|Back to . . . Clerk Maxwell ( 1831-1879 ) 14 India Street epoch
ended and another began with James Clerk Maxwell." "The special
theory of relativity owes its origins to Maxwell's equations of
the electromagnetic field." James Clerk Maxwell was one of the
greatest scientists and mathematicians of the 19th century. With
talents rarely united today, he made landmark contributions to
both theoretical and experimental science. Maxwell published
phenomenal work in two areas. First, building upon the
experimental data of Michael Faraday, and applying highly
sophisticated mathematical methods, he predicted the existence
of electromagnetic waves (1864). Moreover, he calculated the
waves would travel at the speed of Later, Heinrich Hertz
discovered these waves (1887) thereby paving the way for radio,
television, radar, and even the boom in computer science. For
Maxwell, the great mental breakthrough came in thinking of
electricity as an electromagnetic not some sort of mechanical
process. "The true logic of this world