The Man Who Changed Everything:
The Life of James Clerk Maxwell by
Basil Mahon
A Great Biography Of The Greastest Scientist Of All Times: James Clerk Maxwell
This is the first biography in twenty years of James Clerk Maxwell, one of
the
greatest scientists of our time and yet a man relatively unknown to the
wider public. Approaching science with a freshness unbound by
convention or
previous expectations, he produced some of the most original scientific
thinking
of the nineteenth century ? and his discoveries went on to shape the
twentieth
century.
Personal Review: The Man Who Changed Everything: The Life
of James Clerk Maxwell by Basil Mahon
Certainly not only mainstream physics is not on the right track- see my
review of The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, by his same father,
Erwin Schrodinger- but history too.
After reading this excellent biographical book by Basil Mahon, of the
greatest physicist of all times, James Clerk Maxwell, who was not only
that, but a great husband, a great son, a great friend and most importantly
a great human being to whom mankind owes such a great deal. In effect
why the great public and specially the young ones do not know such an
example of a truly human being?

But let me share with you in this review some of the points I have pointed
out in my copy of this book:
- James was invited to give a lecture at the Royal Institution on his work
on colour vision...and so... The Royal Institution audience saw the world's
first colour photograph.Pag93
- He believed strongly in the power of subconscious thoughts to generate
insights...pag94
- James had shown how the electrical and magnetic forces which we
experience could have their seat not in physical objects like magnets and
wires but in energy stored in the space between and around the
bodies.pag106
- Light must consist of electromagnetic waves. Some of the great leaps in
science have come when two sets of apparently different phenomena are
explained by a single new theory...This was one such leap: at a stroke, he
had united the old science of optics with the much newer one of
electromagnetism...pag109
- It was at this time, busy as he was with experiments... that Maxwell
produced a paper which will remain forever one of the finest of all man's
scientific accomplishment,
A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field. Its boldness, originality
and vision are breathtaking.pag119
- The negative idea was negative feedback... He wrote a paper called On
Governors. It was the first mathematical analysis of control systems and
became the foundation of modern control theory.pag140
- To James scientific facts were incomplete without the knowledge of how
they came to be discovered.pag154
- We know little of Katherine- James's wife-...Whether or not Katherine
deserves her reputation... It is also clear that they were loyally devoted to
one another, with a strong spiritual sense of union, that they always shared
their deepest thoughts, and that James always put Katherine's welfare
before his own.pag169
- What is done by what I call myself is, I feel, done by something greater
than myself in me...pag173
Recently when I have been investigating about the Eastern Inner science
of Taoism, I find it perplexing how the West has its own great Masters, and
without such a difficult trayectory, but by concentrating the mind on the
great ideals of science.

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