of the electromagnetic field on
a mathematical basis and made possible a much greater
understanding of the phenomena in this field. He was led to the
conclusion that electric and magnetic energy travel in
transverse waves that propagate at a speed equal to that of
light; light is thus only one type of electromagnetic radiation.
Maxwell's electromagnetic theory occupies a