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James Clerk Maxwell

James Clerk Maxwell

1879 - 1831

The great British physicist Jesse Clerk Maxwell is famous for formulating the set of four equations that expressed the basic laws of magnetism and electricity.

These two topics (magnetism and electricity) were saturated with research and scrutiny before Maxwell, and it is not hidden that they are closely related to one another. Although scientists before Maxwell had discovered several laws of electricity and magnetism, there was no unified comprehensive theory.

As for Maxwell, he developed four short polished equations, through which he was able to accurately explain the interrelationship between electric and magnetic fields. With this work, he transferred these complex natural phenomena to an understandable theory. Maxwell's equations have been applied throughout the past century in theoretical and applied sciences.

And the advantage of Maxwell's equations is that they are general equations that suit all circumstances and conditions, and it was possible to derive most of the known electrical laws from Maxwell's equations, as well as those that were not known before him.

The most important of these new results was deduced by Maxwell himself, including that the periodic vibrations in the electromagnetic field calm the occurrence, and such vibrations are called electromagnetic waves, which, if they begin, extend and spread outward through space. Maxwell calculated the speed of these electromagnetic waves and found them to be 300,000 kilometers (or 186 000) miles per second, and this is the speed of light, and he concluded that light itself consists of electromagnetic waves.

Thus, Maxwell's equations are not only the basic laws of electricity and magnetism, but also the basic laws of optics. In fact, the laws of optics can also be deduced from Maxwell's equations, as well as many facts and relationships that were not previously discovered.

The visible light is not the only possible type of electromagnetic radiation, as Maxwell's equations showed that there are other electromagnetic waves that differ from the visible light in their vibrational lengths and frequencies. The scientist Hertz confirmed these theoretical conclusions in a practical way, as he was able to produce and detect those invisible waves that Maxwell predicted their existence. A few years later, Marconi showed that those invisible waves could be used in wireless communication when radio became a reality. Nowadays we use them in television as well. X-rays, gamma rays, infrared and ultraviolet radiation are other examples of electromagnetic radiation, and all of this can be easily studied based on Maxwell's equations.

Although Matswell's early fame rests on his amazingly dramatic exploits in the world of electromagnetism and optics, he made contributions to many fields of science, such as theories of astronomy and thermodynamics. And one of his special interests is the theory of gases activity. Maxwell concluded that not all gases travel * at the same speed, as some molecules go fast and others slowly. Some of them are very fast, and Maxwell was able to formulate a theory that determines the number of fractions of particles for any gas moving at a certain speed, and this formula is called (Maxwell distribution). It is one of the broadest general formulas used at the present time and has important applications in several branches of science.

Maxwell was born in 1831 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and his mental maturity was early. When he was fifteen, he presented a scientific paper to the Royal Society in Edinburgh. He graduated from Cambridge and spent most of his life as a university professor and got married but did not have children. Maxwell is considered the greatest theoretical physicist in the period between Newton and Einstein, but his cancer ended his life at the age of forty-eight.