James Clerk Maxwell

1831–1879 · Scottish physicist

Topics: physics, learning, mathematics

• It is of great advantage to the student of any subject to read the original memoirs on that subject, for science is always most completely assimilated when it is in the nascent state...

  — James Clerk Maxwell

• I have also a paper afloat, with an electromagnetic theory of light, which, till I am convinced to the contrary, I hold to be great guns.

  — James Clerk Maxwell

• We may find illustrations of the highest doctrines of science in games and gymnastics, in travelling by land and by water, in storms of the air and of the sea, and wherever there is matter in motion.

  — James Clerk Maxwell

• The equations at which we arrive must be such that a person of any nation, by substituting the numerical values of the quantities as measured by his own national units, would obtain a true result.

  — James Clerk Maxwell

• The 2nd law of thermodynamics has the same degree of truth as the statement that if you throw a tumblerful of water into the sea, you cannot get the same tumblerful of water out again.

  — James Clerk Maxwell

• The mathematical difficulties of the theory of rotation arise chiefly from the want of geometrical illustrations and sensible images, by which we might fix the results of analysis in our minds.

  — James Clerk Maxwell

• Colour as perceived by us is a function of three independent variables at least three are I think sufficient, but time will show if I thrive.

  — James Clerk Maxwell