James Clerk Maxwell Quotes

87 Sourced Quotes

I maintain that all the evil influences that I can trace have been internal and not external, you know what I mean—that I have the capacity of being more wicked than any example that man could set me, and that if I escape, it is only by God's grace helping me to get rid of myself, partially in science, more completely in society, — but not perfectly except by committing myself to God as the instrument of His will, not doubtfully, but in the certain hope that that Will will be plain enough at the proper time. Nevertheless, you see things from the outside directly, and I only by reflexion, so I hope that you will not tell me you have little fault to find with me, without finding that little and communicating it.

James Clerk Maxwell
The opinion seems to have got abroad, that in a few years all the great physical constants will have been approximately estimated, and that the only occupation which will be left to men of science will be to carry on these measurements to another place of decimals.

James Clerk Maxwell
Mathematicians may flatter themselves that they possess new ideas which mere human language is as yet unable to express.

James Clerk Maxwell
All the mathematical sciences are founded on relations between physical laws and laws of numbers, so that the aim of exact science is to reduce the problems of nature to the determination of quantities by operations with numbers.

James Clerk Maxwell
March on, symbolic host! with step sublime, Up to the flaming bounds of Space and Time! There pause, until by Dickenson depicted, In two dimensions, we the form may trace Of him whose soul, too large for vulgar space, In n dimensions flourished unrestricted.

James Clerk Maxwell
I believe, with the Westminster Divines and their predecessors ad Infinitum that "Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever."
That for this end to every man has been given a progressively increasing power of communication with other creatures.
That with his powers his susceptibilities increase. That happiness is indissolubly connected with the full exercise of these powers in their intended direction. That Happiness and Misery must inevitably increase with increasing Power and Knowledge. That the translation from the one course to the other is essentially miraculous, while the progress is natural. But the subject is too high. I will not, however, stop short, but proceed to Intellectual Pursuits.

James Clerk Maxwell
The chief philosophical value of physics is that it gives the mind something distinct to lay hold of, which, if you don't, Nature at once tells you you are wrong.

James Clerk Maxwell
In your letter you apply the word imponderable to a molecule. Don't do that again. It may also be worth knowing that the aether cannot be molecular. If it were, it would be a gas, and a pint of it would have the same properties as regards heat, etc., as a pint of air, except that it would not be so heavy.

James Clerk Maxwell
The popularisation of scientific doctrines is producing as great an alteration in the mental state of society as the material applications of science are effecting in its outward life. Such indeed is the respect paid to science, that the most absurd opinions may become current, provided they are expressed in language, the sound of which recals [sic] some well-known scientific phrase.

James Clerk Maxwell
An Experiment, like every other event which takes place, is a natural phenomenon; but in a Scientific Experiment the circumstances are so arranged that the relations between a particular set of phenomena may be studied to the best advantage.

James Clerk Maxwell
What, then, is light according to the electromagnetic theory? It consists of alternate and opposite rapidly recurring transverse magnetic disturbances, accompanied with electric displacements, the direction of the electric displacement being at the right angles to the magnetic disturbance, and both at right angles to the direction of the ray.

James Clerk Maxwell
Whether this vast homogeneous expanse of isotropic matter is fitted not only to be a medium of physical interaction between distant bodies, and to fulfil other physical functions of which perhaps we have as yet no conception, but also to constitute the material organism of beings exercising functions of life and mind as high or higher than ours are at present is a question far transcending the limits of physical speculation.

James Clerk Maxwell
The education of man is so well provided for in the world around him, and so hopeless in any of the worlds which he makes for himself, that it becomes of the utmost importance to distinguish natural truth from artificial system, the development of a science from the envelopment of a craft.

James Clerk Maxwell
At quite uncertain times and places,
The atoms left their heavenly path,
And by fortuitous embraces,
Engendered all that being hath.
And though they seem to cling together,
And form 'associations' here,
Yet, soon or late, they burst their tether,
And through the depths of space career.

James Clerk Maxwell
The student who uses home made apparatus, which is always going wrong, often learns more than one who has the use of carefully adjusted instruments, to which he is apt to trust and which he dares not take to pieces.

James Clerk Maxwell
One of the severest tests of a scientific mind is to discern the limits of the legitimate application of the scientific method.

James Clerk Maxwell
When at last this little instrument appeared, consisting, as it does, of parts every one of which is familiar to us, and capable of being put together by an amateur, the disappointment arising from its humble appearance was only partially relieved on finding that it was really able to talk.

James Clerk Maxwell
Ask no more, then, "what is best,
How shall those you love be blest,"
Ask at once eternal Rest,
Peace and assurance giving.
Rest of Life and not of death,
Rest in Love and Hope and Faith,
Til the God who gives their breath
Calls them to rest from living.

James Clerk Maxwell
It is extremely improbable however that when we come to understand the true nature of electrolysis we shall retain in any form the theory of molecular charges, for then we shall have obtained a secure basis on which to form a true theory of electric currents, and so become independent of these provisional theories.

James Clerk Maxwell
But when we face the great questions about gravitation Does it require time? Is it polar to the 'outside of the universe' or to anything? Has it any reference to electricity? or does it stand on the very foundation of matter-mass or inertia? then we feel the need of tests, whether they be comets or nebulae or laboratory experiments or bold questions as to the truth of received opinions.

James Clerk Maxwell
Some years ago I encountered a gentleman whose main object was to discover the musical relations of the number eleven. I hear on good authority that the question is not only more perplexed but more interesting than ever.

James Clerk Maxwell
Very few of us can now place ourselves in the mental condition in which even such philosophers as the great Descartes were involved in the days before Newton had announced the true laws of the motion of bodies.

James Clerk Maxwell
For the sake of these different types, scientific truth should be presented in different forms, and should be regarded as equally scientific, whether it appears in the robust form of vivid colouring of a physical illustration, or in the tenuity and paleness of a symbolical expression.

James Clerk Maxwell
Velocity of transverse undulations in our hypothetical medium, calculated from the electromagnetic experiments of 'MM'. Kohlrausch and Weber, agrees so exactly with the velocity of light calculated from the optical experiments of M. Fizeau, that we can scarcely avoid the conclusion that light consists in the transverse undulations of the same medium which is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena.

James Clerk Maxwell
The first process therefore in the effectual study of science must be one of simplification and reduction of results of previous investigation to a form in which the mind can grasp them. The results of this simplification may take the form of a purely mathematical formula or of a physical hypothesis.

James Clerk Maxwell