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Western Culture
Global Presents
The Top
100 Heroes of Western Culture
These individuals have most contributed to replacing
ignorance with knowledge, savagery with civilization,
disease with health, tyranny with liberty, poverty
with abundance, and despair with happiness.
#42: James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879)
James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) was a Scottish mathematician and
theoretical physicist who is considered a father of modern physics.
His most significant achievement was the development of the classical
electromagnetic theory, integrating all previous and seemingly
unrelated observations, experiments and equations regarding electricity,
magnetism and optics into one unifying and consistent theory. His
equations — Maxwell's equations — demonstrate that electricity,
magnetism and light are all manifestations of the electromagnetic
field.
Maxwell’s ideas had far-ranging impacts in the fields of electricity
and electronics, including radio, television, radar and communications;
they also helped to make wide-scale industrialization possible.
Maxwell's broader legacy is that he demonstrated, like so many other
Western culture heroes, the beautiful power of human reason
to make intelligible the seemingly unintelligible complexity
of the universe.
Go to #43: Michael Faraday
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