​LODGE, SIR OLIVER JOSEPH (1851–  ), English physicist,was born at Penkhull, Staffordshire, on the 12th of June 1851,and was educated at Newport (Salop) grammar school. He wasintended for a business career, but being attracted to science heentered University College, London, in 1872, graduating D.Sc. atLondon University in 1877. In 1875 he was appointed reader innatural philosophy at Bedford College for Women, and in 1879 hebecame assistant professor of applied mathematics at UniversityCollege, London. Two years later he was called to the chair ofphysics in University College, Liverpool, where he remained tillin 1900 he was chosen first principal of the new BirminghamUniversity. He was knighted in 1902. His original work includesinvestigations on lightning, the seat of the electromotiveforce in the voltaic cell, the phenomena of electrolysis and thespeed of the ion, electromagnetic waves and wireless telegraphy,the motion of the aether near the earth, and the application ofelectricity to the dispersal of fog and smoke. He presided overthe mathematical and physical section of the British Associationin 1891, and served as president of the Physical Society in 1899–1900and of the Society for Psychical Research in 1901–1904.In addition to numerous scientific memoirs he wrote, among otherworks,Lightning Conductors and Lightning Guards,Signallingwithout Wires,Modern Views of Electricity,Electrons andTheEther of Space, together with various books and papers of a metaphysicaland theological character.