The Unknown Maxwell

One Day Meeting

• 28 March 2025, 09:00 – 17:30
• Cambridge University Engineering Department One Day Meeting

Upcoming event Booking Recommended Lent Term One Day Meeting

• Event cost: Free
• Disabled access?: Yes
• Booking required: No

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Overview

In the millennium poll, James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) was voted the third greatest physicist of all time – behind Newton and Einstein. But Maxwell’s extraordinary range of interests and achievements extended far beyond his well-known equations for electromagnetism and his thermodynamic relations, and this meeting will explore just a few of the fields in which Maxwell did seminal work. The day will begin with an overview of James Clerk Maxwell’s life and achievements. The talks following will highlight some topics in which current research is revealing interesting developments, but also looking back to Maxwell’s insights in laying the foundations for so much of our contemporary science.

There will be a small exhibition of artefacts including some of Maxwell’s models from the Cavendish collection.

James Clerk Maxwell had strong links with the Cambridge Philosophical Society during his time at Cambridge. He studied mathematics as an undergraduate – initially at Peterhouse, but moving to Trinity before the end of his first term. He graduated in 1854, and shortly afterwards presented his first paper On the transformation of surfaces by bending  to the Cambridge Philosophical Society. His career took him to Aberdeen, Edinburgh and King’s College London before returning to Cambridge in 1871 to become the first Professor of Experimental Physics. He was President of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 1875-1877.

09.00	Welcome, introduction	Dr Claire Barlow
09.15	The Unknown Maxwell	Professor Bruce Hunt (University of Texas)
10.00	The Mechanical Origins of Maxwell’s Equations	Professor Malcolm Longair (Cavendish)
10.45-11.00	Introduction to Maxwell artefacts on display in Constance Tipper lecture Theatre	Professor Isobel Falconer (University of St Andrews)
11.00	Tea/coffee in LR4
11.30	Maxwell and the nature of primary colours	Professor John Mollon (Psychology)
12.15	From Maxwell’s fields to quantised light	Professor Peter Knight (Imperial College)
13.00-14.00	Lunch
14.00	Maxwell and the Geometry of Structural Equilibrium	Professor Bill Baker (Cambridge University Honorary Professor of Structural Engineering), Professor Allan McRobie (Engineering)
14.45	150 years of cybernetics: from Maxwell's governor to neuromorphic machines	Professor Rodolphe Sepulchre (Engineering)
15.30	Tea/coffee in LR4
16.00	Saturn’s rings, gravitational instability and the formation of planets	Professor Gordon Ogilvie (DAMTP)
16.45	Thermodynamics and Maxwell's Demon Demystified	Professor John Ellis (Cavendish)
17.30	Closing remarks	Dr Claire Barlow

 

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