183 1 June 13, James? Maxwell was born into a noble family in Edinburgh, Scotland. His father was interested in practical and technical knowledge and later became a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. At the age of 8, my mother died and studied science under the guidance of my father. Influenced by his father, Maxwell entered the scientific community at an early age, and thus received many beneficial influences. 1847, 16 years old, entered the university of Edinburgh to study mathematics and physics. /kloc-transferred to Cambridge university in 0/850, where he became a famous mathematician w? Under the guidance of Hopkins, he made great achievements.

From 1855 to 1856, Maxwell published his first electromagnetic paper-on Faraday's magnetic field lines. This paper not only expresses Faraday's intuitive force line image in abstract mathematical form, which promotes Faraday's experimental research, but also contains a series of important ideas, which opens up a new way for future research.

186 1 after deeply analyzing the phenomenon of induced electromotive force caused by magnetic field change, Maxwell keenly felt that even without conductor loop, the changing magnetic field would excite a kind of "field" around it through the medium, which he regarded as induced electric field or eddy electric field. This is the first major assumption of Maxwell's unified electromagnetic theory. 1862, Maxwell published an important paper on magnetic lines in physics, in which the concept of "displacement current" was introduced. This is a creation of Maxwell's theoretical thinking and a key step in establishing theory. This made him generalize the two basic principles that the current in the conductor produces magnetic lines around the current and the induced current in the conductor when the conductor secant, and formed the following two principles: the changing electric field in space produces magnetic field; The changing magnetic field in space will produce an electric field. Thus, a new physical picture is obtained: alternating electric field produces alternating magnetic field, and alternating magnetic field produces alternating electric field. These two interrelated and mutually exciting processes make the electric field and magnetic field form a unified "electromagnetic field". So as to gradually form a complete theoretical system of electromagnetic field.

From 1864 to 1865, Maxwell published his famous paper "Electromagnetic Field Dynamics". In this paper, he got Maxwell's equation of electromagnetic field in vacuum. The position of this equation in electromagnetism is equivalent to that of Newton's laws of mechanics in classical mechanics. The simplicity and beauty of its form have always been praised by the scientific community.

1868, Maxwell published another important paper, Electromagnetic Theory of Light, which clearly summarized light as electromagnetic theory. This is the famous electromagnetic wave theory of light. At this point, Maxwell combined electricity, magnetism and light, which were independent of each other, and completed a major synthesis of physics in the middle of this century.

In addition, after Faraday, Maxwell used the power of mathematics to further eliminate the distance force, which is of far-reaching significance to the development of physics. Because if the distance force is not excluded, there will be no electromagnetic theory and no relativity. If Lorentz transformation is used, the principle that the speed of light is constant can be deduced from Maxwell, which is a basic premise of relativity. No wonder Einstein once said that the establishment of special relativity was attributed to Maxwell's equation.

187 1 year, Maxwell became the first professor of experimental physics at Cambridge University, and established and led the Cavendish Physics Laboratory. This academic unit, called the laboratory, is actually the Institute of Physics, which later developed into one of the most important and famous academic centers in the history of science.

Maxwell's greatest contribution is to establish the electromagnetic theory of light. As early as in college, he realized that Faraday's theory was an important basis for establishing a new physical theory. He is determined to make up for Faraday's deficiency by mathematical means and express Faraday's view of genius in clear and accurate mathematical form.

1873, Maxwell completed the classic works of electricity and magnetism, which is considered to be the most important physics classic after Newton's principle. Maxwell electromagnetism is a profound scientific heritage in the treasure house of human knowledge. In addition to electromagnetism, Maxwell's contribution to the molecular dynamics of heat is also outstanding. 187 1 year, Maxwell published the book "The Theory of Heat". This book expresses some relationships between partial derivatives of thermodynamic variables such as pressure, volume, entropy and temperature, that is, "Maxwell relationship". The position of these relations in thermodynamics is equivalent to that of Maxwell's equations in classical dynamics.

From 65438 to 0879, Maxwell began to turn his attention to gas theory. He derived Maxwell's law of velocity distribution of molecular motion by mathematical statistics. This achievement can be regarded as the starting point of classical statistical physics. In addition, Maxwell further developed Hamilton's theory on the rationality of vector analysis and symbolic differential operators, and made important contributions in different fields, such as horse sense theory and colorimetry, research on Saturn's rings, geometric optics, optical elasticity of servo mechanism (governor), structural mechanics and so on. In the same year165438+1October 5, Maxwell died of cancer at the age of 49. In the history of physics, a superstar who can communicate with Newton has fallen. Later generations named the unit of magnetic flux Maxwell in memory of him.