Of Further Interest: Maxwell

Optional reading

A biography, focusing mostly Maxwell's early years, extracted by James Rautio from the 1882 biography "The Life of James Clerk Maxwell" by Lewis Campbell and William Garnett (13 pages); to view or download, click here. 

The chapter on Maxwell from William H. Cropper's excellent book "Great Physicists". Very well written but also with some math interludes, so feel free to skip and skim over the difficult parts (22 pages); to view or download, click here. 

Videos for optional viewing:  

YouTube Video (17:34).  "A (very) Brief History of James Clerk Maxwell." 

YouTube Video (52:31).  Gresham College Lecture on Maxwell's life and many contributions: "James Clerk Maxwell: The Greatest Victorian Mathematical Physicists"  by Professor Raymond Flood

Notes for the video: James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) was one of the most important mathematical physicists of all time, after only Newton and Einstein. Within a relatively short lifetime he made enormous contributions to science which this lecture will survey. Foremost among these was the formulation of the theory of electromagnetism with light, electricity and magnetism all shown to be manifestations of the electromagnetic field. He also made major contributions to the theory of colour vision and optics, the kinetic theory of gases and thermodynamics, and the understanding of the dynamics and stability of Saturn's rings.

This talk was a part of the conference on '19th Century Mathematical Physics', held jointly by Gresham College and the British Society of the History of Mathematics.