James Clerk Maxwell

A song about the Scot who became one the world’s greatest physicists, James Clerk Maxwell. It’s sung by Andy Munro and his daughter Flora, in a track from Andy’s new CD, ’Come to the Festival’, produced specially for this year’s Orkney International Science Festival. Andy is well-known as the children’s entertainer Mr Boom, and the CD is subtitled ’An invitation from me and Mr Boom’, but in the folk/blues world he is known as guitarist, harmonica player and drummer. The moving images are from the visual artist, Selena-S-Kuzman. Maxwell developed the electromagnetic theory of light waves, and his mathematical explorations of Faraday’s deep concept of the field led to the discovery of radio waves and the basis for our electronic communications of today. The field was a difficult idea for many scientists of the time to take in, the idea that empty space could somehow hold a kind of imprint which could change dynamically to the extent that waves could pass through it. Maxwell gave the concept mathematical expression, producing a structure linking electricity, magnetism and light. He showed mathematically that Saturn’s rings were made of small fragments, and he produced the world’s first colour photograph. There was work in other areas as well, and it is fair to say that he laid the foundations for much of modern physics, all in a life of only 48 years. Einstein, a great admirer, built on Maxwell’s work and indeed reshaped physics around it. Maxwell himself was a modest, warm-hearted man, who preferred the company of his friends and the life of the Galloway countryside to the politics of career advancement. He wrote poetry and songs, sometimes romantic and sometimes humorous. He loved music and was a great-great-grandson of the composer Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, and he would sometimes sing and accompany himself on the guitar. He was, says the plaque by the churchyard where he is buried, ’a good man, full of humour and wisdom’, and he is to science in Scotland as Robert Burns is to poetry. More about Maxwell, along with links to other sources, can be found on the OISF website.