A maverick of electrical science (review of "the forgotten genius of oliver heaviside: a maverick of electrical science") [book review

Abstract

According to this book’s subtitle, Oliver Heaviside (1850-1925) is now considered a maverick of electrical science, but he could also be considered the founder of that very subject. During Heaviside’s early years, mathematics for AC circuits did not exist. Practitioners ruled and theory was discarded. This started to change with William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), who applied an equation for heat flow to current flow on transmission lines in 1855. But then nothing was done to further the science until Heaviside took up the problem of high-speed signaling on undersea cables, which he published in 1878. This book describes in a very readable style the contributions that Heaviside made to the creation of electrical engineering as a science, his life story, and how he was the cause of many of his own problems. Heaviside believed that his work should be judged on its own merit, not discounted because of personal issues, and indeed he was correct. The author intends to provide the reader with insights into Oliver Heaviside without including a lot of mathematics, and at this he succeeds. He does so by referencing other fine books that can be consulted if the reader wishes to understand more about Heaviside and his mathematics. This book describes Heaviside’s difficult childhood, which shaped his interactions with the world. It goes on to explore his only formal employment, as an undersea cable telegraph operator. He held that position at a time (1868-1874) when operating an undersea cable for consistent performance was still an area of mystery and operators had laboratories where they performed experiments to better understand such things as fault locations and techniques to maximize transmission speed.