Oliver Heaviside Updated 2025-04-24 +Created 2024-06-26
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He participated in the development of the electrical telegraph, and he did some good modeling work that improved the foundations of the field, notably creating the telegrapher's equations.
He was one of those idealists who just want to do some cool work even if they have to starve for it, people had to get a state pension for him for his contributions. Nice guy. en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Oliver_Heaviside&oldid=1230097796#Later_years_and_views:
In 1896, FitzGerald and John Perry obtained a civil list pension of £120 per year for Heaviside, who was now living in Devon, and persuaded him to accept it, after he had rejected other charitable offers from the Royal Society.
He also never married: www.nndb.com/people/627/000204015/
Figure 1.
Oliver Heaviside c. 1900
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Spark-gap transmitter Updated 2025-04-24 +Created 1970-01-01
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The first type of device that allowed sending Morse code without wires, as opposed to the wired electrical telegraph that previously existed.
Naval communications was one of the first major applications, as you can't have wires on boats!
Wireless voice transmission came about with modulation.
Video 1.
Spark-gap transmitter at the at the The Museum of Radio and Technology Jeri Ellsworth (2017)
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Video 2.
Marconi Spark Gap Transmitter Demonstration by Canada Science and Technology Museum (2012)
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Telephone Updated 2025-04-24 +Created 1970-01-01
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We are at a point in history where the electrical telegraph is well established.
But people don't want to press letters one by one on a switch. They want to talk!
The first phones appear to have used telegraph lines directly.
Also wired phones don't require modulation, which likely made their development much easier than wireless voice transmission. You just send the signal as a voltage differential directly obtained from the air pressure: how the telephone works.
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