As Newton's laws became the dominant tool in physical science, they began to be applied to phenomena other than gravitational interactions. During the first half of the 19th century, several laws governing electricity and magnetism were discovered. In the mid-1860s, [[James Clerk Maxwell]] unified these individual laws into a single set of [[Maxwell's equations|equations]]. Maxwell was able to derive a [[wave equation]] from his new set of equations, and found that the speed of the waves predicted by the equation was close to the measured [[speed of light]]. [[Thomas Young]] had [[double-slit experiment|demonstrated]] in 1801 that light had wavelike properties, but Maxwell's result provided the new insight that light waves were oscillating electric and magnetic fields. | As Newton's laws became the dominant tool in physical science, they began to be applied to phenomena other than gravitational interactions. During the first half of the 19th century, several laws governing electricity and magnetism were discovered. In the mid-1860s, [[James Clerk Maxwell]] unified these individual laws into a single set of [[Maxwell's equations|equations]]. Maxwell was able to derive a [[wave equation]] from his new set of equations, and found that the speed of the waves predicted by the equation was close to the measured [[speed of light]]. [[Thomas Young]] had [[double-slit experiment|demonstrated]] in 1801 that light had wavelike properties, but Maxwell's result provided the new insight that light waves were oscillating electric and magnetic fields. |