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A biography of Charles Wheatstone and the role he played in the early years of electrical engineering, particularly the electric telegraph. Published to celebrate the bicentennial of Wheatstone's birthday, the second edition expands information about the family business and the concertina he invented, and draws on letters exchanged with Cooke and Faraday. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Charles Wheatstone began his life-long involvement with electrical engineering in the days when it was still at the stage of 'philosophical toys', yet he had a vision of telecommunications that could deliver printed messages around the world. With W.E. Cooke he developed the first practical electric telegraph. The problems of operating telegraphs over long distances led him into the field of electrical measurements. Wheatstone was a major figure in Victorian science, making contributions in the fields of optics and acoustics as well as electrical engineering. He had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the scientific literature in several languages, and made connections which benefited not only his own work but also that of others. His research aided the development of the new King's College London into a centre of scientific excellence. He invented the concertina and the stereoscope, both very popular in the nineteenth century. He is usually remembered for the Wheatstone Bridge, which he did not invent but publicised in the course of a lecture on measurements. His early attempts to measure the speed of an electric current were inconclusive, but his later studies of signals in submarine cables contributed to the understanding of the effect of capacitance and inductance in cables. He made electric motors, including a linear motor. In his lifetime there was insufficient electric power to exploit them, but his self-excited generator indicated the way ahead. This fascinating biography celebrates the bicentenary of Wheatstone's birth, and draws on information about the family business as well as letters, including correspondence with Cooke and Faraday, which were not available for the first edition, published by HMSO for the Science Museum in 1975
Sound Authorities shows how experiences of music and sound played a crucial role in nineteenth-century scientific inquiry in Britain. In Sound Authorities, Edward J. Gillin focuses on hearing and aurality in Victorian Britain, claiming that the development of the natural sciences in this era cannot be understood without attending to the study of sound and music. During this time, scientific practitioners attempted to fashion themselves as authorities on sonorous phenomena, coming into conflict with traditional musical elites as well as religious bodies. Gillin pays attention to sound in both musical and nonmusical contexts, specifically the cacophony of British industrialization. Sound Authorities begins with the place of acoustics in early nineteenth-century London, examining scientific exhibitions, lectures, spectacles, workshops, laboratories, and showrooms. He goes on to explore how mathematicians mobilized sound in their understanding of natural laws and their vision of a harmonious ordered universe. In closing, Gillin delves into the era’s religious and metaphysical debates over the place of music (and humanity) in nature, the relationship between music and the divine, and the tensions between spiritualist understandings of sound and scientific ones.
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Rising from a humble background in rural southern Ireland, John Tyndall became one of the foremost physicists, communicators of science, and polemicists in mid-Victorian Britain. In science, he is known for his important work in meteorology, climate science, magnetism, acoustics, and bacteriology. His discoveries include the physical basis of the warming of the Earth's atmosphere (the basis of the greenhouse effect), and establishing why the sky is blue. But he was also a leading communicator of science, drawing great crowds to his lectures at the Royal Institution, while also playing an active role in the Royal Society. Tyndall moved in the highest social and intellectual circles. A friend of Tennyson and Carlyle, as well as Michael Faraday and Thomas Huxley, Tyndall was one of the most visible advocates of a scientific world view as tensions grew between developing scientific knowledge and theology. He was an active and often controversial commentator, through letters, essays, speeches, and debates, on the scientific, political, and social issues of the day, with strongly stated views on Ireland, religion, race, and the role of women. Widely read in America, his lecture tour there in 1872-73 was a great success. Roland Jackson paints a picture of an individual at the heart of Victorian science and society. He also describes Tyndall's importance as a pioneering mountaineer in what has become known as the Golden Age of Alpinism. Among other feats, Tyndall was the first to traverse the Matterhorn. He presents Tyndall as a complex personality, full of contrasts, with his intense sense of duty, his deep love of poetry, his generosity to friends and his combativeness, his persistent ill-health alongside great physical stamina driving him to his mountaineering feats. Drawing on Tyndall's letters and journals for this first major biography of Tyndall since 1945, Jackson explores the legacy of a man who aroused strong opinions, strong loyalties, and strong enmities throughout his life.