Scottish physicist who lived from 1831 to 1879. In 1871 he became the first
professor of experimental physics at Cambridge, where he organized the Cavendish
Laboratory. Maxwell's notable work in Electricity and Magnetism was summarized in his A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism (1873). He
developed the theory of the Electromagnetic Field(s) on a mathematical basis and concluded that electric and magnetic Energy travel in transverse Waves that propagate at a speed equal to that of Light; light is thus only one type of Electromagnetic Radiation. Maxwell's
theoretical study (1859) of Saturn's rings foreshadowed his later investigations of Heat and the kinetic theory of Gases (see States Of Matter).