Celebrating 150 Years of James Clerk Maxwell

This (2015) is the International Year of Light

by Kumar David-November 14, 2015

The United
Nations General Assembly declared
2015 the International Year of Light full name Light and Light Based
Technologies - and coincidentally or
otherwise 2015 commemorates the
150th anniversary of Maxwells Equations. In 1865 Maxwell presented what
is known as the second great unification of classical physics (second to
Newton); the theory of electromagnetic propagation (light is one version)
which underlies cell phones, radar, TV and radio, optics and optical fibres,
terrestrial, satellite and space communications and even the discovery of
the Higgs boson. The advent of special relativity did not bypass Maxwells
equations in the way that general relativity superseded Newtons laws of
gravitation; a relativistic reformulation of Maxwells original version has
sufficed! The illustration accompanying this essay shows Maxwells classical
vector equations whose pristine beauty has not been surpassed in any
rendering of any scientific theory.
Celebratory events for the Year of Light such as learned society symposia
and optics related exhibitions have been held in Algeria, Australia, Austria,
Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Greece, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Singapore,
Russia, Taiwan, Tunisia and many other places, including several events in
the UK and the US. In all over 100 can be counted on the web, but sadly I
could not find reference to anything in Lanka. Next Friday (20 November)
the University of Michigan (Anne Arbor, USA) will conduct a symposium
entitled A celebration to commemorate Maxwells foundational
contributions and on 9 November the Royal Society of Edinburgh held a
similar event.
For science, London in the eight years from 1859 was an amazing period.
Maxwells treatise (A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field) aside,
two monumental works appeared in this brief span; Origin of Species in
November 1859 and Kapital in July 1867. Though written in German and

printed in Hamburg, Marx lived in London and toiled at the British Museum
Library in Russells Square; Darwin lived in Downe, now in the London
Borough of Bromley; and at the time Maxwell was professor at Kings
College. However, I can find no record that the three ever accosted each
other, even in pairs. The three men had radically different religious
orientations too. Marx was an outright agnostic if not atheist and Darwin is
known to have been agnostic and materialist (evolution is materialism par
excellence so how could it have been otherwise) but he never said it
openly to spare his wife Emma (Wedgwood) the anguish of not meeting
again on the far side of the pearly gates. Maxwell however was a church
going Christian who suffered evangelical conversion in 1853 at the tender
age of 22; thankfully, the affliction seems to have been cured since his
mind was lucid in 1865 when he made his epochal contribution to science.
Maxwell was a theoretical physicist and a mathematician; they called it
natural philosophy in those days. But those who transformed the practical
world were experimenters and inventors, foremost among them in
electricity, Michael Faraday (1791-1867) and Nicola Tesla (1856-1943) for
whom I have no space today. Faradays supreme achievement was
electromagnetic induction which made the electric generator possible, and
without it your house and all the world would be dark and modern industry
unborn. A penurious technician in Sir Humphry Davies laboratory, he was
unschooled in higher mathematics but it is said: "In his minds eye Faraday
espied a field where others only saw action at a distance". Magnets attract
or repel, wires carrying electricity attract or repel depending on whether
current flows in the same or opposite directions, but where others
pondered this action at a distance, Michael Faraday saw electric and
magnetic fields pervading the space in between and all around. Maxwell
gave form and mathematical substance to this concept in the wonderful
swell of his striking formulation.
Life and times
James, born James Clerk was the second son of advocate John Clerk and
Frances Cay, a well-off Scottish family with connections. James Clerk
added Maxwell to his name upon inheriting property from the Maxwell
family which claimed lineage to minor peers. His alma mater was
Edinburgh University; others who sport the same old-boys tie include
David Hume (philosophy), Joseph Lister (medicine), Alexander Graham Bell
(telephony), authors Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson and Arthur
Conan Doyle (of Sherlock Holms fame) and briefly Darwin. Julius Nyerere

is also an old-boy. While still in school, at the age of 14 he wrote a

mathematical paper which was presented to the Edinburgh Royal Society
by a university professor since young James Clerk, still in the short-pants
version of the kilt, was deemed too young to do it himself!
James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) was peripatetic, holding positions at
Cambridge, Marischal College Aberdeen, Kings College London, and finally
Cambridge again as the first Cavendish Professor - later Cavendish chair
incumbents include J.J. Thompson (discoverer of the electron) and
Rutherford who, colloquially speaking, split the atom. The Cavendish Chair
is not to be confused with the older more celebrated Lucasian
Professorship, Newtons chair; among its later occupants were Charles
Babbage, Paul Dirac and Stephen Hawking.
Here is an extract from Wikipedia: "Maxwell is considered by many
physicists to be the 19th-century scientist who had the greatest influence
on 20th-century physics. His contributions are of the same magnitude as
those of Newton and Einstein. In the millennium polla survey of the 100
most prominent physicistsMaxwell was voted the third greatest physicist
of all time, behind only Newton and Einstein. On the centennial of
Maxwells birthday, Einstein described Maxwells work as the "most
profound and the most fruitful physics since the time of Newton". Einstein
had a photograph of Maxwell on his study wall alongside pictures of
Faraday and Newton.
Photonics manufacturing
in Lanka
Should the government look into the possibility of photonics (light emitting
devices called LEDs, optical fibres, lasers, precision mirrors, connectors,
and thousand of components) manufacture in Lanka? For serendipitous
reasons the answer may be in the affirmative. The making of mainstream
electronic chips is saturated apart from the US and Japan, Taiwan,
Vietnam, South Korea and a few others have cornered the field. Nearly
100% of global electronic and computer chips are supplied by a few
countries; there is no way Lanka can break in. Fortunately however there
is a niche opening for photonic products thanks to the prevailing immature
state of photonics manufacture and research in India at this stage in that
countries industrial modernisation. Lanka may be able to cash in on the

niche, or at least the matter needs to be explored. Our domestic market is

miniscule; it is exports that we have to bear in mind through joint ventures
with India and the global photonics giants that India will have to engage
with.
Here is the reason why we may be able to cash in on this fortuitous
opportunity. India has only 25 photonics manufacturers employing in total
about 200 engineers and 1000 technicians (this may be a little dated).
Photonics companies are clustered around universities and research
institutes in Bangalore, Cochin and Hyderabad in the south. India is also
home to design centres of global entities such as US giant IPG Photonics,
Frances Alcatel-Lucent and smaller Honeywell, Cisco, Cienna, Tyco
Electronics and Alphion. Compared to China, Indias photonics
manufacturing capability is nearly zero, but its domestic market and export
potential are sizable. If photonics takes off in India in the next decade, as
it surely must, Lanka will be no competitor but could be a supportive
partner. Why not Lankan science parks and manufacturing facilities
supplement Bangalore and Cochin?
India has to, will have to, make sizable investments in all aspects of
photonic and optical fibre technology; it will have to enter ventures with
the best of the best in the US, Canada and Germany; a side-show with
Lanka will be win-win for both sides. LED chip and LED packaging are the
easiest lines to get started and one can anticipate exploding demand in
India, but there is no need for Lanka to limit itself to the low-tech end. If
where China has already gone is where India will have to go, or even half
way, the future promises formidable growth. So let me end with a few
words about the status of photonics manufacturing and research in China.
The number of people working in photonics is huge and the Chinese state
provides financial support and fosters industry oriented and fundamental
research. State Key Labs (SKL) - there are 220 in various fields are the
institutions through which the country hopes to surge forward. The SKL
system is a measure of its major research commitment and capability.
There are 27 SKLs involved in optoelectronics and lasers. Research
universities prosper thanks to government planning (Changchun), or
strategic location (Wuhan, Shanghai, Beijing). SKLs also benefit from open
links to top institutions all over the world. Beijing has the largest number
of SKLs but lags Wuhan in photonics. Simple devices like LEDs and LCDs
(liquid crystal display) have large global market potential and Chinese
exporters are challenging multinational companies.

India lacks even a fraction of this, but has no option but to follow the piedpiper. Can Lanka play its cards to cash in precisely because India is a late
starter? China is not going to divert its top photonics manufacturing and
research capability this far across the oceans to a location separated by
just 22 miles of shallow water from a strategic rival. Big people in our
private sector and government talk a lot about export orientation and high
tech investment, but do any of them engage in lateral thinking or mull
over these matters a little more in the concrete? Eventually photonics, of
course, may not be the best or the right choice, but are they concretely
looking at any options at all?
Posted by Thavam