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While in his teens he worked in for the Great Northern Telegraph Company operating a cable between Newcastle upon Tyne and Jutland in Denmark.  At the same time his brother Arthur was an engineer with the Post Office in Newcastle and the two carried out experiments together.

 

In his mid twenties he returned home never to be in paid employment again.  He was supported by his parents at first and then by private donations and a civil list pension and used his time in study.  Reports state that he preferred to work in a closed room with a gas fire and an oil stove, smoke his pipe, and concentrate as the temperature rose and the oxygen levels fell.

 

In 1889 his parents moved to Paignton in Devon and he went with them.  When his parents died he moved to Newton Abbot and then to Torquay where he shared a house with the sister of his brother’s wife. When relations with that long suffering lady deteriorated he was left living a solitary hermit-like existence.  Towards the end of his life he was befriended by the local policeman, P.C. Brock, who ordered his groceries and delivered them, reportedly attracting his attention by blowing his whistle through the letter box.  Sadly, in January 1925 Constable Brock found Oliver unconscious on the floor of his home. He was taken to hospital where he initially made a good recovery but relapsed and died on February 3rd 1925.  His death was announced by the BBC and an enterprising burglar broke into his house and many of his books and papers were scattered or destroyed although some were discovered at the house in mysterious circumstances many years later in 1957.  Among those lost might have been some profound works.

 

The Heaviside Layer was so named because in 1902, at about the time Marconi was conducting his experiments with long distance radio transmission, Oliver predicted the existence of a layer of ionised (electrically charged and so conductive) gas at high altitude which would reflect or refract (bend) radio waves and enable communication over great distances. Without such a layer, radio waves, which normally travel only in straight lines, could only be received over line of sight.  The same prediction was made almost simultaneously by an American, Arthur Kennelly, and so became known, in the USA at least, as the Kennelly-Heaviside Layer.  Its actual existence was not proved until 1924 by Edward Appleton. It was eventually discovered that there are several layers and the major layer above the Heaviside layer became known as the Appleton Layer in recognition of his work.  These descriptions have largely fallen into disuse and the layers are named more mundanely as D(which exists only infrequently), E (which is the Heaviside Layer) F (the Appleton layer which splits into two - F1 and F2 -  in Summer) etc. This, Heaviside’s most known discovery, is probably the least of his achievements. His most immediately useful work was probably his derivation of the “Telegraph Equations” which describe the movement of electrical signals along cables.  Without the techniques that his work revealed, telephone signals could be sent only about one mile.  He never benefited financially from this work and the idea was patented by another. He made many more advances in the field of mathematics, most of which are only understandable even today by advanced workers. Unfortunately his individualistic approach and refusal to explain himself meant that his methods  were sometimes not understood or accepted by the mathematical establishment until after his death.  In one of his writings Oliver remarks that he has had complaints that his papers were very difficult to read.  With the wry humour which was characteristic, he replies that that might be so but they were much more difficult to write!  There are other tales of his eccentricity.

 

Many web sites give more full accounts of his life and work:

http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Heaviside.html is a good start.  

 

OLIVER HEAVISIDE

If Oliver Heaviside is known to the public at all it is for the “Heaviside Layer” but his fame in the scientific and mathematical community is much wider. A strange character, never really at home socially and with a sharp, sometimes sarcastic, wit. He nevertheless achieved much in his life which still has relevance to science and mathematics today.

 

He was born in Camden Town, London, in May 1850 but his parents and antecedents all originated in County Durham.  His father, Thomas, was an engraver and water colourist who probably moved to London to find work.  Oliver never enjoyed good health and became partially deaf, probably as a result of contracting scarlet fever, at a young age. This no doubt helps to explain his apparent disconnection from the normal world.

 

 While in his teens he worked in for the Great Northern Telegraph Company operating a cable between Newcastle upon Tyne and Jutland in Denmark.  At the same time his brother Arthur was an engineer with the Post Office in Newcastle.

 

In his mid twenties he returned home never to be in paid employment again.  He was supported by his parents at first and then by private donations and a civil list pension and used his time in study.  Reports state that he preferred to work in a closed room with a gas fire and an oil stove, smoke his pipe, and concentrate as the temperature rose and the oxygen levels fell.

 

In 1889 his parents moved to Paignton in Devon and he went with them.  When his parents died he moved to Newton Abbot and then to Torquay where he shared a house with the sister of his brother’s wife. When relations with that long suffering lady deteriorated he was left living a solitary hermit like existence.  Towards the end of his life he was befriended by the local policemen, P.C. Brock, who ordered his groceries and delivered them, reportedly attracting his attention by blowing his whistle through the letter box.  Sadly, in January 1925

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