Maxwell and creation: Acceptance, criticism, and his anonymous publication

Details Maxwell and creation: Acceptance, criticism, and his anonymous publication Maxwell and creation: Acceptance, criticism, and his anonymous publication

Aug 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007amjph..75..731m&link_type=abstract

American Journal of Physics, Volume 75, Issue 8, pp. 731-740 (2007).

Physics

Biographies, Tributes, Personal Notes, And Obituaries, History Of Science

Scientific paper

Although James Clerk Maxwell's religious views and discussions on atoms having the properties of ``manufactured articles'' have been discussed, some aspects of the responses by his contemporaries to his remarks on creation have been neglected. Various responses quoted here include a book from 1878 by ``Physicus'' (George John Romanes) attributing ``arrogance'' to Maxwell for his inferences. Relevant aspects of the evolution of the perspective of Romanes are noted. A response by B. F. Westcott indicated that Maxwell was the author of a related anonymous publication concerned with what eventually became known as the heat death of the universe. In his teaching to theology students, Westcott, a friend of Maxwell, emphasized Maxwell's reasoning based on the dissipation of energy. There are similarities between Maxwell's perspective on creation and Biblical commentaries by fellow Eranus Club members Westcott and J. B. Lightfoot. Interest in Maxwell's remarks extended into the twentieth century. The principal Baptist chapel attended by Maxwell and his wife when in London in the 1860s is identified and some relevant attributes of the chapel and of its pastor are described.

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