David Maxwell

Biography

David Maxwell was born in Lancaster, PA in 1895 to Angus and Nellsa Maxwell, immigrants from Scotland . He lived there as a child, until he matriculated to Princeton University in New Jersey at age 16. At Princeton he studied mathematics and physics. He stayed at Princeton until he completed his Ph.D. in theoretical physics at age 26. Because of some personal differences with others at the university, and on account of being "tired of the staid intellectualism of the northeast" Maxwell elected to move to California, to help form the new Department of Physics at the University of California at Los Angeles. The university had been founded in 1919 and was eagerly recruiting anyone they could find to make the transition to California. Maxwell was happy to leave his old life behind, and start anew in Los Angeles.

The Mishap

When David was in his fourth year as a graduate student, he was taking part in an electromagnetism experiment that sought to formulate a more solid theoretical basis for some of Nikola Tesla's work. Halfway into the experiment, a blackout occurred, and a strange blue arc of electrically-charged light spread from the experimental machinery out into the lab. David was the only one with whom the light came into contact, and he has never been quite the same since. It was shortly thereafter that he began having problems with the faculty at Princeton, and with his fellow graduate students and researchers. He made a formal accusation that various members of the faculty had conspired to steal his research and use it for their own ends, though the complaint was eventually dismissed and, with it, any hope Maxwell had of continuing on at Princeton, or any other esteemed school in the area.