Q 01/05

Maxwell's theory first described electricity, magnetism and what as manifestations of the same phenomenon?

A) Gravity

B) Light

C) Heat

D) Sound

Answer · why

B) Light

His equations achieved what is called the second great unification in physics, after Newton's.

Q 02/05

Maxwell's unification of light and electricity led him to predict the existence of what?

A) Black holes

B) Neutrinos

C) X-rays

D) Radio waves

Answer · why

D) Radio waves

Heinrich Hertz would generate and detect them in the late 1880s, a decade after Maxwell's death.

Q 03/05

Which 1865 paper showed electric and magnetic fields travel as waves at the speed of light?

A) On Physical Lines of Force

B) A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism

C) A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field

D) On Faraday's Lines of Force

Answer · why

C) A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field

In it he wrote that light "is an electromagnetic disturbance propagated through the field according to electromagnetic laws".

Q 04/05

What velocity did Maxwell obtain for electromagnetic waves using the electrical data of his day?

A) 1,080,000,000 metres per second

B) 310,740,000 metres per second

C) 186,000 metres per second

D) 299,792,458 metres per second

Answer · why

B) 310,740,000 metres per second

It was close enough to the measured speed of light that he could "scarcely avoid the conclusion" that light was electromagnetic.

Q 05/05

Who reduced Maxwell's twenty equations to the four now known as Maxwell's equations?

A) Oliver Heaviside

B) Lord Kelvin

C) Peter Guthrie Tait

D) Heinrich Hertz

Answer · why

A) Oliver Heaviside

He also declared the electromagnetic potential arbitrary and in need of being "assassinated".