James Clerk Maxwell, 1831-1879

Maxwell was a Scottish physicist who made contributions to the areas of optics and colour vision, being credited with taking the first colour photograph, defined the nature of gases and most notably, at the age of 24, wrote On Faraday's Lines of Force showing that a few simple mathematical equations expressed all the fundamental laws of light, electricity and magnetism.  
 
In doing so he provided the tools to create the technological age, from radar to radio and televisions to mobile phones and spacecraft. He is credited with fundamentally changing our view of reality, so much so that Albert Einstein said, "One scientific epoch ended and another began with James Clerk Maxwell."

As Professor of Natural Philosophy at Marischal College in Aberdeen in 1856, he studied the problem of Saturn's rings and showed that their stability could be achieved only if the rings consisted of numerous small solid particles.