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PART II - CONTRIBUTIONS TO SCIENCE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2011

Lewis Campbell  and
William Garnett
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Summary

“He was one of those who took more delight in the contemplation of truth than in the praise of having discovered it,”

Playfair'sMemoirs of Dr. Hutton.

At the close of the memoir published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Mr. W. D. Niven, referring to Maxwell's scientific work, says:—

It is seldom that the faculties of invention and exposition, the attachment to physical science, and capability of developing it mathematically, have been found existing in one mind to the same degree. It would, however, require powers somewhat akin to Maxwell's own, to describe the more delicate features of the works resulting from this combination, every one of which is stamped with the subtle but unmistakable impress of genius.

It will probably be many years before an approximate estimate can be formed of the value of Maxwell's work. In the following pages no attempt has been made to give more than a brief account of a few of his principal contributions to science. The chief subjects referred to have, for convenience, been arranged in the following order:—

  1. Experiments on Colour Vision and other contributions to Optics.

  2. Investigations respecting Elastic Solids.

  3. Pure Geometry.

  4. Mechanics.

  5. Saturn's Rings.

  6. Faraday's Lines of Force, and Maxwell's Theory of the Electro-magnetic Field, including the Electro-magnetic Theory of Light and other investigations in Electricity.

  7. Molecular Physics.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Life of James Clerk Maxwell
With a Selection from his Correspondence and Occasional Writings and a Sketch of his Contributions to Science
 , pp. 465 - 576
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010
First published in: 1882

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