Mark P. Silverman (1998) "I studied the principles on my own – in this case with Maxwell's Treatise as both my inspiration and textbook. This is not an experience that I would necessarily recommend to others. For all his legendary gentleness, Maxwell is a demanding teacher, and his magnum opus is anything but coffee-table reading...At the same time, the experience was greatly rewarding in that I had come to understand, as I realized much later, aspects of electromagnetism that are rarely taught at any level today and that reflect the unique physical insight of their creator.