Forgotten genius whose discoveries gave us mobile phones and internet

Tue Aug 02 2016 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)

Forgotten genius whose discoveries gave us mobile phones and internet

02 August 2016

A physicist whose revolutionary scientific discoveries helped shape the modern world, from colour photography to the mobile phone, will be the subject of a public lecture at the University of Auckland.

James Clerk Maxwell’s name deserves to be as well-known as Newton or Rutherford, says Professor Gian-Luca Oppo from the University of Strathclyde in Scotland who will give this lecture as a Distinguished Visitor to the University’s Department of Physics and Department of Mathematics.

Maxwell revolutionised the history of science with discoveries in electro-magnetic waves, the speed of light and the theory of the thermostat.

His discovery of the nature of electromagnetic waves formed the basis for many of the technologies we take for granted today, including radio, television, x-ray, the internet and the mobile phone.

Born in Edinburgh in 1831, Maxwell published his first scientific paper at the age of just 14 years and was the first Professor of Physics at Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge.

In 1873 he developed the four mathematical equations that would later play a key role in Einstein’s work on the theory of relativity.

Professor Gian-Luca Oppo is the 1796 Freeland Chair of Natural Philosophy at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Optical Society of America and the Institute of Physics.

This free public lecture will be held at 6pm on Wednesday, 10 August in lecture room MLT1, Building 303, 38 Princes St, Auckland.

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