CLERK-MAXWELL IS WEARING WELL

Just passing through.... to say James Clerk-Maxwell is still sitting at the east end of George Street in Edinburgh. Whenever travelling through from Glasgow by bus I am in the habit of passing him sitting there on the other side of the bus station across St Andrews Square.  I was spending the day in the Royal Botanic Garden of Edinburgh (RBGE). I did my 'tour guide' bit telling my friends how he came to be there and why he is in the seated position.

Why must I give a nod to this most famous of Scotland's 'thinkers'?  Back in the day, he was little known in Scotland so Iain and some others, including Prof Leslie Barr, mounted a campaign to have a statue made to recognise his contribution to science.  Alexander Stoddart was commissioned to do the job and it was unveiled in 2008.  We travelled through from Glasgow to attend the ceremony and afterwards the reception at the Royal Society across the road.

I am glad to see he is wearing well. I notice that there is a plague now placed in the setts at the foot showing Maxwell's Equation (for electro-magnetism). This mathematical contribution proved to be hugely important, and a turning point in scientific thinking.  (Einstein said he stood on the shoulders of Clerk-Maxwell... who, it could be said, stood on the shoulders of Isaac Newton.)

And later in the month, Harriet, 11 years and Alastair 16 years in Edinburgh with Ellie and and Mairi to celebrate Alastair doing so well in his University Clinical Aptitude Test (test for secondary school students who are thinking of applying to study medicine somewhere in the UK). [They look at verbal reasoning, decision making, quantitive reasoning, abstract reasoning.)