Key Information
Reference code
Title
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
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)
Repository
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
Alternative identifier(s)
Place access points
People and Organisations
- Cayley, Arthur, 1821-1895, mathematician (Subject)
- Neumann, Franz, 1798-1895, physicist (Subject)
- Poisson, Siméon, 1781-1840, mathematician (Subject)
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.