Brace yourselves for gravitational waves

[AFTT47]

James Clerk Maxwell was an equal genius to Einstein. Einstein was in awe of him, and rightly so. His theories were inspired by Maxwell's equations on electromagnetism which also resulted in the speed of light. This is the guy who in the 19th Century mathematically figured out one summer at home that Saturn's rings were made up of small rocks, created the first colour photograph and laid the foundations for the modern world by figuring out electromagnetism. He died in his 40's.

I read both Maxwell's and Einstein's biographies to help better understand how they thought about things. It's a shame that many people have never heard of James Clerk Maxwell even though they recognise the names of Newton and Einstein.

I certainly knew of Maxwell but I didn't know he died in his 40s. I've read estimates that he was only months behind Einstein regarding special relativity. And Einstein's work on the photo-electric effect was definitely done while standing on Maxwell's shoulders. I doubt anyone but Einstein would have come up with general relativity in that era though. That was quite a conceptual leap and it blew his contemporaries away.