Albert Einstein was once asked by an admirer whether he had stood on the shoulders of Sir Isaac Newton in reaching such dizzying scientific heights.
‘No,’ replied Einstein. ‘I stand on the shoulders of Maxwell.’
Standing on the shoulders of Maxwell this evening, or at least looming over them, was the brilliantly lit but seemingly little used helter-skelter in St Andrew Square.
Edinburgh-born James Clerk Maxwell (1831–79) would perhaps have been amused by this cheerful erection. He was, after all, fascinated by colour, and four of his most important mathematical theories sought to formulate what he saw as analogies between the speeds of light and electromagnetic waves. He was the first to regard them as fundamentally the same thing.
‘One scientific epoch ended and another began with James Clerk Maxwell,’ remarked Einstein.
‘One standard of civic planning ended and another began with the arrival of Essential Edinburgh,’ says the Spurtle. Enjoy your weekend.
