Maximilian II (b. Nov. 28, 1811, Munich—d. March 10, 1864, Munich) King of Bavaria (1848-64). Son of King Louis I, he succeeded to the throne on his father’s abdication in 1848. He proposed a league of smaller states as a “third force” in German affairs but was opposed by the dominant states of Austria and Prussia. He successfully introduced liberal reforms in Bavaria, including freedom of the press and ministerial respon¬ sibility. He made Munich a centre of culture and gave support to such scholars as Leopold von Ranke. He was succeeded by his son Louis II.
Maximilian II (b. July 31, 1527, Vienna, Austria—d. Oct. 12, 1576, Regensburg) Holy Roman emperor (1564-76). Son of the future emperor Ferdinand I, he was a humanist Christian who favoured compromise between Catholics and Protestants. He became king of Bohemia in 1562 and succeeded to the imperial throne in 1564. He extended religious tol¬ erance and worked for reform of the Roman Catholic church. He failed to achieve his political goals; an unsuccessful campaign against the Turks ended in a truce in 1568 that compelled him to continue to pay tribute to the sultan.
maximum In mathematics, a point at which a function’s value is great¬ est. If the value is greater than or equal to all other function values, it is an absolute maximum. If it is merely greater than any nearby point, it is a relative, or local, maximum. In calculus, the derivative equals zero or does not exist at a function’s maximum point. Techniques for finding maximum and minimum points motivated the early development of cal¬ culus and have made it easier to solve problems such as finding the dimen¬ sions of a container that will hold the most for a given amount of material used to make it. See also minimum, optimization.
Maximus the Greek (b. 1480, Arta, Greece—d. 1556, near Moscow, Russia; feast day January 21) Greek scholar and linguist. Educated in Paris, Venice, and Florence, he became part of a circle of humanist schol¬ ars and was influenced by the Dominican reformer Girolamo Savonarola. He became a Greek Orthodox monk and was chosen to translate Greek liturgical and theological texts into Russian, thus making possible the dis¬ semination of Byzantine culture throughout Russia. In Moscow he became involved in a religious controversy when he joined a faction called the Nonpossessors, who advocated renunciation of property ownership by the church. Arrested for heresy in 1525, he was imprisoned for 20 years in a monastery. After his death he was venerated as a saint.
Maxwell, James Clerk (b. June 13,1831, Edinburgh, Scot.—d. Nov. 5, 1879, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, Eng.) Scottish physicist. He pub¬ lished his first scientific paper at age 14, entered the University of Edin¬ burgh at 16, and graduated from Cambridge University. He taught at Aberdeen University, King’s College London, and Cambridge (from 1871), where he supervised the building of Cavendish Laboratory. His most revolutionary achievement was his demonstration that light is an electromagnetic wave, and he originated the concept of electromagnetic radiation. His field equations (see Maxwell's equations) paved the way for Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity. He established the nature of Saturn’s rings, did important work on colour perception, and produced the kinetic theory of gases. His ideas formed the basis for quantum mechan¬ ics and ultimately for the modern theory of the structure of atoms and molecules.
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Maxwell ► Mayer I 1217
Maxwell, (Ian) Robert orig. Jan Ludvik Hoch (b. June 10, 1923, Slatina-Selo, Czech.—d. Nov. 5, 1991, at sea off the Canary Islands) Czech-British publisher. Of Jewish origin, he lost many family members in the Holocaust but managed to reach Britain and become an army officer. After the war he founded Pergamon Press, which became a major pub¬ lisher of trade journals and scientific books. In the 1980s he revived the British Printing Corp. and purchased the Mirror Group Newspapers, though his financial practices were officially questioned. Among the U.S. acquisitions of Maxwell Communications were the New York Daily News (1991) and the publishing house Macmillan. The revelation of fraudulent financial dealings aimed at bolstering his collapsing empire was followed by his death by drowning from his yacht in the Atlantic. It was assumed to have been a suicide.
Maxwell, William (b. Aug. 16, 1908, Lincoln, Ill., U.S.—d. July 31, 2000, New York, N.Y.) American editor and author. Maxwell taught English at the University of Illinois before joining the staff of The New Yorker magazine. In his 40 years there, he edited writers such as John Cheever, J.D. Salinger, Eudora Welty, and Mavis Gallant. He himself was the author of spare, evocative short stories and novels. Perhaps his best- known work is The Folded Leaf (1945), about the friendship of two small-town boys. Among his other works are the novels The Chateau (1961) and So Long, See You Tomorrow (1980) and the short-story col¬ lection All the Days and Nights (1995).
Maxwell's equations Four equations, formulated by James Clerk Maxwell, that together form a complete description of the production and interrelation of electric and magnetic fields. The statements of these four equations are (1) electric field diverges from electric charge, (2) there are no isolated magnetic poles, (3) electric fields are produced by changing magnetic fields, and (4) circulating magnetic fields are produced by changing electric fields and by electric currents. Maxwell based his description of electromagnetic fields on these four statements.
May beetle See June beetle
May Day In Europe, the day (May 1) for traditional springtime cel¬ ebrations. It probably originated in pre-Christian agricultural rituals. Cel¬ ebrations included a May king and queen, a Maypole, and people carrying trees, green branches, or garlands. May Day was designated an interna¬ tional labour day by the International Socialist Congress of 1899, and it remains the standard Labour Day worldwide, with a few exceptions, including Canada and the U.S. A major holiday in the Soviet Union and other communist countries, it was the occasion for important political demonstrations.
May Fourth Movement Chinese intellectual revolution and socio¬ political reform movement (1917-21). In 1915 young intellectuals inspired by Chen Duxiu began agitating for the reform and strengthening of Chinese society through acceptance of Western science, democracy, and schools of thought, one objective being to make China strong enough to resist Western imperialism. On May 4, 1919, reformist zeal found focus in a protest by Beijing’s students against the Versailles Peace Confer¬ ence’s decision to transfer former German concessions in China to Japan. After more than a month of demonstrations, strikes, and boycotts of Japa¬ nese goods, the government gave way and refused to sign the peace treaty with Germany. The movement spurred the successful reorganization of the Nationalist Party and gave birth to the Chinese Communist Party. See also Treaty of Versailles.
maya Vml-oX In Hinduism, a powerful force that creates the cosmic illu¬ sion that the phenomenal world is real. The word maya originally referred to the wizardry with which a god can make human beings believe in what turns out to be an illusion, and its philosophical sense is an extension of this meaning. The concept is especially important in the Advaita school of the orthodox system of Vedanta, which sees maya as the cosmic force that presents the infinite Brahman as the finite phenomenal world.
Maya \'mI-9\ Group of Mesoamerican Indians who between ad 250 and 900 developed one of the Western Hemisphere’s greatest civilizations. By ad 200 they had developed cities containing palaces, temples, plazas, and ball courts. They used stone tools to quarry the immense quantities of stone needed for those structures; their sculpture and relief carving were also highly developed. Mayan hieroglyphic writing survives in books and inscriptions. Mayan mathematics featured positional notation and the use of the zero; Mayan astronomy used an accurately determined solar year and precise tables of the positions of Venus and the Moon. Calendrical