The Confined Atom: James Clerk Maxwell on the Fundamental Particles and the Limits of Scientific Knowledge

Abstract This paper distinguishes in Maxwell’s thought between “atomic molecules” and “ultimate atoms,” arrives at a set of properties that characterize each type atom. It concludes Maxwell is mathematical atomist, an approach entails the notion although it impossible to observe ultimate atoms as free particles, we can nevertheless study them observables, on caveat formalism remains tied phenomenalism theoretical interpretations such phenomena as, for example, mass force variations, gravitational pull, gas diffusion viscosity, heat conduction.