So James Clerk Maxwell was one of the greatest theoretical physicists of the 19th century, even perhaps the greatest. He is most famous for compiling a system of equations in the 1860s that describe the interactions of electricity and magnetism, and showed that these equations predict the existence of electromagnetic waves. He then boldly — and correctly — went on to hypothesize that these electromagnetic waves include visible light. (We would later find that Maxwell’s theory unified a whole family of rays and waves, all seemingly different: light, infrared, ultraviolet, radio, X-rays and gamma rays are all electromagnetic waves of different wavelengths.) The equations he formulated are now known as Maxwell’s equations.
Maxwell also did pioneering work in the kinetic theory of gases, did studies of color vision, and produced the first durable color photographs — in 1861! He also did some of the earliest scientific work to try to understand how a cat lands on its feet when it is dropped, a subject I have studied somewhat extensively.
What I did not know, until recently, is that Maxwell was also a poet! Not only that, but he wrote one poem in his youth about a “vampyre.” Maxwell is another scientist who I can add to my list of science-horror connections.
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