Collection K/PP71 - MAXWELL, Professor James Clerk (1831-1879)

Key Information

Reference code

K/PP71

Title

MAXWELL, Professor James Clerk (1831-1879)

Date(s)

  • 1860-1872 (Creation)

Level of description

Collection

Extent

3 volumes

Scope and content

Collection comprising three manuscript notebooks of theoretical problems relating to mechanics compiled by James Clerk Maxwell mainly during his employment at King's College London, including exam questions on aspects of mechanics and geometry, 1860-1865; problems on the collision of elastic spheres and the dynamic relation between other solid bodies; the refraction of light; the relationship between heat and volume in materials; attraction between particles, 1860-1873; notes on the works of leading authorities on mathematics and physics including Arthur Cayley, Franz Neumann and Siméon Poisson, 1867-1873; bibliography of textbooks mainly on mechanics, [1860-1865]; list of scientific instrument suppliers, [1860-1865]; outline of the contents of Maxwell's Treatise on electricity and magnetism (1873).

General Information

Name of creator

(1831-1879)

Biographical history

Born 1831; student, University of Edinburgh, 1847-1850; Peterhouse, Cambridge, 1850; Trinity College, Cambridge, 1850-1854; Fellow of Trinity, 1855; Professor of Natural Philosophy, Marischal College, Aberdeen, 1856-1860; Professor of Natural Philosophy, King's College London, 1860-1865; private studies, 1865-1871; Professor of Experimental Physics, University of Cambridge, 1871-1879; died, 1879.

Publications: On the stability of the motion of Saturn's rings (Cambridge, 1859); Introductory lecture on experimental physics (London and Cambridge, 1871); A treatise on electricity and magnetism , 2 vols (1873); edited The electrical researches of the Honourable Henry Cavendish (Cambridge, 1879)

Custodial history

Presented to King's College London by the executors of Sir George Greenhill, 1927.

Conditions governing access

Open, subject to signature of Reader's undertaking form, and appropriate provision of two forms of identification, to include one photographic ID.

Conditions governing reproduction

Copies, subject to the condition of the original, may be supplied from open material for research purposes only.

Requests to publish original material should be submitted to the Archives.

Language of material

  • English

Script of material

Finding aids

This collection level description.

Related materials

King's College London College Archives holds further entries relating to Maxwell's career in King's College Council Minutes (Ref: KA/C/M), In-Correspondence (Ref: K/IC), photographs (Ref: K/PHOTO), King's College Maxwell Society papers (Ref: KSM), and papers relating to the James Clerk Maxwell Foundation (Ref: K/PP 45).

Related descriptions

Alternative identifier(s)

Place access points

Genre access points

Rules and/or conventions used

Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000.

Script(s)

Archivist's note

Sources: Dictionary of national biography; Cyril Domb ed., Clerk Maxwell and modern science (London, 1963); The manuscript papers of British scientists (HMC, London, 1982); National Register of Archives; British Library OPAC. Entry compiled by Geoff Browell.

Accession area