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In the year 1873
Maxwell published Electricity and
Magnetism, demonstrating four partial differential equations
that completely described electrical phenomena. Maxwell also
calculated that the speed of propagation of an electromagnetic field
is approximately that of the speed of light.
He proposed that the
phenomenon of light is therefore an electromagnetic phenomenon.
Because charges can oscillate with any frequency, Maxwell concluded
that visible light forms only a small part of the entire spectrum of
possible electromagnetic radiation.
An anecdotal story about Maxwell
recalls that he and a friend were at an inn, and Maxwell cleared the
table saying "That's it", and promptly started to write calculus on
the table cloth. He later took the cloth home, but I have no idea
how he remunerated the innkeeper.
The CGS unit of magnetic flux is named after him.
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