Faraday, Maxwell, and the Electromagnetic Field

“be not too hasty to erect general theories from a few particular observations, appearances or experiments.”4

He became a seeker of truth. As he later recalled: “I was a very lively, imaginative person. I could believe in the Arabian Nights as easily as in the Encyclopaedia. But facts were important to me and saved me. I could trust a fact but always cross-examined an assertion.”

Faraday and Maxwell have attracted their share of biographers, and rightly so. Aside from their genius, both were admirable, generous-spirited men who conducted their science with infectious enthusiasm and exuded the kind of charm that made people feel better about themselves and the world in general.

Maxwell calculated the speed of the waves from the elementary properties of electricity and magnetism, and it turned out to be the very speed at which light had been measured. He surmised that visible light is just a small band in a vast spectrum of electromagnetic waves, all traveling at the same speed but with wavelengths that might range from nanometers to kilometers