James Clerk Maxwell

James Clerk Maxwell graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1854 with distinction in mathematics and the Smith's Prize, then briefly stayed to work on optics and colour theory. He held the Chair of Natural Philosophy at Marischal College in Aberdeen, where he solved the structure of Saturn's rings - correctly proposing they were countless small particles - and won the Adams Prize in 1859. From 1860 to 1865, as Professor of Natural Philosophy at King's College London, he developed his theory of electromagnetic fields, publishing "A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field" in 1865 to show that electric and magnetic fields travel through space as waves at the speed of light. He also derived the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution for kinetic theory of gases, presented the first durable colour photograph in 1861, recognized chaos and the butterfly effect, and introduced Maxwell's demon in 1867 to probe entropy and information. In 1871 he returned to Cambridge as the first Cavendish Professor of Physics, overseeing construction of the Cavendish Laboratory until his death in 1879 at forty-eight.