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About the Event

The year 2006 marks the 150th anniversary of the appointment of James Clerk Maxwell, at Marischal College, Aberdeen, to his first professorial post and his only Scottish chair. The same year also marks the 175th anniversary of the birth of Maxwell. The academic year started in November in Maxwell’s day and to mark the occasion we at the University of Aberdeen are planning to hold a celebratory meeting just before the start of our new session, now in September. The 2-day meeting will have talks on today’s science in fields where James Clerk Maxwell laid the foundations, a poster session and a final afternoon of public talks on Maxwell’s work and his place in the history and philosophy of science.  The scheduled dates are Friday and Saturday, September 8th and 9th with registration and a welcome reception on Thursday 7th September.

While Maxwell was at Aberdeen he was particularly involved with developing the dynamical analysis of Saturn’s rings, the measurement of colour perception and the kinetic theory of gases.  However, Maxwell was gestating his ideas on electricity and magnetism and other subjects and hence we would like to keep open for a lecture any topic in modern science that owes significant insights to Maxwell.  That covers a lot of science!  All the talks will be by invited speakers and the proceedings will be published by the Royal Society of London in a special Theme Issue of  their Philosophical Transactions, jointly organised by Michael Thompson FRS. The event will be sponsored by the CCLRC Centre for Fundamental Physics and the Institute of Physics.

Those intending to participate for the whole meeting would be expected to have arrived by late afternoon of Thursday 7th September.  There will be a banquet on the evening of Saturday 9th September, with appropriate entertainment.

Format

• Registration and reception (Thursday 7th September afternoon/evening)
• Scientific lectures (Friday 8th September and Saturday 9th September morning)
• Public lectures (Saturday 9th September afternoon)
• Poster presentations (Schedule to be announced)

Scientific scope

The scope of this Meeting will cover Maxwell’s scientific interests including:

• electromagnetism
• colour science
• kinetic theory
• planetary and celestial dynamics
• statistical mechanics and thermodynamics
• active control theory

and their further developments such as:

• special and general relativity
• gauge field theory
• solar physics
• plasma physics
• laser physics
• magnetic fusion
• imaging science