Also known as: James Clerk Maxwell
James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879) was a Scottish physicist whose equations unified electricity, magnetism, and light, predicting electromagnetic waves that travel at the speed of light.1
Life and work
In the 1860s Maxwell formulated the four equations that bear his name, showing that changing electric and magnetic fields sustain one another and propagate as waves.
Contribution
His theory predicted the electromagnetic spectrum decades before radio existed; Heinrich Hertz later proved it.1
Legacy
Maxwell’s equations remain the foundation of all radio engineering, including software-defined radio.
Sources
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James Clerk Maxwell — Wikipedia, for biography and his equations predicting electromagnetic waves. ↩ ↩2