Henry Cavendish (1731 1810), the grandson of the second duke of Devonshire, wrote papers on electrical topics for the Royal Society, but the majority of his electrical experiments did not become known until they were collected and published by James Clerk Maxwell a century later, in 1879, long after other scientists had been credited with the same results. Among Cavendish's discoveries were the concept of electric potential, which he called the 'degree of electrification'; an early unit of capacitance, that of a sphere one inch in diameter; the formula for the capacitance of a plate...

A logical instructive guide explaining complex concepts that, although published in 1888, is as timeless as the laws of physics.

Arguably the most influential nineteenth-century scientist for twentieth-century physics, James Clerk Maxwell (1831 1879) demonstrated that electricity, magnetism and light are all manifestations of the same phenomenon: the electromagnetic field. A fellow of Trinity College Cambridge, Maxwell became, in 1871, the first Cavendish Professor of Physics at Cambridge. His famous equations - a set of four partial differential equations that relate the electric and magnetic fields to their sources, charge density and current density - first appeared in fully developed form in his 1873 Treatise on...

Arguably the most influential nineteenth-century scientist for twentieth-century physics, James Clerk Maxwell (1831 1879) demonstrated that electricity, magnetism and light are all manifestations of the same phenomenon: the electromagnetic field. A fellow of Trinity College Cambridge, Maxwell became, in 1871, the first Cavendish Professor of Physics at Cambridge. His famous equations - a set of four partial differential equations that relate the electric and magnetic fields to their sources, charge density and current density - first appeared in fully developed form in his 1873 Treatise on...

Henry Cavendish (1731 1810) was an English scientist whose published work was mostly concerned with electricity. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1760. Cavendish was a prolific scientific investigator, performing experiments on not only electricity but also magnetism, thermometry, gases, heat potential and the chemical composition of water. Although he published some of his research, including his discovery of hydrogen, the majority of his work remained unpublished until 1879, when James Clerk Maxwell published a collection of Cavendish's electrical experiments. These papers...

The collected papers of the man generally considered the third most important physicist of all time, after Newton and Einstein.

The collected papers of the man generally considered the third most important physicist of all time, after Newton and Einstein.

James Clerk Maxwell (1831 1879), first Cavendish Professor of Physics at Cambridge, made major contributions to many areas of theoretical physics and mathematics, not least his discoveries in the fields of electromagnetism and of the kinetic theory of gases, which have been regarded as laying the foundations of all modern physics. This work of 1881 was edited from Maxwell's notes by a colleague, William Garnett, and had formed the basis of his lectures. Several of the articles included in the present work were also included in his two-volume Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism (1873), also...

Best known for his theory of electromagnetism, James Clerk Maxwell (1831 79) was Cambridge University's first Cavendish Professor of Experimental Physics. Albert Einstein described his work as 'the most profound and the most fruitful that physics has experienced since the time of Newton'. He carried out brilliant work in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, laying the foundation for the kinetic theory of gases. This book, published originally in 1871, summarises his work in this field. It includes the 'Maxwell relations' that still feature in every standard text on thermodynamics. It...