Sir Isaac Newton, of Scottish ancestry, is most remembered
for his laws of gravity and motion. His work was the beginning of Modern
Science.
James Clerk Maxwell, born in Edinburgh, gave the world the
theory and name of Electromagnetism. Maxwell predicted the existence of radio
waves, discovered that electricity travels at the speed of light, and unified
electricity and magnetism through his equations. Maxwell's achievements paved
the way for radio, television and electronics.
An American Scot, Kenneth Geddes Wilson, won the Nobel
Prize in 1982, for developing an equation to explain the critical point at
which matter changes from one phase to another, such as the moment when water
boils. Wilson was studying at Oxford at 15, and admitted to Harvard at only 16
years of age.
