Abstract :
When James Rautio was building up his company, Sonnet Software, in the mid-1990s, he needed some noncopyrighted imagery to use in his marketing materials. A friend lent him an 1882 copy of a biography of physicist James Clerk Maxwell. Rautio scanned a portrait in the book, and that image of Maxwell became the fledgling company\´s emblem. Rautio picked the picture of Maxwell largely because it was in the public domain. But it was also a fitting choice: His software, which is used to design radio-frequency circuitry, relies on the four equations, known as Maxwell\´s equations, that describe the fundamental rules of electromagnetism. Rautio says he knew little about Maxwell himself at the time. But he read up on Maxwell\´s life and was soon hooked. Over the past decade, Rautio has become a champion of Maxwell and his legacy. He\´s given 116 talks to date on Maxwell\´s life and work at conferences, workshops, and IEEE chapter meetings. In 2007, after a visit to Maxwell\´s ancestral home, Glenlair, in southwest Scotland, he convinced the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society to contribute matching funds to help restore the building, which was heavily damaged in a 1929 fire. Rautio says he has come to realize that Maxwell\´s theory is not just about "equations on a piece of paper. It\´s a four-dimensional story." That "fourth dimension" is a reference to the several dozen years it took for Maxwell\´s ideas to be developed and confirmed. He describes that time in "The Long Road to Maxwell\´s Equations," in this issue.
