James Clerk was born in 1831 in Edinburgh, Scotland. The family later added the name Maxwell. James sailed easily through his university schooling to earn top honors and a degree in mathematics. He held various professorships in math and physics thereafter.
As a mathematician, Maxwell explored the world and the universe through mathematic equations. His chose the rings of Saturn as the subject of his first major study.
Maxwell used mathematics to prove that these rings couldn't be solid disks, nor could they consist of gas. His equations showed that they must consist of count less small, solid particles. A century later, astronomers proved him to be correct.
Maxwell turned his attention to gasses and studied the mathematical rela tionships that governed the motion of rapidly moving gas particles. His results in this study completely revised science's approach to studying the relationship between heat (temperature) and gas motion.
In 1860 he turned his attention to early electrical work by Michael Faraday. Faraday invented the electric motor by discovering that a spinning metal disk in a magnetic field created an electric current and that a changing electric current also changed a magnetic field
and could create physical motion.
Maxwell decided to mathematically explore the relationship between electricity and magnetism and the “electrical and magnetic lines of force” that Faraday had discovered.
As Maxwell searched for mathematical relationships between various aspects of electricity and magnetism, he devised experiments to test and confirm each of his results. By 1864 he had derived four simple equations that described the behavior of electrical and magnetic fields
and their interrelated nature. Oscillating (changing) electrical fields (ones whose electrical current rapidly shifted back and forth) produced magnetic fields and vice versa. The two types of energy were integrally co nected. Maxwell realized that electricity and magnetism were simply two expressions of a single energy stream and named it electromagnetic energy.
When he first published these equa tions and his dis coveries in an 1864 article, physicists instantly recognized the incredible value and meaning of Maxwell's four equations. Maxwell continued to work with his set of equations and realized that as long as the electrical source oscillated at a high enough frequency the electromagnetic energy waves it created could and would fly through the open air without conducting wires to travel
along. This was the first prediction of radio waves.
He calculated the speed at which these electromagnetic waves would travel and found that it matched the best calculations (at that time) of the speed of light. From this, Maxwell realized that light it self was just another form of electromagnetic radiation. Because electrically charged currents can oscillate at any frequency, Maxwell realized that light was only a tiny part of a vast and continuous spectrum of electromagnetic radiation.
Maxwell pre dicted that other forms of electromagnetic radiation along other parts of this spectrum would be found. As he predicted, X-rays were discovered in 1896 by Wilhelm Roentgen. Eight years be fore that discovery, Heinrich Hertz conducted experiments following Maxwell's equa tions to see if he could cause electromagnetic radiation to fly
through the air (transmit through space in the form of waves of energy). He easily created and detected the world's first radio waves, confirm ing Maxwell's equations and predictions.
