Engraving by C H Jeens of James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879. Maxwell was one of the world's greatest theoretical physicists. Born in Edinburgh, Scotland he studied mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge. After graduating in 1854, he became a profesor first at Aberdeen (1856) and then at King's College, London (1860). He was also the first Cavendish Profesor of Physics at Cambridge University (1871). Maxwell's most important work was on the theory of electromagnetic radiation, and in 1873 he published 'A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism'. He also formulated the kinetic theory of gases.
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