1825年斯特金发明电磁铁，为电的广泛应用创造了条件；
1833年高斯和韦伯制造了第一台简陋的单线电报；
1837年惠斯通和莫尔斯分别独立发明了电报机，莫尔斯还发明了一套电码；
1854-58 年，英国Univ. of Glasgow的开尔文（William Thomson，后来封爵Lord Kelvin, 1824-1907），研究越洋电缆理论，促成大西洋两岸之电讯
1876年，美国人贝尔(Alexander G. Bell,1874-1922 )发明电话。
I William Sturgeon （1783-1850）
William Sturgeon was an English physicist and inventor who made the first electromagnets, and invented the first practical English electric motor.
Born: May 22, 1783 · Whittington, England
Inventions: Electric Motor · Electromagnet
Died: Dec 04, 1850 · Prestwich, United Kingdom
Timeline
1824，In 1824 he became Lecturer in Science and Philosophy at the East India Company's Military Seminary at Addiscombe, Surrey, and in the following year he exhibited his first electromagnet.
1832，In 1832 he was appointed to the lecturing staff of the Adelaide Gallery of Practical Science in London, where he first demonstrated the DC electric motor incorporating a commutator.
1836，In 1836 he established the journal Annals of Electricity, Magnetism and Chemistry, and in the same year he invented a galvanometer.
1840，In 1840 he became superintendent of the Royal Victoria Gallery of Practical Science in Manchester.
1842，The Gallery closed in 1842, and he earned a living by lecturing and demonstrating.
1850，Sturgeon died in Prestwich in Greater Manchester on 4 December 1850.
William Sturgeon, (born May 22, 1783, Whittington, Lancashire, Eng.—died Dec. 4, 1850, Prestwich, Lancashire), English electrical engineer who devised the first electromagnet capable of supporting more than its own weight. This device led to the invention of the telegraph, the electric motor, and numerous other devices basic to modern technology.
Sturgeon, self-educated in electrical phenomena and natural science, spent much time lecturing and conducting electrical experiments. In 1824 he became lecturer in science at the Royal Military College, Addiscombe, Surrey, and the following year he exhibited his first electromagnet. The 7-ounce (200-gram) magnet was able to support 9 pounds (4 kilograms) of iron using the current from a single cell.
Sturgeon built an electric motor in 1832 and invented the commutator, an integral part of most modern electric motors. In 1836, the year he founded the monthly journal Annals of Electricity, he invented the first suspended coil galvanometer, a device for measuring current. He also improved the voltaic battery and worked on the theory of thermoelectricity. From more than 500 kite observations he established that in serene weather the atmosphere is invariably charged positively with respect to the Earth, becoming more positive with increasing altitude.
II Carl Friedrich Gauss （1777-1855）
Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss was a German mathematician and physicist who made significant contributions to many fields in mathematics and science. Sometimes referred to as the Princeps mathematicorum and "the greatest mathematician since antiquity", Gauss had an exceptional influence in many fields of mathematics and science, and is ranked among history's most influential mathematicians.
Lived: Apr 30, 1777 - Feb 23, 1855 (age 77)
Spouse: Friederica Wilhelmine Waldeck (m. 1810 - 1831) · Johanna Osthoff (m. 1805 - 1809)
Education: University of Helmstedt · Braunschweig University of Technology · University of Göttingen
Children: Eugene Gauss (Son) · Therese Gauss (Daughter) · Wilhelm Gauss (Son) · Louis Gauss (Son) · Wilhelmina Gauss (Daughter) · Joseph Gauss (Son)
Field of study: Mathematics
Awards: Copley Medal (1838)
Carl Friedrich Gauss, original name Johann Friedrich Carl Gauss, (born April 30, 1777, Brunswick [Germany]—died February 23, 1855, Göttingen, Hanover), German mathematician, generally regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians of all time for his contributions to number theory, geometry, probability theory, geodesy, planetary astronomy, the theory of functions, and potential theory (including electromagnetism).
Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss was a German mathematician and astronomer who is ranked as one of history's most influential mathematicians. Often referred to as the Princeps mathematicorum ("the Prince of Mathematicians") and "greatest mathematician since antiquity", he made significant contributions to several fields including number theory, algebra, statistics, analysis, geometry, astronomy, and matrix theory. Born to poor working-class parents in Brunswick, he started displaying evidence of his genius while he was just a young child. A child prodigy, he is said to have corrected an error in his father’s payroll calculations as a small boy of three. He began to astonish his teachers with his brilliance at school and made his first ground-breaking mathematical discovery while he was still a teenager. Even though his parents were poor, he found a patron in the Duke of Brunswick who recognized his intelligence and sent him to the prestigious University of Göttingen. Eventually he established himself as a prominent mathematician in Germany and his reputation soon spread internationally. He made notable contributions to almost all fields in mathematics, but his favorite area was number theory, a field which he revolutionized with his work on complex numbers. He also published many books including 'Disquisitiones Arithmeticae’ which is regarded as one of the most influential mathematics books ever written.
Childhood & Early Life
Carl Gauss was born on 30 April 1777 in Brunswick (Braunschweig), in the Duchy of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel into a poor family. He was the only child of his parents. His mother was illiterate and did not even record the date of his birth. Later on Gauss himself calculated the date based on snippets of information provided by his mother.
He was a child prodigy and started displaying signs of his brilliance as a toddler. He was just three when he corrected an error in his father’s payroll calculations. As a seven year old he dazzled his school teachers by quickly summing up the integers from 1 to 100. He was already criticizing Euclid’s geometry by the time he was 12.
Even though his parents were poor, he luckily found a kind patron in the Duke of Brunswick who recognized the boy’s intellectual capabilities and provided him financial assistance for acquiring higher education. Gauss attended the Collegium Carolinum from 1792 to 1795, and the University of Göttingen from 1795 to 1798.
As a university student he began discovering or independently rediscovering several important mathematical concepts and theorems. His first major work occurred in 1796 when he demonstrated that a regular polygon of 17 sides can be constructed by ruler and compass alone. This was a major discovery in the field of mathematics as construction problems had baffled mathematicians for centuries.
In his doctoral thesis in 1799, he proved the fundamental theorem of algebra which states that every non-constant single-variable polynomial with complex coefficients has at least one complex root. He would produce three other proofs in future.
Career
Carl Gauss published the book 'Disquisitiones Arithmeticae’ (Arithmetical Investigations) in 1801. He introduced the symbol '≡’ for congruence in this book and gave the first two proofs of the law of quadratic reciprocity.
He also had a deep interest in theoretical astronomy. Gauss made a prediction regarding the position of the planetoid Ceres, which was first discovered by astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi in 1800. Ceres, however, disappeared behind the sun before the astronomers could collect enough data to predict the accurate date of its reappearance. Gauss worked hard with the limited data available and made a prediction.
Ceres was rediscovered in December 1801, and its position was almost exactly where Gauss had predicted—his prediction turned out to be accurate within a half-degree. However, Gauss did not reveal his method of calculation and claimed to have done the logarithmic calculations in his head.
His 1809 work 'Theoria motus corporum coelestium in sectionibus conicis solem ambientum’ (Theory of motion of the celestial bodies moving in conic sections around the Sun), was based upon the discovery of Ceres. He introduced what came to be known as Gaussian gravitational constant in this work.
In 1818, Gauss embarked on a geodesic survey of the Kingdom of Hanover. This was a long term project that lasted till 1832. To aid the survey, he invented the heliotrope—an instrument that reflects the Sun’s rays in a focused beam over great distances, to measure positions.
In the 1830s, he became interested in terrestrial magnetism and participated in the first worldwide survey of the Earth’s magnetic field. During the course of this survey he invented the magnetometer.
He published the work 'Dioptrische Untersuchungen’ in 1840 in which he detailed the first systematic analysis on the formation of images under a paraxial approximation. He showed that under a paraxial approximation an optical system can be characterized by its cardinal points.
He became an associated member of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands in 1845. When the institute became the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1851, he joined as a foreign member.
Major Works
His textbook on number theory, 'Disquisitiones Arithmeticae’, discussed important results in number theory obtained by prominent mathematicians such as Fermat, Euler, Lagrange and Legendre, along with Gauss’s own important new results. Considered highly influential at the time of its first publication, the book remained influential up until the 20th century.
Carl Gauss formulated the Gauss’s law which related the distribution of electric charge to the resulting electric field. The law can be used to derive Coulomb's law, and vice versa.
He invented the heliotrope, an instrument that uses a mirror to reflect sunlight over great distances with the purpose of marking positions in a land survey. Heliotropes were used in surveys in Germany up to the late 1980s, when GPS measurements replaced the use of the heliotrope in long distance surveys.
Awards & Achievements
In 1810, he was honored with the Lalande Prize by the French Academy of Sciences in recognition of his contributions to astronomy.
He was awarded the prize of the Danish Academy of Sciences in 1823 for his study of angle-preserving maps.
He was presented with the Copley Medal by the Royal Society, London, in 1838 "for his inventions and mathematical researches in magnetism”.
Personal Life & Legacy
Carl Gauss’s first marriage was to Johanna Osthoff which resulted in the birth of three children. Johanna died in 1809. Even though shattered, he never let his personal tragedies affect his professional life.
He later married Johanna's best friend, Friederica Wilhelmine Waldeck. He had three children from this marriage too. His second wife died in 1831 after a long illness.
One of his daughters, Therese, took care of the aging mathematician during his later years. He died on 23 February 1855, aged 77.
The Carl Friedrich Gauss Prize for Applications of Mathematics, named in his honor, was launched in 2006 by the International Mathematical Union and the German Mathematical Society for "outstanding mathematical contributions that have found significant applications outside of mathematics".
III Charles Wheatstone （1802-1875）
Sir Charles Wheatstone was an English scientist and inventor of many scientific breakthroughs of the Victorian era, including the English concertina, the stereoscope, and the Playfair cipher. However, Wheatstone is best known for his contributions in the development of the Wheatstone bridge, originally invented by Samuel Hunter Christie, which is used to measure an unknown electrical resistance, and as a major figure in the development of telegraphy.
Born: February 6, 1802 at Barnwood, near Gloucester, England
Parents: William and Beata Bubb Wheatstone
Spouse: Emma West
Children: Charles Pablo, Arthur William Fredrick, Florence Caroline, Catherine Ada, Angela
Education: No formal science education, but excelled in French, math, and physics at Kensington and Vere Street schools, and took an apprenticeship in his uncle's music factory
Awards and Honors: Professor of Experimental Philosophy at King's College, Fellow of the Royal Society in 1837, knighted by Queen Victoria in 1868
Died: October 19, 1875 in Paris, France
Early Life
Charles Wheatstone was born on February 6, 1802, near Gloucester, England. He was the second child born to William (1775–1824) and Beata Bubb Wheatstone, members of a music business family established on the Strand in London at least as early as 1791, and perhaps as early as 1750. William and Beata and their family moved to London in 1806, where William set up shop as a flute teacher and maker; his elder brother Charles Sr. was head of the family business, manufacturing and selling musical instruments.
Charles learned to read at age 4 and was sent to school early at the Kensington Proprietary Grammar School and Vere Street Board School in Westminster, where he excelled in French, math, and physics. In 1816, he was apprenticed to his Uncle Charles, but by the age of 15, his uncle complained that he was neglecting his work at the shop to read, write, publish songs, and pursue an interest in electricity and acoustics.
In 1818, Charles produced his first known musical instrument, the "flute harmonique," which was a keyed instrument. No examples have survived.
Early Inventions and Academics
In September 1821, Charles Wheatstone exhibited his Enchanted Lyre or Acoucryptophone at a gallery in a music store, a musical instrument that appeared to play itself to amazed shoppers. The Enchanted Lyre was not a real instrument, but rather a sounding box disguised as a lyre that hung from the ceiling by a thin steel wire. The wire was connected to the soundboards of a piano, harp, or dulcimer played in an upper room, and as those instruments were played, the sound was conducted down the wire, setting off sympathetic resonance of the lyre's strings. Wheatstone speculated publicly that at some time in the future, music might be transmitted in a similar manner throughout London "laid on like gas."
In 1823 acclaimed Danish scientist Hans Christian Örsted (1777–1851) saw the Enchanted Lyre and convinced Wheatstone to write his first scientific article, "New Experiments in Sound." Örsted presented the paper to the Académie Royale des Sciences in Paris, and it was eventually published in Great Britain in Thomson's Annals of Philosophy. Wheatstone began his association with the Royal Institution of Great Britain (also known as the Royal Institute, founded in 1799) in the mid-1820s, writing papers to be presented by close friend and RI member Michael Faraday (1791–1869) because he was too shy to do it himself.
Early Inventions
Wheatstone had a wide-ranging interest in sound and vision and contributed many inventions and improvements on existing inventions while he was active.
His first patent (#5803) was for a "Construction of Wind Instruments" on June 19, 1829, describing the use of a flexible bellows. From there, Wheatstone developed the concertina, a bellows-driven, free-reed instrument in which each button produces the same pitch regardless of the way the bellows are moving. The patent was not published until 1844, but Faraday gave a Wheatstone-written lecture demonstrating the instrument to the Royal Institute in 1830.
Academics and Professional Life
Despite his lack of a formal education in science, in 1834 Wheatstone was made a Professor of Experimental Philosophy at King's College, London, where he conducted pioneering experiments in electricity and invented an improved dynamo. He also invented two devices to measure and regulate electrical resistance and current: the Rheostat and an improved version of what is now known as the Wheatstone bridge (it was actually invented by Samuel Hunter Christie in 1833). He held the position at King's College for the remainder of his life, although he continued working in the family business for another 13 years.
In 1837, Charles Wheatstone partnered with inventor and entrepreneur William Cooke to co-invent an electric telegraph, a now-outdated communication system that transmitted electric signals over wires from location to location, signals that could be translated into a message. The Wheatstone-Cooke or needle telegraph was the first working communication system of its kind in Great Britain, and it was put into operation on the London and Blackwall Railway. Wheatstone was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) that same year.
Wheatstone invented an early version of the stereoscope in 1838, versions of which became a very popular philosophical toy in the later 19th century. Wheatstone's stereoscope used two slightly different versions of the same image, which when viewed through two separate tubes gave the viewer the optical illusion of depth.
Throughout his professional life, Wheatstone invented both philosophical toys and scientific instruments, exercising his interests in linguistics, optics, cryptography (the Playfair Cipher), typewriters, and clocks—one of his inventions was the Polar Clock, which told time by polarized light.
Marriage and Family
On February 12, 1847, Charles Wheatstone married Emma West, the daughter of a local tradesman, and they eventually had five children. That year he also stopped working in a significant way at the family business to concentrate on his academic research. His wife died in 1866, at which point his youngest daughter Angela was 11 years old.
Wheatstone gleaned a number of important awards and honors throughout his career. He was elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1859, made a Foreign Associate of the French Academy of Sciences in 1873, and became an honorary member of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1875. He was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1868. He was named a Doctor of Civil Law (DCL) at Oxford and a doctor of law (LLD) at Cambridge.
Death and Legacy
Charles Wheatstone was one of the most inventive geniuses of his generation, combining combined science-based publication with business-focused patent applications and serious research with a playful interest in philosophical toys and inventions.
He died of bronchitis on October 19, 1875, in Paris while he was working on yet another new invention, this one for submarine cables. He is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery near his home in London.
IV Samuel Morse (1791-1872)
Samuel Finley Breese Morse was an American inventor and painter. After having established his reputation as a portrait painter, in his middle age Morse contributed to the invention of a single-wire telegraph system based on European telegraphs. He was a co-developer of Morse code and helped to develop the commercial use of telegraphy.
Lived: Apr 27, 1791 - Apr 02, 1872 (age 80)
Spouse: Elizabeth Griswold (m. 1848 - 1872) · Lucretia Walker (m. 1818 - 1825)
Children: Samuel Morse (Son) · William Morse (Son) · Charles Morse (Son) · Susan Morse (Daughter) · Cornelia Morse (Daughter) · James Morse (Son) · Edward Morse (Son)
Founded: Western Union · National Academy of Design · The Journal of Commerce
Inventions: Morse Code · Improvement in Electro-Magnetic Telegraphs
Artwork: Marquis de Lafayette · Gallery of the Louvre · The Old House of Representatives · Portrait of David C. de Forest
Timeline
1810，In 1810, he graduated from Yale with Phi Beta Kappa honors.
1828，Fine arts written by Samuel Morse was first published in 1828.
1848，He married his second wife, Sarah Elizabeth Griswold on August 10, 1848, in Utica, New York and had four children (Samuel b. 1849, Cornelia b. 1851, William b. 1853, Edward b. 1857).
1849，He was elected an Associate Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1849.
1856，In 1856, Morse traveled to London to help Charles Tilston Bright and Edward Whitehouse test a 2,000-mile-length of spooled cable.
1864，Other awards include Order of the Tower and Sword from the kingdom of Portugal (1860), and Italy conferred on him the insignia of chevalier of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus in 1864.
Samuel F.B. Morse was an accomplished painter before he invented the telegraph and changed the way the world communicated.
Early Years
Samuel F. B. Morse was the first child of clergyman Jedidiah Morse and Elisabeth Finley Morse. His parents were committed to his education and instilling in him the Calvinist faith. After a mediocre showing at Phillips Academy, save for a strong interest in art, his parents sent him to Yale College. Samuel’s record at Yale wasn’t much better, though he found interest in lectures on electricity and focused intensely on his art.
Education
After graduating from Yale in 1810, Morse wished to pursue a career as a painter, but his father desired a more substantial profession and arranged for him to apprentice at a bookstore/publisher in Boston, Massachusetts. However, Morse's continued interest in painting led his father to reverse his decision and allow Morse to study art in England. There he worked with several British masters and the respected American artist Benjamin West at the Royal Academy. Morse adopted a “romantic” painting style of large, sweeping canvases portraying heroic biographies and epic events in grand poses and brilliant colors.
Career as an Artist
Morse returned to America in 1815, and set up a studio in Boston. In 1818, he married Lucretia Walker, and during their brief union, they had three children. Morse soon discovered that his large paintings attracted significant attention but not many sales. Portraits, not vast depictions of history, were most popular at this time, and he was forced to become an itinerant artist, traveling from New England to the Carolinas to find commissions. As difficult as it was, Morse painted some of his most notable work during this period, among them portraits of the Marquis de Lafayette and George Washington. His work combined technical proficiency with a touch of Romanticism, resulting in notably dramatic portrayals of his subjects.
Grief Transforms into Opportunity
In the decade between 1825 and 1835, grief transformed into an opportunity for Morse. In February 1825, after giving birth to their third child, Lucretia died. Morse was away from home working on a painting commission when he heard his wife was gravely ill, and by the time he arrived home, she had already been buried. The next year Morse’s father died, and his mother passed three years later. Deep in grief, in 1829 Morse traveled to Europe to recover. On his voyage home, in 1832, he met the inventor Charles Thomas Jackson, and the two got into a discussion about how an electronic impulse could be carried along a wire for long distances. Morse immediately became intrigued and made some sketches of a mechanical device that he believed would accomplish the task.
Inventing the Telegraph
After studying the work of American physicist Joseph Henry, Morse developed a prototype of the telegraph. In 1836, others in Europe were also working on the invention, and it is possible Morse knew about these, but no one had yet developed a fully operational device that could transmit over long distances. In 1838, Morse formed a partnership with fellow inventor Alfred Vail, who contributed funds and helped develop the system of dots and dashes for sending signals that would eventually become known as Morse code.
For years, the pair struggled to find investors, until 1842, when Morse gained the attention of Maine Congressman Francis Ormand Jonathan Smith. In December of that same year, Morse strung wires between two committee rooms in the Capitol and sent messages back and forth. With Smith’s support, the demonstration won Morse a $30,000 Congressional appropriation to construct an experimental 38-mile telegraph line between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Maryland. On May 24, 1844, Morse tapped out his now-famous first message, "What hath God wrought!"
Almost as soon as Morse received his patent for the telegraph in 1847, he was hit with litigious claims from partners and rival inventors. The legal battles culminated in the U.S. Supreme Court decision O’Reilly v. Morse (1854), which stated Morse had been the first to develop a workable telegraph. In spite of the court’s clear ruling, Morse received no official recognition from the U.S. government.
Later Years
In 1848, Morse had married Sarah Griswold, with whom he had four children, and after he was recognized as the “inventor of the telegraph,” he settled down to a life of wealth, philanthropy and family. Morse grew a long beard that turned white, giving him the appearance of a wise sage. In his final years, he helped found and gave generous financial gifts to Vassar College and contributed to his alma mater, Yale College, as well as religious organizations and temperance societies. He also patronized several struggling artists whose work he admired.
Morse died of pneumonia on April 2, 1872, at his home in New York City at age 80.
V William Thomson （1824-1907）, 1st Baron Kelvin
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, OM, GCVO, PC, PRS, FRSE was a British mathematical physicist and engineer born in Belfast. Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Glasgow for 53 years, he did important work in the mathematical analysis of electricity and formulation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics, and did much to unify the emerging discipline of physics in its modern form. He received the Royal Society's Copley Medal in 1883, was its President 1890–1895, and in 1892 was the first British scientist to be elevated to the House of Lords.
Lived: Jun 26, 1824 - Dec 17, 1907 (age 83)
Spouse: Margaret Crum (m. 1852 - 1870)
Awards: Smith's Prize (1) · John Fritz Medal (1) · Royal Medal (1) · Other awards (1)
Siblings: James Thomson (Brother)
Education: Peterhouse, Cambridge (1841 - 1845) · University of Glasgow · Royal Belfast Academical Institution
Buried: Westminster Abbey
Timeline
1852，In September 1852, he married childhood sweetheart Margaret Crum, daughter of Walter Crum; but her health broke down on their honeymoon, and over the next seventeen years, Thomson was distracted by her suffering.
1856，In December 1856, he was elected to the board of directors of the Atlantic Telegraph Company.
1858，He patented the key elements of his system, the mirror galvanometer and the siphon recorder, in 1858.
1866，For his work on the transatlantic telegraph project he was knighted in 1866 by Queen Victoria, becoming Sir William Thomson.
1874，On 2 May 1874 he set sail for Madeira on the Lalla Rookh.
1907，William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin died on December 17, 1907 in Largs, United Kingdom.
William Thomson, Baron Kelvin, in full William Thomson, Baron Kelvin of Largs, also called (1866–92) Sir William Thomson, (born June 26, 1824, Belfast, County Antrim, Ireland [now in Northern Ireland]—died December 17, 1907, Netherhall, near Largs, Ayrshire, Scotland), Scottish engineer, mathematician, and physicist who profoundly influenced the scientific thought of his generation.
Thomson, who was knighted and raised to the peerage in recognition of his work in engineering and physics, was foremost among the small group of British scientists who helped lay the foundations of modern physics. His contributions to science included a major role in the development of the second law of thermodynamics; the absolute temperature scale (measured in kelvins); the dynamical theory of heat; the mathematical analysis of electricity and magnetism, including the basic ideas for the electromagnetic theory of light; the geophysical determination of the age of the Earth; and fundamental work in hydrodynamics. His theoretical work on submarine telegraphy and his inventions for use on submarine cables aided Britain in capturing a preeminent place in world communication during the 19th century.
The style and character of Thomson’s scientific and engineering work reflected his active personality. While a student at the University of Cambridge, he was awarded silver sculls for winning the university championship in racing single-seater rowing shells. He was an inveterate traveler all of his life, spending much time on the Continent and making several trips to the United States. In later life he commuted between homes in London and Glasgow. Thomson risked his life several times during the laying of the first transatlantic cable.
Thomson’s worldview was based in part on the belief that all phenomena that caused force—such as electricity, magnetism, and heat—were the result of invisible material in motion. This belief placed him in the forefront of those scientists who opposed the view that forces were produced by imponderable fluids. By the end of the century, however, Thomson, having persisted in his belief, found himself in opposition to the positivistic outlook that proved to be a prelude to 20th-century quantum mechanics and relativity. Consistency of worldview eventually placed him counter to the mainstream of science.
But Thomson’s consistency enabled him to apply a few basic ideas to a number of areas of study. He brought together disparate areas of physics—heat, thermodynamics, mechanics, hydrodynamics, magnetism, and electricity—and thus played a principal role in the great and final synthesis of 19th-century science, which viewed all physical change as energy-related phenomena. Thomson was also the first to suggest that there were mathematical analogies between kinds of energy. His success as a synthesizer of theories about energy places him in the same position in 19th-century physics that Sir Isaac Newton has in 17th-century physics or Albert Einstein in 20th-century physics. All of these great synthesizers prepared the ground for the next grand leap forward in science.
Early Life
William Thomson was the fourth child in a family of seven. His mother died when he was six years old. His father, James Thomson, who was a textbook writer, taught mathematics, first in Belfast and later as a professor at the University of Glasgow; he taught his sons the most recent mathematics, much of which had not yet become a part of the British university curriculum. An unusually close relationship between a dominant father and a submissive son served to develop William’s extraordinary mind.
William, age 10, and his brother James, age 11, matriculated at the University of Glasgow in 1834. There William was introduced to the advanced and controversial thinking of Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Fourier when one of Thomson’s professors loaned him Fourier’s pathbreaking book The Analytical Theory of Heat, which applied abstract mathematical techniques to the study of heat flow through any solid object. Thomson’s first two published articles, which appeared when he was 16 and 17 years old, were a defense of Fourier’s work, which was then under attack by British scientists. Thomson was the first to promote the idea that Fourier’s mathematics, although applied solely to the flow of heat, could be used in the study of other forms of energy—whether fluids in motion or electricity flowing through a wire.
Thomson won many university awards at Glasgow, and at the age of 15 he won a gold medal for “An Essay on the Figure of the Earth,” in which he exhibited exceptional mathematical ability. That essay, highly original in its analysis, served as a source of scientific ideas for Thomson throughout his life. He last consulted the essay just a few months before he died at the age of 83.
Thomson entered Cambridge in 1841 and took a B.A. degree four years later with high honours. In 1845 he was given a copy of George Green’s An Essay on the Application of Mathematical Analysis to the Theories of Electricity and Magnetism. That work and Fourier’s book were the components from which Thomson shaped his worldview and that helped him create his pioneering synthesis of the mathematical relationship between electricity and heat. After finishing at Cambridge, Thomson went to Paris, where he worked in the laboratory of the physicist and chemist Henri-Victor Regnault to gain practical experimental competence to supplement his theoretical education.
The chair of natural philosophy (later called physics) at the University of Glasgow fell vacant in 1846. Thomson’s father then mounted a carefully planned and energetic campaign to have his son named to the position, and at the age of 22 William was unanimously elected to it. Despite blandishments from Cambridge, Thomson remained at Glasgow for the rest of his career. He resigned his university chair in 1899, at the age of 75, after 53 years of a fruitful and happy association with the institution. He was making room, he said, for younger men.
Thomson’s scientific work was guided by the conviction that the various theories dealing with matter and energy were converging toward one great, unified theory. He pursued the goal of a unified theory even though he doubted that it was attainable in his lifetime or ever. The basis for Thomson’s conviction was the cumulative impression obtained from experiments showing the interrelation of forms of energy. By the middle of the 19th century it had been shown that magnetism and electricity, electromagnetism, and light were related, and Thomson had shown by mathematical analogy that there was a relationship between hydrodynamic phenomena and an electric current flowing through wires. James Prescott Joule also claimed that there was a relationship between mechanical motion and heat, and his idea became the basis for the science of thermodynamics.
In 1847, at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Thomson first heard Joule’s theory about the interconvertibility of heat and motion. Joule’s theory went counter to the accepted knowledge of the time, which was that heat was an imponderable substance (caloric) and could not be, as Joule claimed, a form of motion. Thomson was open-minded enough to discuss with Joule the implications of the new theory. At the time, though he could not accept Joule’s idea, Thomson was willing to reserve judgment, especially since the relationship between heat and mechanical motion fit into his own view of the causes of force. By 1851 Thomson was able to give public recognition to Joule’s theory, along with a cautious endorsement in a major mathematical treatise, “On the Dynamical Theory of Heat.” Thomson’s essay contained his version of the second law of thermodynamics, which was a major step toward the unification of scientific theories.
Thomson’s work on electricity and magnetism also began during his student days at Cambridge. When, much later, James Clerk Maxwell decided to undertake research in magnetism and electricity, he read all of Thomson’s papers on the subject and adopted Thomson as his mentor. Maxwell—in his attempt to synthesize all that was known about the interrelationship of electricity, magnetism, and light—developed his monumental electromagnetic theory of light, probably the most significant achievement of 19th-century science. This theory had its genesis in Thomson’s work, and Maxwell readily acknowledged his debt.
Thomson’s contributions to 19th-century science were many. He advanced the ideas of Michael Faraday, Fourier, Joule, and others. Using mathematical analysis, Thomson drew generalizations from experimental results. He formulated the concept that was to be generalized into the dynamic theory of energy. He also collaborated with a number of leading scientists of the time, among them Sir George Gabriel Stokes, Hermann von Helmholtz, Peter Guthrie Tait, and Joule. With these partners, he advanced the frontiers of science in several areas, particularly hydrodynamics. Furthermore, Thomson originated the mathematical analogy between the flow of heat in solid bodies and the flow of electricity in conductors.
William Thomson, 1852.
© Photos.com/Thinkstock
Thomson’s involvement in a controversy over the feasibility of laying a transatlantic cable changed the course of his professional work. His work on the project began in 1854 when Stokes, a lifelong correspondent on scientific matters, asked for a theoretical explanation of the apparent delay in an electric current passing through a long cable. In his reply, Thomson referred to his early paper “On the Uniform Motion of Heat in Homogeneous Solid Bodies, and its Connexion with the Mathematical Theory of Electricity” (1842). Thomson’s idea about the mathematical analogy between heat flow and electric current worked well in his analysis of the problem of sending telegraph messages through the planned 3,000-mile (4,800-km) cable. His equations describing the flow of heat through a solid wire proved applicable to questions about the velocity of a current in a cable.
The publication of Thomson’s reply to Stokes prompted a rebuttal by E.O.W. Whitehouse, the Atlantic Telegraph Company’s chief electrician. Whitehouse claimed that practical experience refuted Thomson’s theoretical findings, and for a time Whitehouse’s view prevailed with the directors of the company. Despite their disagreement, Thomson participated, as chief consultant, in the hazardous early cable-laying expeditions. In 1858 Thomson patented his telegraph receiver, called a mirror galvanometer, for use on the Atlantic cable. (The device, along with his later modification called the siphon recorder, came to be used on most of the worldwide network of submarine cables.) Eventually the directors of the Atlantic Telegraph Company fired Whitehouse, adopted Thomson’s suggestions for the design of the cable, and decided in favour of the mirror galvanometer. Thomson was knighted in 1866 by Queen Victoria for his work.
Later Life
After the successful laying of the transatlantic cable, Thomson became a partner in two engineering consulting firms, which played a major role in the planning and construction of submarine cables during the frenzied era of expansion that resulted in a global network of telegraph communication. Thomson became a wealthy man who could afford a 126-ton yacht and a baronial estate.
William Thomson, Baron Kelvin, 1869.
© Photos.com/Thinkstock
Thomson’s interests in science included not only electricity, magnetism, thermodynamics, and hydrodynamics but also geophysical questions about tides, the shape of the Earth, atmospheric electricity, thermal studies of the ground, the Earth’s rotation, and geomagnetism. He also entered the controversy over Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Thomson opposed Darwin, remaining “on the side of the angels.”
William Thomson, Baron Kelvin, with his compass, 1902.
© Photos.com/Thinkstock
Thomson challenged the views on geologic and biological change of the early uniformitarians, including Darwin, who claimed that the Earth and its life had evolved over an incalculable number of years, during which the forces of nature always operated as at present. On the basis of thermodynamic theory and Fourier’s studies, Thomson in 1862 estimated that more than one million years ago the Sun’s heat and the temperature of the Earth must have been considerably greater and that these conditions had produced violent storms and floods and an entirely different type of vegetation. His views, published in 1868, particularly angered Darwin’s supporters. Thomas Henry Huxley replied to Thomson in the 1869 Anniversary Address of the President of the Geological Society of London. Thomson’s speculations as to the age of the Earth and the Sun were inaccurate, but he did succeed in pressing his contention that biological and geologic theory had to conform to the well-established theories of physics.
In an 1884 series of lectures at Johns Hopkins University on the state of scientific knowledge, Thomson wondered aloud about the failures of the wave theory of light to explain certain phenomena. His interest in the sea, roused aboard his yacht, the Lalla Rookh, resulted in a number of patents: a compass that was adopted by the British Admiralty; a form of analog computer for measuring tides in a harbour and for calculating tide tables for any hour, past or future; and sounding equipment. He established a company to manufacture these items and a number of electrical measuring devices. Like his father, he published a textbook, Treatise on Natural Philosophy (1867), a work on physics coauthored with Tait that helped shape the thinking of a generation of physicists.
Thomson was said to be entitled to more letters after his name than any other man in the Commonwealth. He received honorary degrees from universities throughout the world and was lauded by engineering societies and scientific organizations. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1851 and served as its president from 1890 to 1895. He published more than 600 papers and was granted dozens of patents. He died at his estate in Scotland and was buried in Westminster Abbey, London.
William Thomson, Baron Kelvin, delivering his last lecture at the University of Glasgow, 1899.
© Photos.com/Thinkstock
VI Alexander Graham Bell （1847-1922）
Alexander Graham Bell was a Scottish-born inventor, scientist, and engineer who is credited with inventing and patenting the first practical telephone. He also co-founded the American Telephone and Telegraph Company in 1885.
Lived: Mar 03, 1847 - Aug 02, 1922 (age 75)
TV shows: The Greatest Canadian · Biography of the Millennium: 100 People - 1000 Years
Spouse: Mabel Gardiner Hubbard (m. 1877 - 1922)
Children: Edward Bell (Son) · Robert Bell (Son) · Marian Hubbard Bell (Daughter) · Elsie Bell (Daughter)
Education: University College London (1868 - 1870) · University of Edinburgh (1864 - 1865) · Royal High School, Edinburgh (1858 - 1862)
Founded: AT&T · AT&T Corporation · Bell Telephone Company · Bell Labs · National Geographic Society · Bell System
Timeline
1875，In March 1875, Bell and Pollok visited the scientist Joseph Henry, who was then director of the Smithsonian Institution, and asked Henry's advice on the electrical multi-reed apparatus that Bell hoped would transmit the human voice by telegraph.
1882，Bell was a British subject throughout his early life in Scotland and later in Canada until 1882 when he became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
1913，In 1913, Dr. Bell hired Walter Pinaud, a Sydney yacht designer and builder as well as the proprietor of Pinaud's Yacht Yard in Westmount, Nova Scotia, to work on the pontoons of the HD-4.
1914，Bell was later awarded the AIEE's Edison Medal in 1914 "For meritorious achievement in the invention of the telephone".
1917，These included statuary monuments to both him and the new form of communication his telephone created, including the Bell Telephone Memorial erected in his honor in Alexander Graham Bell Gardens in Brantford, Ontario, in 1917.
1922，Alexander Graham Bell died on August 02, 1922 in Beinn Bhreagh, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Alexander Graham Bell, (born March 3, 1847, Edinburgh, Scotland—died August 2, 1922, Beinn Bhreagh, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada), Scottish-born American inventor, scientist, and teacher of the deaf whose foremost accomplishments were the invention of the telephone (1876) and the refinement of the phonograph (1886).
Alexander (“Graham” was not added until he was 11) was born to Alexander Melville Bell and Eliza Grace Symonds. His mother was almost deaf, and his father taught elocution to the deaf, influencing Alexander’s later career choice as teacher of the deaf. At age 11 he entered the Royal High School at Edinburgh, but he did not enjoy the compulsory curriculum, and he left school at age 15 without graduating. In 1865 the family moved to London. Alexander passed the entrance examinations for University College London in June 1868 and matriculated there in the autumn. However, he did not complete his studies, because in 1870 the Bell family moved again, this time immigrating to Canada after the deaths of Bell’s younger brother Edward in 1867 and older brother Melville in 1870, both of tuberculosis. The family settled in Brantford, Ontario, but in April 1871 Alexander moved to Boston, where he taught at the Boston School for Deaf Mutes. He also taught at the Clarke School for the Deaf in Northampton, Massachusetts, and at the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut.
One of Bell’s students was Mabel Hubbard, daughter of Gardiner Greene Hubbard, a founder of the Clarke School. Mabel had become deaf at age five as a result of a near-fatal bout of scarlet fever. Bell began working with her in 1873, when she was 15 years old. Despite a 10-year age difference, they fell in love and were married on July 11, 1877. They had four children, Elsie (1878–1964), Marian (1880–1962), and two sons who died in infancy.
While pursuing his teaching profession, Bell also began researching methods to transmit several telegraph messages simultaneously over a single wire—a major focus of telegraph innovation at the time and one that ultimately led to Bell’s invention of the telephone. In 1868 Joseph Stearns had invented the duplex, a system that transmitted two messages simultaneously over a single wire. Western Union Telegraph Company, the dominant firm in the industry, acquired the rights to Stearns’s duplex and hired the noted inventor Thomas Edison to devise as many multiple-transmission methods as possible in order to block competitors from using them. Edison’s work culminated in the quadruplex, a system for sending four simultaneous telegraph messages over a single wire. Inventors then sought methods that could send more than four; some, including Bell and his great rival Elisha Gray, developed designs capable of subdividing a telegraph line into 10 or more channels. These so-called harmonic telegraphs used reeds or tuning forks that responded to specific acoustic frequencies. They worked well in the laboratory but proved unreliable in service.
A group of investors led by Gardiner Hubbard wanted to establish a federally chartered telegraph company to compete with Western Union by contracting with the Post Office to send low-cost telegrams. Hubbard saw great promise in the harmonic telegraph and backed Bell’s experiments. Bell, however, was more interested in transmitting the human voice. Finally, he and Hubbard worked out an agreement that Bell would devote most of his time to the harmonic telegraph but would continue developing his telephone concept.
From harmonic telegraphs transmitting musical tones, it was a short conceptual step for both Bell and Gray to transmit the human voice. Bell filed a patent describing his method of transmitting sounds on February 14, 1876, just hours before Gray filed a caveat (a statement of concept) on a similar method. On March 7, 1876, the Patent Office awarded Bell what is said to be one of the most valuable patents in history. It is most likely that both Bell and Gray independently devised their telephone designs as an outgrowth of their work on harmonic telegraphy. However, the question of priority of invention between the two has been controversial from the very beginning.
Alexander Graham Bell's sketch of a telephone. He filed the patent for his telephone at the U.S. Patent Office on February 14, 1876—just two hours before a rival, Elisha Gray, filed a declaration of intent to file a patent for a similar device.
© Photos.com/Jupiterimages
Despite having the patent, Bell did not have a fully functioning instrument. He first produced intelligible speech on March 10, 1876, when he summoned his laboratory assistant, Thomas A. Watson, with words that Bell transcribed in his lab notes as “Mr. Watson—come here—I want to see you.” Over the next few months, Bell continued to refine his instrument to make it suitable for public exhibition. In June he demonstrated his telephone to the judges of the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, a test witnessed by Brazil’s Emperor Pedro II and the celebrated Scottish physicist Sir William Thomson. In August of that year, he was on the receiving end of the first one-way long-distance call, transmitted from Brantford to nearby Paris, Ontario, over a telegraph wire.
Alexander Graham Bell, lecturing at Salem, Massachusetts (top), while friends in his study at Boston listen to his lecture via telephone, February 12, 1877.
© Photos.com/Jupiterimages
Gardiner Hubbard organized a group that established the Bell Telephone Company in July 1877 to commercialize Bell’s telephone. Bell was the company’s technical adviser until he lost interest in telephony in the early 1880s. Although his invention rendered him independently wealthy, he sold off most of his stock holdings in the company early and did not profit as much as he might have had he retained his shares. Thus, by the mid-1880s his role in the telephone industry was marginal.
Alexander Graham Bell, who patented the telephone in 1876, inaugurating the 1,520-km (944-mile) telephone link between New York City and Chicago on October 18, 1892.
Photos.com/Thinkstock
The vertical “hill-and-dale” groove, as played by a Columbia Graphophone, c. 1902. Patented by Charles Sumner Tainter, Chichester A. Bell, and Alexander Graham Bell in 1886, this vertically undulating groove, cut into a wax surface, was the most successful method employed in cylinder sound recording.
By that time, Bell had developed a growing interest in the technology of sound recording and playback. Although Edison had invented the phonograph in 1877, he soon turned his attention to other technologies, especially electric power and lighting, and his machine, which recorded and reproduced sound on a rotating cylinder wrapped in tinfoil, remained an unreliable and cumbersome device. In 1880 the French government awarded Bell the Volta Prize, given for achievement in electrical science. Bell used the prize money to set up his Volta Laboratory, an institution devoted to studying deafness and improving the lives of the deaf, in Washington, D.C. There he also devoted himself to improving the phonograph. By 1885 Bell and his colleagues (his cousin Chichester A. Bell and the inventor Charles Sumner Tainter) had a design fit for commercial use that featured a removable cardboard cylinder coated with mineral wax. They called their device the Graphophone and applied for patents, which were granted in 1886. The group formed the Volta Graphophone Company to produce their invention. Then in 1887 they sold their patents to the American Graphophone Company, which later evolved into the Columbia Phonograph Company. Bell used his proceeds from the sale to endow the Volta Laboratory.
Bell undertook two other noteworthy research projects at the Volta Laboratory. In 1880 he began research on using light as a means to transmit sound. In 1873 British scientist Willoughby Smith discovered that the element selenium, a semiconductor, varied its electrical resistance with the intensity of incident light. Bell sought to use this property to develop the photophone, an invention he regarded as at least equal to his telephone. He was able to demonstrate that the photophone was technologically feasible, but it did not develop into a commercially viable product. Nevertheless, it contributed to research into the photovoltaic effect that had practical applications later in the 20th century.
Bell’s other major undertaking was the development of an electrical bullet probe, an early version of the metal detector, for surgical use. The origin of this effort was the shooting of U.S. President James A. Garfield in July 1881. A bullet lodged in the president’s back, and doctors were unable to locate it through physical probing. Bell decided that a promising approach was to use an induction balance, a by-product of his research on canceling out electrical interference on telephone wires. Bell determined that a properly configured induction balance would emit a tone when a metal object was brought into proximity with it. At the end of July, he began searching for Garfield’s bullet, but to no avail. Despite Garfield’s death in September, Bell later successfully demonstrated the probe to a group of doctors. Surgeons adopted it, and it was credited with saving lives during the Boer War (1899–1902) and World War I (1914–18).
In September 1885 the Bell family vacationed in Nova Scotia, Canada, and immediately fell in love with the climate and landscape. The following year, Bell bought 50 acres of land near the village of Baddeck on Cape Breton Island and began constructing an estate he called Beinn Bhreagh, Scots Gaelic for “Beautiful Mountain.” The Scottish-born inventor had been an American citizen since 1882, but the Canadian estate became the family’s summer retreat and later permanent home.
During the 1890s Bell shifted his attention to heavier-than-air flight. Starting in 1891, inspired by the research of American scientist Samuel Pierpont Langley, he experimented with wing shapes and propeller blade designs. He continued his experiments even after Wilbur and Orville Wright made the first successful powered, controlled flight in 1903. In 1907 Bell founded the Aerial Experiment Association, which made significant progress in aircraft design and control and contributed to the career of pioneer aviator Glenn Hammond Curtiss.
Throughout his life, Bell sought to foster the advance of scientific knowledge. He supported the journal Science, which later became the official publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was one of the founders of the National Geographic Society in 1888 and succeeded his father-in-law, Gardiner Hubbard, as president of the society between 1898 and 1903. In that year his son-in-law, Gilbert H. Grosvenor, became editor in chief of the National Geographic Magazine. Bell died at his Nova Scotia estate, where he was buried.
联系客服
