As Maxwell explored the interrelationships among electric and magnetic phenomena, he derived a wave equation for the electric and magnetic fields and was astounded to find that the speed of electromagnetic waves was essentially the same as the speed of light. Inspired by Thomson, Maxwell took up the idea of molecular vortices as well as Faraday’s magnetic induction in free space and transferred the vortices from being a property exclusively of matter to being a property of the luminiferous ether that supported the electric and magnetic fields.