Cavendish Professor of Physics However, it was poorly advertised, so it was only to his students that he laid out his plans for physics at Cambridge. When Maxwell began the actual course a few days later with a lecture on heat, it was attended by academics in formal dress, in the belief that it was the first lecture. Maxwell spent the next three years supervising the construction of the dedicated Cavendish Laboratory, and published in 1873 A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism. Maxwell's health deteriorated a short time into his tenure, and he died in 1879, aged 48. Lord Rayleigh replaced Maxwell immediately upon
The Racah Institute of Physics on this matter, seeking advice on the various possible candidates. The first experimental physicist to be appointed (in 1928) was Shmuel Sambursky. He carried out his experiments in atomic spectroscopy during his visits to Ornstein's laboratory in Utrecht. His teaching duties consisted of the courses in classical experimental physics. In later years he became a well known historian of physics. In 1933 Ernst Alexander joined the experimental physics department and a year later – Guenther Wolfson. Both had to leave their posts in Germany due to the new racial laws, in spite of being highly appraised experimental physicists there. Both