- In 1865, James Clerk Maxwell wrote
his famous or infamously mathematically difficult
Maxwell's equations that were to transform our world.
For example, when Einstein was asked
if he stood on the shoulders of Newton, he replied,
"No, on the shoulders of Maxwell."
But who is James Maxwell?
Why are his equations important?
And why did he write them in the first place?
It all has to do with a famous scientist
named Michael Faraday, who had no math skills,
and a young Lord Kelvin of temperature fame
who inspired them both.
Ready for this story?
Let's go.
♪ Electricity, electricity ♪
- Let's start with a little backstory.
In 1845, a 21-year-old student named William Thompson
later knighted Lord Kelvin,
inspired the already-famous 54-year-old Michael Faraday
to conduct an experiment
that found a link between electricity, magnetism, and light.
The next year Faraday postulated
that maybe light was really vibrations
of electric and/or magnetic fields.
Although he called them
electric and magnetic lines of force.
This was a radical idea.
And most legitimate scientists thought it was balderdash.
To make matters worse, he had rapidly failing memory
and was suffering from severe depression,
probably from mercury poisoning.
Also many scientists at the time
looked down on Faraday for his low-class background
as well as his lack of mathematical ability.
Fast forward nine years to 1853.
James Clerk Maxwell was a 23-year-old
Scottish math and physics students at Cambridge,
famous for his intelligence, wit, and late hours.
Supposedly when he heard
there was a required 6:00 AM chapel meeting,
he replied, "I, I suppose I can stay up that late."
1853 was an important year for Maxwell
because he moved into his own place, or as he put it,
"Entered into the unholy state of bachelorhood,"
and had more time to do independent research.
He decided to attack electricity
and asked his friend Thompson for advice
on who to read, looking for, quote,
"Any notions I could screw into my head."
Maxwell specifically wanted to know
if he should start with a mathematical scientist
or start with Faraday, who never used math.
Thompson who was the same person
who inspired Faraday earlier,
advised Maxwell to start with Faraday.
Maxwell read Faraday and surprisingly thought
that it was secretly mathematical.
Moreover, Maxwell felt that he could convert
Faraday's math into conventional math,
which he promptly did.
In 1855 Maxwell published "On Faraday's Lines of Force."
Faraday was impressed
and wrote Maxwell a plea to, quote,
"translate them out of their hieroglyphics," i.e. math,
"that we might work upon them by experiment."
Meanwhile, Maxwell had become, at age 25,
a full professor at Marischal College in Aberdeen.
To fit in with the older staff, he grew a big bushy beard.
He still didn't feel comfortable there saying, quote,
"No jokes of any kind are understood here.
I've not made a joke for two months.
And if I feel one coming on, I shall bite my tongue."
However, he did meet Katherine Dewar,
the daughter of a local history professor.
It was an instant match
and they were married in June of 1859.
They never had any children,
but were a little obsessed with their dog, Toby.
Catherine was also a scientist.
We don't know exactly how much she contributed
to Maxwell's works,
as a fire burned down many of their papers,
and biographers were hesitant to mention her contributions
in that sexist society.
We do know, however, that when someone asked James Maxwell
for some data he replied, quote,
"My better half who did all the real work in kinetic theory,
is it present engaged in other researches.
When she is done, I will let you know
her answer to your inquiry."
The Maxwells then moved to London,
and James Maxwell became a professor at King's College.
At this time Maxwell and his wife
did pioneering work on color,
including a method for creating the first color photograph,
molecular theory, dimensional analysis, and how gases flow.
James Maxwell continue to research
how to add conventional mathematics to Faraday's theories.
He was particularly interested in
Faraday's theory from 1846,
that light was really a vibration
of electric or magnetic fields.
At this time, William Thompson told Maxwell
to read two German physicist, Weber and Kohlrausch,
who had experimentally connected
the units of electricity to the units of magnetism.
Weber et al experimentally determined the speed,
which they labeled C,
probably 'cause they already had
an A and a B in their paper.
This speed turned out to be the speed of light.
This is why the speed of light is labeled C
in Einstein's famous E equals MC squared equation.
Anyway, in 1865, Maxwell wrote a paper
where he coined the term "fields"
instead of Faraday's "lines of force."
Maxwell excitedly wrote a friend that, quote,
"Till I'm convinced to the contrary,
I hold my new paper to be great guns."
And he was right.
In this paper Maxwell claimed
that Weber's results are, quote,
"So nearly that of light,
that it seems we have a strong reason to conclude
that light itself is an electromagnetic wave."
To Maxwell, his paper with all of his equations
were the same in substance as Faraday's ideas from 1846,
except as Maxwell put it,
"In 1846, there was no data
to calculate the velocity propagation."
Maxwell's equations were more
than just an equation for light, however.
They actually put all of electric and magnetic theory
in one beautiful package,
describing them all through the lens
of interrelated electric and magnetic fields.
For example, in 1820, a man named Oersted
found that current or moving charges will move a magnet.
In Maxwell's equations, the moving charges
create a moving electric field
which creates a magnetic field.
In another example, Faraday found in 1831
that moving a magnet in a coil
would create current in that coil,
which is why Faraday came up with the idea
of magnetic lines of force in the first place.
Maxwell's equations describe how a changing magnetic field
will create an electric field, which creates a current.
It's hard to overestimate
how important Maxwell's equations are to physicists.
A hundred years after Maxwell,
the famous physicist Richard Feynman poetically said
"10,000 years from now,
the most significant event of the 19th century
will be judged as Maxwell's discovery
of the laws of electromagnetism.
The American Civil War will pale
into provincial insignificance in comparison."
Although Maxwell's equations were heralded as genius
by the late 1800s,
at the time they were mostly ignored.
The theories were bizarre,
and the mathematics was truly arduous.
In fact, the original form of Maxwell's equations
had a whopping 20 interconnected equations.
However soon, a group of young scientists
calling themselves "Maxwellians"
started to promote his theories and simplified it.
In 1884, a Maxwellian named Oliver Heaviside
used something he created called vector calculus
to get the modern form of Maxwell's equations
with just four interconnected equations.
Back in the 1860s, Faraday was pleased
with Maxwell's attention,
but was getting more feeble and confused.
He gave his last free Christmas lecture for kids in 1860
and his last experiment on the magnetic influence
on the light produced by glowing gas
on March 12th, 1862.
By the way, Faraday's last experiment was unsuccessful,
but many years later,
a man named Pieter Zeeman re-did the experiment
with more sensitive equipment
and won a Nobel prize for it in 1902.
Faraday died on August 25th, 1867,
and as was his wish, had a plain simple funeral
followed by a gravestone of the most ordinary kind
in the simplest earthy place.
Meanwhile, the Maxwells continued to do research
and develop new ideas.
Tragically in 1877, when James Maxwell was working
on a new electromagnetism paper,
he began to suffer from severe heartburn.
He was then diagnosed with stomach cancer.
James Clerk Maxwell died on November 5th, 1879,
when he was just 48 years old.
His local doctor ended his medical report on Maxwell
by adding, "I must say
he's one of the best men I've ever met,"
a sentiment shared by most of the people who knew him.
Catherine died seven years later
and little is known of her activities
after her husband's death.
She has no statute.
The same year James Maxwell died,
a Maxwellian named Helmholtz offered a prize
of a hundred ducats for an experiment
that would prove, quote,
"the theory of electrodynamics,
which was brought forth by Faraday
and was mathematically executed by Mr. Maxwell."
Helmholtz asked his 22-year-old grad student,
Heinrich Hertz, to attempt it,
but Hertz was too intimidated.
Eight years later, Hertz got a giant spark
from one side of the room
to create a tiny spark on the other side.
How Maxwell and Faraday and Helmholtz
inspired Hertz to discover radio waves
is next time on "The Secret History of Electricity."
♪ Electricity, electricity ♪
Thanks for watching my video.
Please remember to give it a nice thumbs up.
If you haven't seen it already,
I highly recommend you watch the last one
about how Faraday came up with the idea
of electromagnetic waves,
and also check out the next one,
whenever I finish it, about radio waves.
Should be a good one.
Okay, have a good day.
(upbeat music)