PROFILE · SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
James Clerk Maxwell
physicist
Born 13 June 1831 · Edinburgh, United Kingdom · 55.95° N, 3.19° WX
Source: Birth time not documented in publicly accessible records
About this chart
No birth time is documented for this person. The chart therefore shows planetary positions in their signs, the slow aspects between them, and the generational context — but not house placements, the Ascendant, or the Midheaven, which require an accurate birth time. The Moon's sign carries a ±6° margin: if it falls near a sign boundary, the sign could vary. Positions for all other planets are reliable.
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The sky at birth
No birth time is documented for James Clerk Maxwell. The Ascendant, the Midheaven, and the house positions cannot be determined; the reading is confined to planetary sign placements and the aspects between planets. The positions below are calculated for noon local time and are accurate to a fraction of a degree for the slow-moving bodies. One caveat: the Moon lies near a sign boundary, so without an exact time it cannot be fixed to a single sign — it sits close to 6°15' Leo within a daily margin of about ±7°.
The Moon is near 6°15' Leo (noon position, ±7° margin). Sun is at 21°40' Gemini. Mercury is at 1°14' Gemini. Venus is at 2°05' Leo. Mars is at 25°30' Cancer. Jupiter is at 22°19' Aquarius, retrograde. Saturn is at 26°44' Leo. Uranus is at 14°16' Aquarius, retrograde. Neptune is at 24°26' Capricorn, retrograde. Pluto is at 10°33' Aries.
3 bodies occupy Leo (Moon, Venus and Saturn) — a concentration that stands out as a structural feature of the chart.
The tightest major aspects between planets: Sun trine Jupiter (0°40'); Mercury sextile Venus (0°52'); Mars opposite Neptune (1°04'); Uranus sextile Pluto (3°43'); Moon conjunct Venus (4°09'); Moon trine Pluto (4°18').
Uranus sextile Pluto (3°43') is structural but generational — an alignment of slow-moving outer planets shared across many birth years.
The engine also registers tight minor aspects involving asteroids and calculated points: Mars semi-sextile North Node (0°28'); Pluto sesquiquadrate North Node (0°31'); Neptune quincunx North Node (0°36'); Moon trine Lilith (1°16'). These are reported for completeness and carry less weight in traditional reading.
The chart was calculated using NASA JPL DE441 ephemerides, sub-arcsecond precision.
| Planet | Sign | Position |
|---|---|---|
| Sun | Gemini | 21°40' |
| Moon | Leo | 06°15'±6° |
| Mercury | Gemini | 01°14' |
| Venus | Leo | 02°05' |
| Mars | Cancer | 25°30' |
| Jupiter | Aquarius | 22°19'retrograde |
| Saturn | Leo | 26°44' |
| Uranus | Aquarius | 14°16'retrograde |
| Neptune | Capricorn | 24°26'retrograde |
| Pluto | Aries | 10°33' |
Sun
Moon
Mercury
Venus
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
PlutoBirth time unknown — house positions and Ascendant/MC are not available.
Astronomical context
Pluto travelled through Aries roughly from 1822 to 1853. In astrological tradition this transit is associated with the transformation of initiative, force, and the will to begin anew — the generation that came of age amid industrial acceleration and new assertions of national energy.
James Clerk Maxwell (born 1831) belongs to this generational configuration. Astrian groups profiles by such shared signatures rather than by any claim of shared destiny. Related profiles in Astrian: Michael Faraday · Ernest Rutherford · Max Planck. The symbolic reading is correlative, not causal.
Other profiles from this Pluto in Aries generation
Symbolic reading
The following describes what classical astrological tradition associates with these configurations. Astrian does not apply these descriptions to the person's biography.
The Sun in Gemini is the most prominent structural feature available without a birth time, centring the chart on curiosity, exchange, and versatility. There is no Ascendant or Midheaven to anchor the angles, so the reading rests on sign placements and the aspects between planets rather than on houses.
Among the personal planets, the Moon in Leo is associated in tradition with expression, pride, and the creative self (the Moon's sign is given for the noon chart and may shift with an exact time); Mercury in Gemini with curiosity, exchange, and versatility; Venus in Leo with expression, pride, and the creative self; and Mars in Cancer with attachment, memory, and protection. These placements describe registers of feeling, thought, attraction, and action as the tradition catalogues them, independent of the life that follows.
Sun trine Jupiter (0°40'): tradition reads identity and central purpose in easy flow with expansion and meaning.
Mercury sextile Venus (0°52'): tradition reads thought and communication in supportive contact with values, attraction, and harmony.
Mars opposite Neptune (1°04'): tradition reads drive, assertion, and action set in polarity with dissolution, imagination, and idealism.
Uranus sextile Pluto (3°43'): tradition reads disruption and innovation in supportive contact with depth, power, and transformation.
These placements are presented as a symbolic portrait, correlative and never causal — a description within the tradition's vocabulary, not an explanation of the life that follows.
Astrology is a symbolic language with 2,500 years of literature. The reading above is interpretive, not explanatory.
Astrian does not claim that the natal chart of James Clerk Maxwell caused or determined any of the above. Astrology is a symbolic system with 2,500 years of literature. Its capacity for retrospective description does not imply explanatory capacity.
A parallel life
The following are verified biographical facts. No connection to the natal chart is implied.
James Clerk Maxwell was born on June 13, 1831, in Edinburgh, Scotland. His family moved to their estate at Glenlair in Dumfries and Galloway while he was young, and he grew up there before returning to Edinburgh for his education. He showed exceptional curiosity and inventiveness from childhood, submitting a paper on geometrical constructions to the Royal Society of Edinburgh at the age of 14.
Maxwell studied at the University of Edinburgh and subsequently at Peterhouse and then Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a degree in mathematics in 1854 and was elected a Fellow. He held chairs at Marischal College, Aberdeen, King's College London, and finally at Cambridge, where in 1871 he became the first Cavendish Professor of Physics, overseeing the design and establishment of the Cavendish Laboratory.
His most celebrated contribution was the development of a set of equations describing the behaviour of electric and magnetic fields, published in their complete form in "A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism" in 1873. These equations, now known as Maxwell's equations, demonstrated that electricity, magnetism, and light are all manifestations of the same electromagnetic field. They predicted the existence of electromagnetic waves travelling at the speed of light, a prediction confirmed experimentally by Heinrich Hertz in 1888. Albert Einstein later credited Maxwell's equations as a fundamental influence on his development of special relativity.
Maxwell also made substantial contributions to other areas of physics. In the 1850s and 1860s he developed the kinetic theory of gases, introducing statistical methods to physics through his derivation of the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution describing the speeds of molecules in a gas. He made important contributions to thermodynamics, including the thought experiment known as Maxwell's demon. In 1861 he produced what is considered the first permanent colour photograph, demonstrating the three-colour principle.
In astronomy, Maxwell demonstrated mathematically in 1859 that Saturn's rings could not be solid or liquid but must consist of numerous small particles, a conclusion confirmed by space probes more than a century later.
James Clerk Maxwell died on November 5, 1879, in Cambridge, England, from abdominal cancer, at the age of 48.
Biographical sources
- Basil Mahon, The Man Who Changed Everything: The Life of James Clerk Maxwell (Wiley, 2003).
- Ivan Tolstoy, James Clerk Maxwell: A Biography (University of Chicago Press, 1982).
- J.C. Maxwell, A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism (Clarendon Press, 1873).
- Royal Society of Edinburgh: James Clerk Maxwell archive.
This profile presents the sky at the birth of James Clerk Maxwell and verified facts of their biography. Astrian does not claim that astrology has predictive capacity or that the natal chart determines the trajectory of a life. Astrology is a symbolic system with 2,500 years of literature. Its capacity for retrospective description does not imply explanatory capacity.
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