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One hundred and seventy-five years ago, James Clerk Maxwell was born in Edinburgh. He is known most for developing the Maxwell Equations, four equations that link electricity and magnetism and, at the same time, calculate the speed of light. He also worked in kinetic theory, coming up with the Maxwell distribution of molecular speeds in a gas.

Some of Maxwell’s lesser-known investigations include his discovery that colour photographs could be made using red, green, and blue filters. He also did work on colour blindness, and proved that Saturn’s rings were neither solid nor liquid, instead being made up of numerous solid particles.

Maxwell is considered the most influential scientist of the nineteenth century. Albert Einstein described Maxwell’s work as the “most profound and the most fruitful that physics has experienced since the time of Newton.”

His name lives on through the CGS unit of magnetic flux, the Maxwell. The only feature on Venus named after a male is named after him — Maxwell Montes, a mountain range. The largest sub-millimetre telescope in the world, the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, is named after him, as are buildings at the University of Edinburgh, King’s College London, and the University of Stafford.

We here at the Joint Astronomy Centre (we operate the JCMT) are celebrating with a barbeque at lunch today.

Happy Birthday to James Clerk Maxwell!