James Clerk Maxwell: The Founder of Electrical Engineering

The Electrical Engineering community makes profuse utilization of Maxwell's equations, his theory and their applications. It is arguable that very few of its members have clear ideas about what exactly Maxwell did and what kind of scientist he was. He developed most of the concepts of Electrical Engineering particularly those related to radio and broadcasting. However, he did not write the four equations that his name is attached to in all electromagnetic text books. In addition, and this is seldom recognized, he developed many of the fundamental ideas in Electrical Engineering and provided mathematical language for their exposition. To this end, the present essay provides a short but critical discussion of his original contributions in Electrical Engineering. It is hoped that this will provide the Electrical Engineering community readers with better and more complete appreciation of James Clerk Maxwell as a scientist.