James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) was a Scottish
physicist in the
19th century, who codified earlier work in
electricity and
magnetism by
Michael Faraday,
Andre Marie Ampere, and others into a linked set of four differential equations, known collectively as Maxwell's Laws or
Maxwell's equations. Maxwell's Laws describe the nature of static and moving electric and magnetic charges, and the relationship between the two, namely, electromagnetic induction. The equations allow for the existence of a self-propogating [electromagnetic wave]
? which has the same velocity as that of
light, suggesting that light is in fact that electromagnetic wave. The validity of that suggestion was later demonstrated in experiments by
Heinrich Rudolf Hertz, and was elementary for the invention of
radio, usually attributed to
Guglielmo Marconi.
See also physics.