James Clerk Maxwell publishes his Treatise on…

James Clerk Maxwell publishes his Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism in 1873, after nine years of researching Faraday’s theories of electricity and magnetic line of force, demonstrating that four partial differential equations can express the behavior of electric and magnetic fields and their interrelated structure.

Most of this work had been done by Maxwell at Glenlair during the period between holding his London post and his taking up the Cavendish chair.

Maxwell expresses electromagnetism in the algebra of quaternions and makes the electromagnetic potential the centerpiece of his theory.