Oliver Heaviside

It’s the birthday of Oliver Heaviside, who was born in 1850 in London. Heaviside’s uncle was Charles Wheatstone, who co-invented one of the first practical telegraph systems. Wheatstone supported his nephew’s education and his career in the growing field of telegraphy. By the age of 22, Heaviside had published a paper on the best way to use a Wheatstone bridge. In 1873, when he came across James Clerk Maxwell’s A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, he recognized its revolutionary importance and resolved to study the mathematics needed to understand it. Heaviside went beyond merely understanding the work. Using vector notation, he recast Maxwell’s original 20 equations into the four familiar equations that we learn today. Heaviside applied the equations to investigate such problems as the behavior of charges moving in electromagnetic fields and to predict the existence of an ionized layer in Earth’s upper atmosphere that allows the transmission of radio signals around the planet’s curved surface. He also invented and patented the coaxial cable for transmitting radio-frequency electromagnetic signals.

Date in History: 18 May 1850