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 By 1860, an institutional merger between Marischal College and King's College birthed the University of Aberdeen. This consolidation left no room for two Natural Philosophy professors, and despite Maxwell's soaring scientific repute, he faced redundancy. His attempt to secure a position at Edinburgh was thwarted, but fortune favored him with the Chair of Natural Philosophy at King's College, London. Surviving a harrowing bout of smallpox that same year, he, alongside his wife, relocated to London.
+==== King's College, London, 1860–1865 ====
+James Clerk Maxwell's tenure at King's College in London was a pivotal epoch, arguably the zenith of his illustrious career. His trailblazing endeavors during this period didn't go unnoticed. In 1860, the Royal Society, a beacon of scientific acclaim, awarded Maxwell the esteemed Rumford Medal, recognizing his groundbreaking contributions to the study of color. A year later, the Society further embraced him by offering him membership, a nod to his ascending eminence in the scientific community.
+During these transformative years, Maxwell unveiled a pioneering marvel: the world's first color photograph impervious to light fading. His intellectual curiosities also led him to refine his hypotheses on the viscosity of gases. Moreover, he spearheaded an innovative system to define physical quantities, which today is recognized as 'dimensional analysis'.
+While at King's, the Royal Institution became a regular haunt for Maxwell, where he frequently attended lectures. It was here that his path intersected with the iconic Michael Faraday. While a close camaraderie might have eluded them, primarily due to the significant age gap of 40 years and Faraday's declining health, a mutual admiration was palpable. They regarded each other as titans in their respective fields, creating an atmosphere of mutual respect.
+However, Maxwell's contributions during this era weren't limited to mere accolades and associations. This period was particularly luminous for his revelations in electricity and magnetism. Maxwell's 1861 magnum opus, "On physical lines of force," presented an intricate tapestry of the electric and magnetic realms. His portrayal of electromagnetic induction was poetic yet scientific, visualizing it as minuscule whirls of magnetic flux. This seminal paper later saw two additional sections in 1862. The first dove deep into the intricacies of electrostatics and displacement current. The subsequent segment explored the mesmerizing dance of light polarization in a magnetic arena, a phenomenon discovered by Faraday and christened as the 'Faraday effect' in his honor. Maxwell's deep dive into these realms not only advanced the understanding of these phenomena but also cemented his legacy as a paragon in the world of physics.
+==== Later years, 1865–1879 ====
+In 1865, James Clerk Maxwell, a luminary in the world of physics, stepped down from his position at King's College, London. Choosing the tranquillity of Glenlair, he relocated there alongside his devoted wife, Katherine. The next few years saw Maxwell in a flurry of innovation. His 1868 paper, "On governors," was a groundbreaking treatise where he delineated the mechanics of governors, the integral devices regulating steam engine speeds. This pivotal work essentially laid the foundations of control engineering. Delving into structural dynamics in 1870, he explored the resilience of lattice designs in "On reciprocal figures, frames and diagrams of forces." As a dedicated educator, he penned the influential "Theory of Heat" in 1871, and by 1876, presented "Matter and Motion." Significantly, Maxwell pioneered the concept of dimensional analysis in 1871.
+In a triumphant return to Cambridge in 1871, Maxwell was christened as the inaugural Cavendish Professor of Physics. With this esteemed title, he shouldered the monumental task of orchestrating the construction of the Cavendish Laboratory, right from its architectural inception to populating it with state-of-the-art apparatus. One of Maxwell's crowning achievements in his later years was editing and annotating the pioneering research of Henry Cavendish. This exercise unveiled Cavendish's profound investigations into subjects like Earth's density and the molecular makeup of water. The American Philosophical Society recognized Maxwell's brilliance by electing him as a member in 1876.
+Tragically, in April 1879, the first ominous signs of Maxwell's terminal illness emerged. On 5 November 1879, at the age of 48, Maxwell succumbed to abdominal cancer, a cruel fate that had previously claimed his mother at the same age. Those around him during his final days were awestruck by his vivid memory and unwavering faith. Embracing Christianity, Maxwell found solace and profound understanding in the teachings of Christ, which he believed surpassed any philosophical ideology he had encountered. Reflecting upon his life, Maxwell once remarked to a colleague in Cambridge, "I have been thinking how very gently I have always been dealt with. I have never had a violent shove all my life." His final resting place is the serene Parton Kirk, near Castle Douglas in Galloway, a stone's throw from his childhood home.
+In 1882, his cherished friend, Professor Lewis Campbell, chronicled Maxwell's extraordinary journey in "The Life of James Clerk Maxwell." By 1890, Cambridge University Press celebrated his intellectual legacy by publishing his collected works in two volumes. Entrusted with the preservation of Maxwell's intellectual estate were his physician, George Edward Paget, the eminent G. G. Stokes, and Maxwell's cousin, Colin Mackenzie. Stokes, weighed down by responsibilities, later handed over the guardianship of Maxwell's papers to William Garnett.
+Today, Westminster Abbey pays tribute to this giant of science with a touching memorial inscription near its choir screen.
+===== Scientific legacy =====
+==== Electromagnetism ====
+From as early as 1855, James Clerk Maxwell had embarked on a rigorous exploration of electricity and magnetism. This journey commenced with his seminal paper, "On Faraday's lines of force," presented to the Cambridge Philosophical Society. Maxwell, in this paper, masterfully distilled Faraday's intricate theories into an intuitive model that intricately wove electricity and magnetism. He streamlined the vast expanse of knowledge into a formidable set of twenty differential equations, which were later crystallized in "On Physical Lines of Force" in 1861.
+During his tenure at King's College around 1862, Maxwell made a profound discovery. He deduced that the speed at which an electromagnetic field propagates aligns closely with the speed of light. This wasn't a mere coincidence in Maxwell's eyes. He proposed a revolutionary idea: "We can scarcely avoid the conclusion that light consists in the transverse undulations of the same medium which is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena."
+Maxwell's relentless curiosity led him to further refine his theories. He posited that his equations prophesied the presence of oscillating waves of electric and magnetic fields, capable of traveling through the void of space at speeds ascertainable from rudimentary electrical experiments. Remarkably, Maxwell's computations predicted a speed of approximately 310,740,000 meters per second. By 1865, he confidently penned down in "A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field" that light and magnetism seemed to be manifestations of a single unified field.
+In his magnum opus, "A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism" published in 1873, the world witnessed Maxwell's iconic twenty equations in their full grandeur. The setting for this revolutionary work was the tranquil confines of Glenlair, situated between his London and Cambridge commitments. Later, Oliver Heaviside, in a bid to simplify, distilled the essence of Maxwell's theory into the four renowned Maxwell's equations, which remain foundational in electromagnetism.
+Historical texts by Barrett and Grimes (1995) give insights into the progression of electromagnetic theory. Maxwell's initial representation was via the algebra of quaternions, focusing on the electromagnetic potential. By 1881, Heaviside pivoted the theory's focus towards force fields, controversially sidelining the electromagnetic potential. A subsequent intellectual tug-of-war between Heaviside and Peter Guthrie Tait underscored the ascendancy of vector analysis over quaternions, marking a shift in the narrative of electromagnetic theory.
+The veracity of Maxwell's groundbreaking linkage between light and electromagnetism remains one of the pinnacle achievements in 19th-century physics. Maxwell's pioneering concepts extended to visualizing the electromagnetic field, offering a more evolved perspective than Faraday's force lines. His work suggested that light's propagation needed a medium, termed the "luminiferous aether." As science progressed, the viability of such a pervasive yet mechanically undetectable medium became questionable. Pivotal experiments, like the Michelson–Morley experiment, cast doubts on its existence. This conceptual impasse paved the way for Albert Einstein's special relativity, which elegantly sidestepped the need for a stationary luminiferous aether.
+==== Colour vision ====
+James Clerk Maxwell, much like many eminent physicists of his era, harbored a deep fascination with psychology. Emulating the pursuits of Isaac Newton and Thomas Young, he was especially drawn to unraveling the mysteries of colour vision. From 1855 to 1872, Maxwell unveiled a series of groundbreaking works delving into the intricacies of colour perception, colour-blindness, and the underpinnings of colour theory. His stellar work "On the Theory of Colour Vision" earned him the prestigious Rumford Medal.
+Isaac Newton, with the ingenious use of prisms, had unveiled that white light, exemplified by sunlight, is an amalgamation of several singular colors. These colors, when fused back together, recreate white light. Newton further observed that a mix of yellow and red paints could replicate the appearance of a singular orange light, even though it was a blend of two distinct colors. This birthed a perplexing question for scientists: How could two multi-colored lights look identical but possess distinct physical properties? This phenomenon was termed as "metameres." Thomas Young proposed an answer, suggesting that colors are perceived via a limited number of channels in our eyes—specifically, three channels, leading to the trichromatic colour theory. Maxwell, with the aid of emerging linear algebra, fortified Young's hypothesis. He affirmed that any single color stimulating our three color receptors could be similarly excited by a trio of different singular colors. This understanding led him to devise the concepts of color matching experiments and Colorimetry.
+Beyond theoretical applications, Maxwell sought to harness his insights into tangible technology, especially in the realm of colour photography. His investigations into color perception laid the groundwork: if every perceivable color could be replicated by a blend of three primary colors, then photos capturing the essence of true color could be created using three distinct filters. Maxwell theorized that capturing three black-and-white images of an object through red, green, and blue filters and then projecting these images using similarly colored filters would allow viewers to perceive the object in its original colors.
+Maxwell's vision came to life in 1861 during a lecture at the Royal Institution on color theory. The world witnessed the maiden demonstration of color photography based on the tri-color principle. Collaborating with Thomas Sutton, the brain behind the single-lens reflex camera, Maxwell showcased the process using a tartan ribbon. The ribbon was photographed thrice—each time using red, green, and blue filters. A fourth attempt using a yellow filter was made but wasn't included in the final demonstration. Owing to the limitations of the photographic plates of that era, which struggled to capture red and were mildly sensitive to green, the end result wasn't flawless. Nevertheless, observers acknowledged that with more sensitive materials, this pioneering technique held the promise to revolutionize color photography. Later research in the 1960s proposed that the surprising success of the red-filtered shot might have been influenced by ultraviolet light—a spectrum that the red dyes reflected in abundance, wasn't completely filtered out, and was captured by Sutton's wet collodion process.
+==== Kinetic theory and thermodynamics ====
+James Clerk Maxwell delved deep into the kinetic theory of gases, expanding on a foundation laid by great minds before him. While the kinetic theory's roots trace back to Daniel Bernoulli, it saw significant advancements through the works of renowned scientists like John Herapath, John James Waterston, James Joule, and notably, Rudolf Clausius. Each of these contributions solidified the theory's validity. Yet, it was Maxwell who took a quantum leap in this field, showcasing his prowess not just as a theoretical mathematician but also as a hands-on experimenter, specifically concerning the laws governing gaseous friction.
+During the period from 1859 to 1866, Maxwell embarked on an intellectual journey to unravel the complexities of how gas particles behave in terms of their velocities. Ludwig Boltzmann later expanded on this, leading to the formulation of what is now known as the Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution. This mathematical representation describes the proportion of gas molecules operating at a defined velocity for a given temperature. Diving deeper into the kinetic theory, Maxwell illuminated that the concepts of temperature and heat revolve solely around molecular motion. By adopting this perspective, he was able to refine the existing laws of thermodynamics, offering a more comprehensive explanation of experimental findings and observations.
+Maxwell's explorations in thermodynamics also birthed a thought experiment that has since become an iconic part of the scientific discourse: Maxwell's demon. This hypothetical scenario imagines a sentient being capable of selectively sorting particles based on their energy, seemingly violating the second law of thermodynamics.
+In 1871, Maxwell's relentless pursuit of understanding thermodynamics led to the establishment of Maxwell's thermodynamic relations. These are intricate mathematical expressions that highlight the equality among the second derivatives of the thermodynamic potentials when compared across different variables. Taking inspiration from the pioneering work of American scientist Josiah Willard Gibbs, Maxwell, in 1874, created a visual representation using plaster to delve into phase transitions in thermodynamics. This was a tangible manifestation of Gibbs's graphical approach to thermodynamics, bridging the gap between abstract theory and visual comprehension.
+==== Control theory ====
+In a noteworthy contribution to the annals of science, James Clerk Maxwell unveiled his paper titled "On governors," which was featured in the prestigious Proceedings of the Royal Society, specifically in volume 16, spanning the years 1867 to 1868. This work stands as a cornerstone in the nascent stages of control theory.
+For context, the term "governors" in Maxwell's paper does not refer to political leaders, but rather to the mechanical device known as the centrifugal governor. This device played an instrumental role in the Industrial Revolution and beyond, as it was primarily used to regulate the speed of steam engines. The centrifugal governor operates based on principles of rotational mechanics and feedback loops to ensure that steam engines run at the desired speed. Maxwell's insights into this mechanism not only deepened the understanding of its function but also laid foundational concepts for the broader field of control theory, which deals with systems and their behaviors under different conditions. His work illuminated the complexities of systems that need constant adjustment and control, concepts that are ubiquitous in modern engineering and technology applications.