James Clerk Maxwell was a Scottish mathematical physicist whose most significant achievement was formulating a set of equations that describe electricity, magnetism, and optics as manifestations of the same phenomenon: the electromagnetic field. This unification led to the prediction of radio waves and laid the groundwork for modern physics. His work in statistical mechanics and the kinetic theory of gases, alongside his contributions to color photography and the rigidity of structures, highlights the breadth of his scientific impact. Einstein himself described Maxwell's work as the most profound and fruitful in physics since Newton, underscoring his immense influence on 20th-century physics.
We owe Clerk Maxwell the precise formulation of the space-time laws of electromagnetic fields. Imagine his own feelings when the partial differential equations he formulated spread in the form of polarized waves with the speed of light! This change in the understanding of the structure of reality is the most profound and fruitful that has come to physics since Newton. --Albert Einstein