James Clerk Maxwell Perspectives on his Life and Work

James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) had a relatively brief, but remarkable life, lived in his beloved rural home of Glenlair, and variously in Edinburgh, Aberdeen, London and Cambridge. His scholarship also ranged wide - covering all the major aspects of Victorian natural philosophy. He was one of the most important mathematical physicists of all time, coming only after Newton and Einstein. In scientific terms his immortality is enshrined in electromagnetism and Maxwell's equations, but as this book shows, there was much more to Maxwell than electromagnetism, both in terms of his science and his wider life. Maxwell's life and contributions to science are so rich that they demand the expertise of a range of academics - physicists, mathematicians, and historians of science and literature - to do him justice. The various chapters will enable Maxwell to be seen from a range of perspectives. Chapters 1 to 4 deal with wider aspects of his life in time and place, at Aberdeen, King's College London and the Cavendish Laboratory. Chapters 5 to 12 go on to look in more detail at his wide ranging contributions to science: optics and colour, the dynamics of the rings of Saturn, kinetic theory, thermodynamics, electricity, magnetism and electromagnetism with the concluding chapters on Maxwell's poetry and Christian faith.

1 - Introductory Biography
2 - Maxwell at Aberdeen
3 - Maxwell at King's College, London
4 - Cambridge and Building the Cavendish Laboratory
5 - Maxwell and the Science of Colour
6 - Maxwell and the Rings of Saturn
7 - Maxwell's Kinetic Theory 1859-1870
8 - Maxwell and the Theory of Liquids
9 - Maxwell's Famous (or Infamous) Demon
10 - Maxwell's Contribution to Electricity and Magnetism
11 - 1. The Maxwellians: The Reception and Further Development of Maxwell's Electromagnetic Theory
12 - The Fluid Dynamics of James Clerk Maxwell
13 - Boundaries of Perception: James Clerk Maxwell's Poetry of Self, Senses and Science
14 - Maxwell, Faith and Physics
15 - I Remember Years and Labours as a Tale that I have Read

Raymond Flood is Gresham Professor of Geometry. He was Vice President of Kellogg College, Oxford and is an Emeritus fellow of Kellogg College. His main research interests are in the history of mathematics, and he was formerly President of the British Society for the History of Mathematics. Mark McCartney is Senior Lecturer in Mathematics at the University of Ulster. His research interests include nonlinear dynamics, the history of science and maths education. Andrew Whitaker is Emeritus Professor of Physics at Queen's University Belfast. His main research interest has been in the foundations of quantum theory and he also has an interest in the history of physics, having had The New Quantum Age published by Oxford University Press in 2011.