Makers of Electricity

by Brother Potamian; James J. Walsh

Natural science in every department developed very wonderfully from its experimental side during the first half of the nineteenth century. Facts and observations accumulated to such an amount that, shortly after the middle of the century, there was felt the need of a great mathematical genius to bring the results of experiment into their proper places in the great body of applied and theoretic science. Nearly always such a demand meets with adequate response in its own due time. Clerk Maxwell came at this most opportune moment for science. No mathematical problem was too abstruse or difficult for him, and whatever he took up seriously he always illuminated, and usually solved its problems as completely as can be hoped for in the present state of scientific knowledge. It was particularly in electricity that his mathematical faculty proved of the greatest value, and that he found the abundant opportunities of which he knew so well how to take advantage.

James Clerk Maxwell

Clerk Maxwell's theory of electricity, as developed in his classic treatise on "Electricity and Magnetism," is well called by Prof. Peter Guthrie Tait, "One of the most splendid monuments ever raised by the genius of a single individual." This book became the guide and companion of more physical scientists during the nineteenth century than perhaps any other written in that period. It was not alone in England or in English-speaking countries that it was accepted as an authority and constantly referred to, but everywhere throughout the world of science. Not to know it, was to argue that a man knew nothing of the profounder truths of electrical science and was only a seeker after superficial information. Clerk Maxwell was known and esteemed by all the great physical scientists of the world. His name is less widely known than that of most of the great discoverers in electricity, because mathematical achievement always has less popular attraction; but he deserves to be known by all who are interested in science, not only because of his magnificent contributions to mathematical electricity, but quite as much for qualities of heart and mind that stamp him as one of the very great men of the century so rapidly receding from us.

Clerk Maxwell, as he is usually called, because he was the representative of a younger branch of the well-known Scottish family of Clerk of Penicuik, was born in Edinburgh, June 13th, 1831. As with nearly every other person who reaches distinction in after-life, there are stories told of his precociousness which probably have more meaning in this case than in most others, since they exhibit real traits that were characteristic of the man. As a child, it is said that he was never satisfied until he had found out for himself everything that he could about anything that attracted his attention. He wanted to know where the streams of water came from, where and whence all the pipes ran, and the course of bell-wires and the like. His frequently repeated question was, "What's the go o' that." If an attempt were made to put him off with some indefinite answer, then he would insist, "But what's the particular go of it." This was probably the most prominent trait in his after-life. General explanations of phenomena that satisfied other men never satisfied him. He was a nature student from the beginning, and even as a boy he devised all sorts of ingenious mechanical contrivances. Pet animals were his special delight, but for experimental purposes always, and his selection of pets would probably have startled some people.

He received his early education at the Edinburgh Academy, and his university education at the University of Edinburgh, where he graduated in 1850. His liking for mathematics, which had already been very strongly exhibited, led him, at the age of nineteen, to go to Cambridge. Here, for a term or two, he was a student at Peterhouse, but afterwards found a more sympathetic place for his mathematical tastes at Trinity. He took his degree at Cambridge in 1854, though only with the rank of second wrangler, Routh being senior. In the more serious and more exacting examination for the Smith's Prize, he was declared equal with the senior wrangler. His mathematical talents had developed very early, and it is not surprising that the rest of his life should have been devoted mainly to the teaching of mathematics and in investigations connected with applied mathematics. It was not success at the university that determined his career, for he had shown his marvelous mathematical ability much earlier than that, and had given some astonishing examples of his power to treat complex scientific problems in mathematical journals.

Indeed, his original contributions to the higher mathematics began before he was fifteen years of age. He was a striking example of the fact that a great genius usually finds his work very early in life, and usually accomplishes something significant in it, at once the harbinger and the token of the future, before he is twenty-five. While Clerk Maxwell was at the Edinburgh Academy, Professor J. D. B. Forbes, in 1836, communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh a short paper by his youthful student on "A Mechanical Method of Tracing Oval Curves" (Cartesian Ovals).

In spite of the prejudice that exists with regard to precocious genius and the distinct feeling that it is not likely to prove an enduring quality, Clerk Maxwell continued to do excellent original work all through his teens. When he was but eighteen, he contributed two important papers to the transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. One of these was on "The Theory of Rolling Curves," and the other on "The Equilibrium of Elastic Solids." These are now remembered, not only because of Clerk Maxwell's subsequent distinguished career, but because of their distinct value as contributions to science. Both of them demonstrate not only his ability to work out subtle mathematical problems at this very early age, but show the possession by him of a power of investigation for original work that stamps them as well worthy of consideration in themselves, quite apart from the repute of their author or the successful accomplishments of his subsequent life.

With regard to one of those Edinburgh papers of Clerk Maxwell's eighteenth year, Prof. Guthrie Tait said "that in it he laid the foundation of one of the singular discoveries of his later life, the temporary double refraction produced in viscous liquid by sheering stress." After his magnificent mathematical training at Cambridge, it is not surprising that this academic career of great original work should be continued by contributions to science of ever-increasing importance. Immediately after his graduation, he read to the Cambridge Philosophical Society one of the few purely mathematical papers that he ever published. This had for its title, "On the Transformation of Surfaces by Bending." Expert mathematicians who read the paper, realized at once that there was a new genius in the field of mathematics. During the same year, the young Scotch mathematician took the first step in that series of electrical investigations which was to occupy so much of his attention in after-life, and which was to prove the source of his greatest inspirations. This consisted of the publication of an elaborate paper on Faraday's "lines of force."