Oliver Heaviside

* Born in London on May 18, 1850.
* Nephew of Charles Wheatstone a pioneer in telegraphy who sparked Oliver’s interest in electrical science.
* He had a serious hearing defect and difficulties in school which he quit at age 16. He was largely self-taught.
* Worked as a telegrapher from age 18 to 24 at which time he retired.
* He was supported by his parents first and then his brother. His needs were modest and his family regarded him as a genius.
* He had no academic appointment, attended scientific meetings very rarely, and published largely in an electrical trade journal The Electrician.
* He was a recluse, worked in a small room that he kept extremely hot and filled with pipe smoke. He was combative with a caustic wit — “a first-rate oddity”. He was devoid of social skills and avoided social contacts.
* He made many important contributions to science, mathematics, and especially to electrical engineering, including:
* He introduced the concepts of inductance, capacitance, and impedance (labelled it Z).
* He was first to write Maxwell’s equations in the modern (vector) form.
* He solved problems of signal propagation in the atmosphere and in cables.
* He used operational calculus to solve differential equations and electric networks. He defined his resistance operator p = d/dt to calculate impedances directly from circuits.
* He was a contemporary of James Clerk Maxwell, Charles Darwin, Michael Faraday, George Stokes, William Thomson (Lord Kelvin). He corresponded with many of these and other scientists and was highly respected by the leading scientists of his day.
* He died February 3, 1925.