James Clerk Maxwell

James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879) ranks alongside Newton and Einstein in the pantheon of physics. Serving as the founding director of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge, Maxwell formulated the mathematical equations that crowned 19th-century classical physics.

In 1865, his paper A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field synthesized electricity and magnetism into four partial differential equations (Maxwell's Equations). Calculating that electromagnetic waves propagate at $300,000 ext{ km/s}$, he realized: 'We can scarcely avoid the inference that light consists in the transverse undulations of the same medium which is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena.' In 1861, he also took the world's first durable color photograph.