Oliver Heaviside (/ˈhɛvisaɪd/HEV-ee-syde;[2] 18 May 1850 – 3 February 1925) was a Britishmathematician andelectrical engineer who invented a new technique for solvingdifferential equations (equivalent to theLaplace transform), independently developedvector calculus, and rewroteMaxwell's equations in the form commonly used today. He significantly shaped the way Maxwell's equations were understood and applied in the decades followingMaxwell's death. Also, in 1893, he extended them togravitoelectromagnetism, which was confirmed byGravity Probe B in 2005. His formulation of thetelegrapher's equations became commercially important during his own lifetime, after their significance went unremarked for a long while, as few others were versed at the time in his novel methodology.[3] Although at odds with the scientific establishment for most of his life, Heaviside changed the face of telecommunications, mathematics, and science.[3]
Oliver Heaviside was born on 18 May 1850 at 55 Kings Street (now Plender Street) inCamden Town, England,[4]: 13 the youngest of three children of Thomas Heaviside, a draughtsman and wood engraver, and Rachel Elizabeth West. He was a short and red-headed child, and suffered fromscarlet fever when young, which left him with a hearing impairment. A small legacy enabled the family to move to a better part of Camden when he was thirteen and he was sent to Camden House Grammar School. He was a good student, placing fifth out of five hundred pupils in 1865, but his parents could not keep him at school after he was 16, so he continued studying for a year by himself and had no further formal education.[5]: 51
Heaviside's uncle by marriage was SirCharles Wheatstone (1802–1875), an internationally celebrated expert in telegraphy and electromagnetism, and the original co-inventor of the first commercially successful telegraph in the mid-1830s. Wheatstone took a strong interest in his nephew's education,[6] and in 1867 sent him north to work with his older brother Arthur Wheatstone, who was managing one of Charles' telegraph companies inNewcastle-upon-Tyne.[5]: 53
Two years later he took a job as a telegraph operator with the DanishGreat Northern Telegraph Company laying a cable from Newcastle toDenmark using British contractors. He soon became an electrician. Heaviside continued to study while working, and by the age of 22 he published an article in the prestigiousPhilosophical Magazine on 'The Best Arrangement ofWheatstone's Bridge for measuring a Given Resistance with a Given Galvanometer and Battery'[7] which received positive comments from physicists who had unsuccessfully tried to solve this algebraic problem, includingSir William Thomson, to whom he gave a copy of the paper, andJames Clerk Maxwell. When he published an article on theduplex method of using a telegraph cable,[8] he poked fun at R. S. Culley, the engineer in chief of thePost Office telegraph system, who had been dismissing duplex as impractical. Later in 1873 his application to join theSociety of Telegraph Engineers was turned down with the comment that "they didn't want telegraph clerks". This riled Heaviside, who asked Thomson to sponsor him, and along with support of the society's president he was admitted "despite the P.O. snobs".[5]: 60
In 1873, Heaviside had encountered Maxwell's newly published, and later famous, two-volumeTreatise on Electricity and Magnetism. In his old age Heaviside recalled:
I remember my first look at the great treatise of Maxwell's when I was a young man... I saw that it was great, greater and greatest, with prodigious possibilities in its power... I was determined to master the book and set to work. I was very ignorant. I had no knowledge of mathematical analysis (having learned only school algebra and trigonometry which I had largely forgotten) and thus my work was laid out for me. It took me several years before I could understand as much as I possibly could. Then I set Maxwell aside and followed my own course. And I progressed much more quickly... It will be understood that I preach the gospel according to my interpretation of Maxwell.[9]
From 1882 to 1902, except for three years, Heaviside contributed regular articles to the trade paperThe Electrician, which wished to improve its standing, for which he was paid £40 per year. This was hardly enough to live on, but his demands were very small and he was doing what he most wanted to. Between 1883 and 1887 he averaged 2–3 articles per month and these articles later formed the bulk of hisElectromagnetic Theory andElectrical Papers.[5]: 71
In 1880, Heaviside researched theskin effect in telegraph transmission lines. That same year he patented, in England, thecoaxial cable. In 1884 he recast Maxwell's mathematical analysis from its original cumbersome form (they had already been recast asquaternions) to its modernvector terminology, thereby reducing twelve of the original twenty equations in twenty unknowns down to the fourdifferential equations in two unknowns we now know asMaxwell's equations. These four re-formulated equations describe the nature of electric charges (both static and moving), magnetic fields, and the relationship between the two, namely electromagnetic fields.
Between 1880 and 1887, Heaviside developed theoperational calculus using for thedifferential operator, (which Boole had previously denoted by[11]), giving a method of solving differential equations by direct solution asalgebraic equations. This later caused a great deal of controversy, owing to its lack ofrigour. He famously said, "Mathematics is an experimental science, and definitions do not come first, but later on. They make themselves, when the nature of the subject has developed itself."[12] On another occasion he asked, "Shall I refuse my dinner because I do not fully understand the process of digestion?"[13]
In 1887, Heaviside worked with his brother Arthur on a paper entitled "The Bridge System of Telephony". However the paper was blocked by Arthur's superior,William Henry Preece of thePost Office, because part of the proposal was thatloading coils (inductors) should be added to telephone and telegraph lines to increase their self-induction and correct the distortion which they suffered. Preece had recently declared self-inductance to be the great enemy of clear transmission. Heaviside was also convinced that Preece was behind the sacking of the editor ofThe Electrician which brought his long-running series of articles to a halt (until 1891).[14] There was a long history of animosity between Preece and Heaviside. Heaviside considered Preece to be mathematically incompetent, an assessment supported by the biographerPaul J. Nahin: "Preece was a powerful government official, enormously ambitious, and in some remarkable ways, an utter blockhead." Preece's motivations in suppressing Heaviside's work were more to do with protecting Preece's own reputation and avoiding having to admit error than any perceived faults in Heaviside's work.[4]: xi–xvii, 162–183
The importance of Heaviside's work remained undiscovered for some time after publication inThe Electrician. In 1897,AT&T employed one of its own scientists,George A. Campbell, and an external investigatorMichael I. Pupin to find some respect in which Heaviside's work was incomplete or incorrect. Campbell and Pupin extended Heaviside's work, and AT&T filed for patents covering not only their research, but also the technical method of constructing the coils previously invented by Heaviside. AT&T later offered Heaviside money in exchange for his rights; it is possible that the Bell engineers' respect for Heaviside influenced this offer. However, Heaviside refused the offer, declining to accept any money unless the company were to give him full recognition. Heaviside was chronically poor, making his refusal of the offer even more striking. In 1959, Norbert Wiener published his fictionThe Tempter and accused AT&T (namedWilliams Controls Company) and Michael I. Pupin (namedDiego Dominguez) of having usurped Heaviside's inventions.[15][16][17]
But this setback turned Heaviside's attention towards electromagnetic radiation,[18] and in two papers of 1888 and 1889, he calculated the deformations of electric and magnetic fields surrounding a moving charge, as well as the effects of it entering a denser medium. This included a prediction of what is now known asCherenkov radiation, and inspired his friendGeorge FitzGerald to suggest what now is known as theLorentz–FitzGerald contraction.
In 1889, Heaviside first published a correct derivation of the magnetic force on a moving charged particle,[19] which is the magnetic component of what is now called theLorentz force.
In the late 1880s and early 1890s, Heaviside worked on theconcept ofelectromagnetic mass. Heaviside treated this as materialmass, capable of producing the same effects.Wilhelm Wien later verified Heaviside's expression (for lowvelocities).
In 1891 the BritishRoyal Society recognized Heaviside's contributions to the mathematical description of electromagnetic phenomena by naming him aFellow of the Royal Society, and the following year devoting more than fifty pages of thePhilosophical Transactions of the Society to his vector methods and electromagnetic theory. He was elected to honorary membership of theManchester Literary and Philosophical Society in 1894.[20] In 1905 Heaviside was given an honorary doctorate by theUniversity of Göttingen.
In 1896, FitzGerald andJohn Perry obtained acivil 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.[18]
In 1902, Heaviside proposed the existence of what is now known as theKennelly–Heaviside layer of theionosphere. Heaviside's proposal included means by which radio signals are transmitted around the Earth's curvature. The existence of the ionosphere was confirmed in 1923. The predictions by Heaviside, combined withPlanck's radiation theory, probably discouraged further attempts to detect radio waves from theSun and otherastronomical objects. For whatever reason, there seem to have been no attempts for 30 years, untilJansky's development ofradio astronomy in 1932.
Heaviside was an opponent of Albert Einstein'stheory of relativity.[21] MathematicianHoward Eves has commented that Heaviside "was the only first-rate physicist at the time to impugn Einstein, and his invectives against relativity theory often bordered on the absurd".[21]
In later years his behavior became quiteeccentric. According to associate B.A. Behrend, he became a recluse who was so averse to meeting people that he delivered the manuscripts of hisElectrician papers to a grocery store, where the editors picked them up.[22]Though he had been an active cyclist in his youth, his health seriously declined in his sixth decade. During this time Heaviside would sign letters with the initials "W.O.R.M." after his name. Heaviside also reportedly started painting his fingernails pink and had granite blocks moved into his house for furniture.[4]: xx In 1922, he became the first recipient of theFaraday Medal, which was established that year.
On Heaviside's religious views, he was aUnitarian, but not religious. He was even said to have made fun of people who put their faith in a supreme being.[23]
Heaviside died on 3 February 1925 inTorquay at the age of 74, after falling from a ladder.[24] He is buried just behind and to the right of the building near the southeast corner ofPaignton cemetery. He is buried with his father, Thomas, and his mother, Rachel. The gravestone was cleaned thanks to an anonymous donor sometime in 2005.[25] He was always held in high regard by most electrical engineers, particularly after his correction toKelvin's transmission line analysis was vindicated, but most of his wider recognition was gained posthumously.
Comparison of before and after the restoration project.
In July 2014, academics atNewcastle University, UK and the Newcastle Electromagnetics Interest Group founded the Heaviside Memorial Project[26] in a bid to fully restore the monument through public subscription.[27][28] The restored memorial was ceremonially unveiled on 30 August 2014 by Alan Heather, a distant relative of Heaviside. The unveiling was attended by the Mayor of Torbay, theMember of Parliament (MP) for Torbay, an ex-curator of the Science Museum (representing theInstitution of Engineering and Technology), the Chairman of the Torbay Civic Society, and delegates from Newcastle University.[29]
A collection of Heaviside's papers is held at theInstitution of Engineering and Technology (IET) Archive Centre.[30] The collection consists of notebooks containing mathematical equations and calculations, annotated pamphlets mainly relating to telegraphy, manuscript notes, drafts of papers, correspondence, drafts of articles for ‘Electromagnetic Theory’.An audio tribute from 1950 to Oliver Heaviside by Oliver E Buckley, President of Bell Telephone Labs, has been digitised and accessible on the IET Archives biography of Oliver Heaviside.[31]
In 1908, Heaviside was made an Honorary Member of theInstitution of Electrical Engineers (IEE). His entry reads as: “1908 Oliver Heaviside FRS” in the IEE Roll of Honorary Members and Faraday Medallists 1871-1921[32][33]In 1922, he became the first recipient of theFaraday Medal, which was established that year. Later on, in 1950 the Institution of Electrical Engineers Council established the Heaviside Premium Award “The Committee have considered the establishment of some form of permanent memorial to Oliver Heaviside and as a result recommend that a Heaviside Premium to the value of £10 be awarded each year for the best mathematical paper accepted.”[34]
Heaviside did much to develop and advocatevector methods andvector calculus.[35]Maxwell's formulation ofelectromagnetism consisted of 20 equations in 20 variables. Heaviside employed thecurl anddivergence operators of the vector calculus to reformulate 12 of these 20 equations into four equations in four variables (), the form by which they have been known ever since (seeMaxwell's equations). Less well known is that Heaviside's equations and Maxwell's are not exactly the same, and in fact it is easier to modify the former to make them compatible with quantum physics.[36] The possibility ofgravitational waves was also discussed by Heaviside using the analogy between the inverse-square law in gravitation and electricity.[37] Withquaternion multiplication, the square of a vector is a negative quantity, much to Heaviside's displeasure. As he advocated abolishing this negativity, he has been credited byC. J. Joly[38] with developinghyperbolic quaternions, though in fact that mathematical structure was largely the work ofAlexander Macfarlane.
Heaviside developed thetransmission line theory (also known as the "telegrapher's equations"), which increased the transmission rate over transatlantic cables by a factor of ten. It originally took ten minutes to transmit each character, and this immediately improved to one character per minute. Closely related to this was his discovery that telephone transmission could be greatly improved by placingelectrical inductance in series with the cable.[43] Heaviside also independently discovered thePoynting vector.[4]: 116–118
Heaviside advanced the idea that the Earth's uppermost atmosphere contained an ionised layer known as theionosphere; in this regard, he predicted the existence of what later was dubbed theKennelly–Heaviside layer. In 1947,Edward Appleton received theNobel Prize in Physics for proving that this layer really existed.
admittance(reciprocal of impedance) (December 1887);
elastance(reciprocal of permittance, reciprocal of capacitance) (1886);
conductance(real part of admittance, reciprocal of resistance) (September 1885);
electret for the electric analogue of a permanent magnet, or, in other words, any substance that exhibits a quasi-permanent electric polarization (e.g.ferroelectric);
^One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Kempe, Harry Robert (1911). "Telephone". InChisholm, Hugh (ed.).Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 26 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 554.
^"VIII. On operations in physical mathematics. Part II".Proceedings of the Royal Society of London.54 (326–330):105–143. 1894.doi:10.1098/rspl.1893.0059.S2CID121790063.
^Heaviside, "Mathematics and the Age of the Earth" inElectromagnetic Theory vol. 2
^Wiener, Norbert (1959).The Tempter. New York: Random House.
^Montagnini, Leone (2017).Harmonies of Disorder – Norbert Wiener: A Mathematician-Philosopher of Our Time. Cham (Switzerland): Springer. pp. 249–252.ISBN978-3-31984455-8.
^Memoirs and proceedings of the Manchester Literary & Philosophical Society FOURTH SERIES Eighth VOLUME 1894
^abEves, Howard. (1988).Return to Mathematical Circles: A Fifth Collection of Mathematical Stories and Anecdotes. PWS-Kent Publishing Company. p. 27.ISBN9780871501059
^Pickover, Clifford A. (1998). "Oliver Heaviside".Strange Brains and Genius: The secret lives of eccentric scientists and madmen. Plenum Publishing Company Limited.ISBN9780306457845.Religion: A Unitarian, but not religious. Poked fun at those who put their faith in a Supreme Being.
^Heaviside Premium Award (2 February 1950). "IEE Council Minutes".IEE Archive Reference: IET/ORG/2/1/19.
^See especiallyElectromagnetic Theory, 1893 "The Elements of Vectorial Algebra and Analysis," vol.1 chap.3 pp.132–305 where he gave a complete account of the modern system
^Topological Foundations of Electromagnetism, World Scientific Series in Contemporary Chemical Physics, 13 March 2008, Terence W. Barrett.
^A gravitational and electromagnetic analogy,Electromagnetic Theory, 1893, 455–466 Appendix B. This was 25 years before Einstein's paper on this subject
^Steinmetz, Charles Proteus; Bedell, Frederick,"Reactance",Transactions of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, vol. 11, pp. 768–776, 1894, cied to, Blondel, A., "A propos de la reactance",L'Industrie Electrique, 10 May 1893. This is confirmed by Heaviside himself,"The term 'reactance' was lately proposed in France, and seems to me to be a practical word." Heaviside,Electromagnetic Theory, vol. 1, p. 439, 1893.
Moore, Douglas H.; Whittaker, Edmund Taylor (1928).Heaviside operational calculus: an elementary foundation. American Elsevier Publishing Company.ISBN0-444-00090-9.
