James Clerk Maxwell

Perspectives on His Life and Work
Erscheinungsjahr 2014
ISBN: 978-0-19-966437-5
Verlag: Oxford University Press, USA

Buch, Englisch, 376 Seiten, Format (B × H): 195 mm x 254 mm, Gewicht: 936 g

James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) had a relatively brief, but remarkable life, lived in his beloved rural home of Glenlair, and variously in Edinburgh, Aberdeen, London and Cambridge. His scholarship also ranged wide - covering all the major aspects of Victorian natural philosophy. He was one of the most important mathematical physicists of all time, coming only after Newton and Einstein.

In scientific terms his immortality is enshrined in electromagnetism and Maxwell's equations, but as this book shows, there was much more to Maxwell than electromagnetism, both in terms of his science and his wider life. Maxwell's life and contributions to science are so rich that they demand the expertise of a range of academics - physicists, mathematicians, and historians of science and literature - to do him justice. The various chapters will enable Maxwell to be seen from a range of
perspectives.

Chapters 1 to 4 deal with wider aspects of his life in time and place, at Aberdeen, King's College London and the Cavendish Laboratory. Chapters 5 to 12 go on to look in more detail at his wide ranging contributions to science: optics and colour, the dynamics of the rings of Saturn, kinetic theory, thermodynamics, electricity, magnetism and electromagnetism with the concluding chapters on Maxwell's poetry and Christian faith.

Zielgruppe

Historians of mathematics, physics, science and ideas as well as historically-minded physicists and mathematicians

Autoren/Hrsg.

Flood, Raymond

McCartney, Mark

Whitaker, Andrew

Fachgebiete

• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Allgemeines Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, Formalen Wissenschaften & Technik
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Wissenschafts- und Universitätsgeschichte
• Naturwissenschaften Physik Physik Allgemein Geschichte der Physik
• Mathematik | Informatik Mathematik Mathematik Allgemein Geschichte der Mathematik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Life
1: Raymond Flood: Introductory Biography
2: John Reid: Maxwell at Aberdeen
3: John Reid: Maxwell at King's College, London
4: Isobel Falconer: Cambridge and Building the Cavendish Laboratory
Science
5: Malcolm Longair: Maxwell and the Science of Colour
6: Andrew Whitaker: Maxwell and the Rings of Saturn
7: Elizabeth Garber: Maxwell's Kinetic Theory 1859-1870
8: John Rowlinson: Maxwell and the Theory of Liquids
9: Andrew Whitaker: Maxwell's Famous (or Infamous) Demon
10: Dan Siegel: Maxwell's Contribution to Electricity and Magnetism
11: Chen-Pang Yeang: 1. The Maxwellians: The Reception and Further Development of Maxwell's Electromagnetic Theory
12: Keith Moffatt: The Fluid Dynamics of James Clerk Maxwell
Poetry, Religion and Conclusions
13: Stella Pratt-Smith: Boundaries of Perception: James Clerk Maxwell's Poetry of Self, Senses and Science
14: Philip Marston: Maxwell, Faith and Physics
15: Mark McCartney: I Remember Years and Labours as a Tale that I have Read

Über Autor(innen)

Raymond Flood is Gresham Professor of Geometry. He was Vice President of Kellogg College, Oxford and is an Emeritus fellow of Kellogg College. His main research interests are in the history of mathematics, and he was formerly President of the British Society for the History of Mathematics.

Mark McCartney is Senior Lecturer in Mathematics at the University of Ulster. His research interests include nonlinear dynamics, the history of science and maths education.

Andrew Whitaker is Emeritus Professor of Physics at Queen's University Belfast. His main research interest has been in the foundations of quantum theory and he also has an interest in the history of physics, having had The New Quantum Age published by Oxford University Press in 2011.