All Topics  
Charles Wheatstone

 
Charles Wheatstone

   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link






 

Charles Wheatstone



 
 
Sir Charles Wheatstone FRS (6 February 1802 - 19 October 1875), was a British
United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
 scientist
Scientist

A scientist, in the broadest sense, refers to any person that engages in a system activity to acquire knowledge or an individual that engages in such practices and traditions that are linked to schools of thought or philosophy....
 and inventor
Inventor

An inventor is a person who creates or discovers a new method, form, device or other useful means. The word inventor comes form the latin verb invenire, invent-, to find....
 of many scientific breakthroughs of the Victorian era
Victorian era

The Victorian Era of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the period of Victoria of the United Kingdom reign from June 1837 to January 1901....
, including the English concertina
Concertina

A concertina is a Free-reed instrument musical instrument, like the various accordions and the harmonica. It has a bellows and buttons typically on both ends of it....
, the stereoscope (a device for displaying three-dimensional images), and the Playfair cipher
Playfair cipher

The Playfair cipher or Playfair square is a manual symmetric key algorithm encryption technique and was the first literal polygraphic substitution cipher....
 (an encryption
Encryption

In cryptography, encryption is the process of transforming information using an algorithm to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge, usually referred to as a key ....
 technique). However, Wheatstone is best known for his contributions in the development of the Wheatstone bridge
Wheatstone bridge

A Wheatstone bridge is a measuring instrument invented by Samuel Hunter Christie in 1833 and improved and popularized by Sir Charles Wheatstone in 1843....
, originally invented by Samuel Hunter Christie
Samuel Hunter Christie

Samuel Hunter Christie was a British scientist and mathematician. He studied mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was particularly interested in magnetism, studying the earth's magnetic field and designing improvements to the magnetic compass....
, which is used to measure an unknown electrical resistance, and as a major figure in the development of telegraphy
Telegraphy

Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of written messages without physical transport of letters. Radiotelegraphy or wireless telegraphy transmits messages using radio....
.

les Wheatstone was born near Gloucester.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Charles Wheatstone'
Start a new discussion about 'Charles Wheatstone'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


Sir Charles Wheatstone FRS (6 February 1802 - 19 October 1875), was a British
United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
 scientist
Scientist

A scientist, in the broadest sense, refers to any person that engages in a system activity to acquire knowledge or an individual that engages in such practices and traditions that are linked to schools of thought or philosophy....
 and inventor
Inventor

An inventor is a person who creates or discovers a new method, form, device or other useful means. The word inventor comes form the latin verb invenire, invent-, to find....
 of many scientific breakthroughs of the Victorian era
Victorian era

The Victorian Era of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the period of Victoria of the United Kingdom reign from June 1837 to January 1901....
, including the English concertina
Concertina

A concertina is a Free-reed instrument musical instrument, like the various accordions and the harmonica. It has a bellows and buttons typically on both ends of it....
, the stereoscope (a device for displaying three-dimensional images), and the Playfair cipher
Playfair cipher

The Playfair cipher or Playfair square is a manual symmetric key algorithm encryption technique and was the first literal polygraphic substitution cipher....
 (an encryption
Encryption

In cryptography, encryption is the process of transforming information using an algorithm to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge, usually referred to as a key ....
 technique). However, Wheatstone is best known for his contributions in the development of the Wheatstone bridge
Wheatstone bridge

A Wheatstone bridge is a measuring instrument invented by Samuel Hunter Christie in 1833 and improved and popularized by Sir Charles Wheatstone in 1843....
, originally invented by Samuel Hunter Christie
Samuel Hunter Christie

Samuel Hunter Christie was a British scientist and mathematician. He studied mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was particularly interested in magnetism, studying the earth's magnetic field and designing improvements to the magnetic compass....
, which is used to measure an unknown electrical resistance, and as a major figure in the development of telegraphy
Telegraphy

Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of written messages without physical transport of letters. Radiotelegraphy or wireless telegraphy transmits messages using radio....
.

Life

Charles Wheatstone was born near Gloucester. His father was a music-seller in the town, who, four years later, removed to 128 Pall Mall, London
London

London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, and the most populous municipality in the European Union. An important settlement for two millennia, History of London goes back to its founding by the Roman Empire....
, and became a teacher of the flute. He used to say, with not a little pride, that he had been engaged in assisting at the musical education of the Princess Charlotte. Charles, the second son, went to a village school, near Gloucester, and afterwards to several institutions in London. One of them was in Kennington
Kennington

Kennington is an area of South London, England, in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is a mixed class residential area, and is the location of the The Oval, the well-known cricket stadium....
, and kept by a Mrs. Castlemaine, who was astonished at his rapid progress. From another he ran away, but was captured at Windsor
Windsor, Berkshire

Windsor is a suburban town and tourist destination in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in Berkshire, England. It is best known as the site of Windsor Castle....
, not far from the theatre of his practical telegraph. As a boy he was very shy and sensitive, liking well to retire into an attic, without any other company than his own thoughts. When he was about fourteen years old he was apprenticed to his uncle and namesake, a maker and seller of musical instruments, at 436 Strand, London; but he showed little taste for handicraft or business, and loved better to study books. His father encouraged him in this, and finally took him out of the uncle's charge.

At the age of fifteen, Wheatstone translated French
French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
 poetry, and wrote two songs, one of which was given to his uncle, who published it without knowing it as his nephew's composition. Some lines of his on the lyre
Lyre

The lyre is a string instrument well known for its use in classical antiquity and later. The recitations of the Ancient Greece were accompanied by lyre playing....
 became the motto of an engraving by Bartolozzi
Francesco Bartolozzi

Francesco Bartolozzi was an Italy engraver, whose most productive period was spent in London.He was born in Florence. He was originally destined to follow the profession of his father, a gold- and silver-smith, but he manifested so much skill and taste in designing that he was placed under the supervision of two Florentine artists, inc...
. Small for his age, but with a fine brow, and intelligent blue eyes, he often visited an old book-stall in the vicinity of Pall Mall, which was then a dilapidated and unpaved thoroughfare. Most of his pocket-money was spent in purchasing the books which had taken his fancy, whether fairy tales, history, or science. One day, to the surprise of the bookseller, he coveted a volume on the discoveries of Volta in electricity
Electricity

Electricity is a general term that encompasses a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena such as lightning and static electricity, but in addition, less familiar concepts such as the electromagnetic field and electromagnetic induction....
, but not having the price, he saved his pennies and secured the volume. It was written in French, and so he was obliged to save again, until he could buy a dictionary. Then he began to read the volume, and, with the help of his elder brother, William, to repeat the experiments described in it, with a home-made battery, in the scullery behind his father's house. In constructing the battery, the boy philosophers ran short of money to procure the requisite copper-plates. They had only a few copper coins left. A happy thought occurred to Charles, who was the leading spirit in these researches, 'We must use the pennies themselves,' said he, and the battery was soon complete.

At Christchurch, Marylebone
Marylebone

Marylebone is an affluent, inner-city area of central London, located within the City of Westminster. It can be pronounced as Marribun or Mar-lee-bone Marylebone is in an area of London that can be roughly defined as the area bounded by Oxford Street to the south, Marylebone Road to the north, Edgware Road to the west and Portland Place to...
, on 12 February 1847, Wheatstone was married. His wife was the daughter of a Taunton
Taunton

Taunton is the county town of Somerset, England. The town, including its suburbs, had an estimated population of 61,400 in 2001. It is the largest town in the non-metropolitan county of Somerset....
 tradesman, and of handsome appearance. She died in 1866, leaving a family of five young children to his care. His domestic life was quiet and uneventful.

Though silent and reserved in public, Wheatstone was a clear and voluble talker in private, if taken on his favourite studies, and his small but active person, his plain but intelligent countenance, was full of animation. Sir Henry Taylor tells us that he once observed Wheatstone at an evening party in Oxford earnestly holding forth to Lord Palmerston on the capabilities of his telegraph. 'You don't say so!' exclaimed the statesman. 'I must get you to tell that to the Lord Chancellor.' And so saying, he fastened the electrician on Lord Westbury, and effected his escape. A reminiscence of this interview may have prompted Palmerston to remark that a time was coming when a minister might be asked in Parliament if war had broken out in India, and would reply, 'Wait a minute; I'll just telegraph to the Governor-General, and let you know.'

Wheatstone was knighted in 1868, after his completion of the automatic telegraph. He had previously been made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. Some thirty-four distinctions and diplomas of home or foreign societies bore witness to his scientific reputation. Since 1836 he had been a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1873 he was appointed a Foreign Associate of the French Academy of Sciences. The same year he was awarded the Ampere Medal by the French Society for the Encouragement of National Industry. In 1875 he was created an honorary member of the Institution of Civil Engineers. He was a D.C.L. of Oxford and an LL.D. of Cambridge.

While on a visit to Paris during the autumn of 1875, and engaged in perfecting his receiving instrument for submarine cables, he caught a cold, which produced inflammation of the lungs, an illness from which he died in Paris, on 19 October 1875. A memorial service was held in the Anglican Chapel, Paris, and attended by a deputation of the Academy. His remains were taken to his home in Park Crescent, London, (marked by a blue plaque today) and buried in Kensal Green Cemetery
Kensal Green Cemetery

Kensal Green Cemetery is a burial ground located in Kensal Green, London, England. It was immortalised in the lines of GK Chesterton "For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen; Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green"....
.

Music instruments and acoustics

In September 1821, Wheatstone brought himself into public notice by exhibiting the 'Enchanted Lyre,' or 'Aconcryptophone,' at a music-shop at Pall Mall and in the Adelaide Gallery. It consisted of a mimic lyre hung from the ceiling by a cord, and emitting the strains of several instruments — the piano
Piano

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard instrument. Widely used in Western music for solo performance, ensemble use, chamber music, and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to musical composition and rehearsal....
, harp
Harp

The 'harp' is a stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicular to the Sounding board. It is also considered to be a percussion instrument....
, and dulcimer
Hammered dulcimer

The hammered dulcimer is a string instrument musical instrument with the strings stretched over a trapezoidal sounding board. Typically, the dulcimer is set on a stand, at an angle, before the musician, who holds small mallet hammers in each hand to strike the strings ....
. In reality it was a mere sounding box, and the cord was a steel rod that conveyed the vibrations of the music from the several instruments which were played out of sight and ear-shot. At this period Wheatstone made numerous experiments on sound and its transmission. Some of his results are preserved in Thomson's Annals of Philosophy for 1823. He recognised that sound is propagated by waves or oscillations of the atmosphere, as light was then believed to be by undulations of the luminiferous ether. Water, and solid bodies, such as glass, or metal, or sonorous wood, convey the modulations with high velocity, and he conceived the plan of transmitting sound-signals, music, or speech to long distances by this means. He estimated that sound would travel 200 miles per second (322 km/s) through solid rods, and proposed to telegraph from London
London

London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, and the most populous municipality in the European Union. An important settlement for two millennia, History of London goes back to its founding by the Roman Empire....
 to Edinburgh
Edinburgh

Edinburgh ; is the Capital city of Scotland, a position it has held since 1437. It is the seventh largest city in the United Kingdom and the second largest Scottish City status in the United Kingdom after Glasgow....
 in this way. He even called his arrangement a 'telephone.' (Robert Hooke
Robert Hooke

Robert Hooke, Fellow of the Royal Society was an England natural philosopher and polymath who played an important role in the scientific revolution, through both experimental and theoretical work....
, in his Micrographia
Micrographia

Micrographia is a historical book by Robert Hooke, detailing the then twenty-eight year-old Hooke's observations through various Lens . Published in September 1665, it was an immediate best-seller....
, published in 1667, writes: 'I can assure the reader that I have, by the help of a distended wire, propagated the sound to a very considerable distance in an instant, or with as seemingly quick a motion as that of light.' Nor was it essential the wire should be straight; it might be bent into angles. This property is the basis of the mechanical or lover's telephone, said to have been known to the Chinese many centuries ago. Hooke also considered the possibility of finding a way to quicken our powers of hearing.) A writer in the Repository of Arts for 1 September 1821, in referring to the 'Enchanted Lyre,' beholds the prospect of an opera being performed at the King's Theatre, and enjoyed at the Hanover Square Rooms, or even at the Horns Tavern, Kennington. The vibrations are to travel through underground conductors, like to gas in pipes.

And if music be capable of being thus conducted,' he observes, 'perhaps the words of speech may be susceptible of the same means of propagation. The eloquence of counsel, the debates of Parliament, instead of being read the next day only, -- But we shall lose ourselves in the pursuit of this curious subject.


Besides transmitting sounds to a distance, Wheatstone devised a simple instrument for augmenting feeble sounds, to which he gave the name of 'Microphone.' It consisted of two slender rods, which conveyed the mechanical vibrations to both ears, and is quite different from the electrical microphone of Professor Hughes.

In 1823, his uncle, the musical instrument maker, died, and Wheatstone, with his elder brother, William, took over the business. Charles had no great liking for the commercial part, but his ingenuity found a vent in making improvements on the existing instruments, and in devising philosophical toys. At the end of six years he retired from the undertaking.

In 1827, Wheatstone introduced his 'kaleidophone', a device for rendering the vibrations of a sounding body apparent to the eye. It consists of a metal rod, carrying at its end a silvered bead, which reflects a 'spot' of light. As the rod vibrates the spot is seen to describe complicated figures in the air, like a spark whirled about in the darkness. His photometer
Photometer

In its widest sense, a photometer is an instrument for measuring Light intensity or optical properties of solutions or surfaces. Photometers are used to measure:...
 was probably suggested by this appliance. It enables two lights to be compared by the relative brightness of their reflections in a silvered bead, which describes a narrow ellipse, so as to draw the spots into parallel lines.

In 1828, Wheatstone improved the German wind instrument, called the Mundharmonika, until it became the popular concertina, patented on 19 June 1829. The portable harmonium
Harmonium

A harmonium is a free-standing keyboard instrument similar to a reed organ or pipe organ. Sound is produced by air, supplied by foot-operated or hand-operated bellows, being blown through sets of Free reed aerophone, resulting in a sound similar to that of an accordion....
 is another of his inventions, which gained a prize medal at the Great Exhibition of 1851. He also improved the speaking machine of De Kempelen
Wolfgang von Kempelen

Johann Wolfgang Ritter von Kempelen de P?zm?nd was a Hungarian author and inventor with Irish people ancestors....
, and endorsed the opinion of Sir David Brewster
David Brewster

Sir David Brewster, Fellow of the Royal Society was a Scotland scientist, inventor and writer.He was born at Jedburgh, where his father, a teacher of high reputation, was rector of the grammar school....
, that before the end of this century a singing and talking apparatus would be among the conquests of science.

In 1834, Wheatstone, who had won a name for himself, was appointed to the Chair of Experimental Physics in King's College London
King's College London

King's College London is a United Kingdom higher education institution and co-founding constituent college of the University of London. Founded by George IV of the United Kingdom and the Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington in 1829, its royal charter is predated, in England, only by those of the Universities of University of Oxford and Un...
. But his first course of lectures on Sound were a complete failure, owing to an invincible repugnance to public speaking, and a distrust of his powers in that direction. In the rostrum he was tongue-tied and incapable, sometimes turning his back on the audience and mumbling to the diagrams on the wall. In the laboratory he felt himself at home, and ever after confined his duties mostly to demonstration.

Velocity of electricity

He achieved renown by a great experiment — the measurement of the velocity of electricity in a wire. He cut the wire at the middle, to form a gap which a spark might leap across, and connected its ends to the poles of a Leyden jar
Leyden jar

The Leyden jar, or Leiden jar, is a device that "stores" static electricity between two electrodes on the inside and outside of a jar. It was invented in 1745 by Pieter van Musschenbroek , in Leiden, The Netherlands....
 filled with electricity. Three sparks were thus produced, one at either end of the wire, and another at the middle. He mounted a tiny mirror on the works of a watch, so that it revolved at a high velocity, and observed the reflections of his three sparks in it. The points of the wire were so arranged that if the sparks were instantaneous, their reflections would appear in one straight line; but the middle one was seen to lag behind the others, because it was an instant later. The electricity had taken a certain time to travel from the ends of the wire to the middle. This time was found by measuring the amount of lag, and comparing it with the known velocity of the mirror. Having got the time, he had only to compare that with the length of half the wire, and he could find the velocity of electricity. However experimental or calculation error led him to conclude that this velocity was 288,000 miles per second, an impossible value as it is faster than the speed of light.

Till then, many people had considered the electric discharge to be instantaneous; but it was afterwards found that its velocity depended on the nature of the conductor, its resistance, and its electro-static capacity. Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday

Michael Faraday, Fellow of the Royal Society was an English chemist and physicist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry....
 showed, for example, that its velocity in a submarine wire, coated with insulator and surrounded with water, is only 144,000 miles per second (232,000 km/s), or still less. Wheatstone's device of the revolving mirror was afterwards employed by Léon Foucault
Léon Foucault

Jean Bernard L?on Foucault was a France physics best known for the invention of the Foucault pendulum, a device demonstrating the effect of the Earth's rotation....
 and Hippolyte Fizeau
Hippolyte Fizeau

Armand Hippolyte Louis Fizeau , France physics, was born in Paris. His earliest work was concerned with improvements in photographic processes. Later, in association with Dillon Beaulieu, he engaged in a series of investigations on the interference of light and heat....
 to measure the velocity of light
Speed of light

The speed of light in an free space is an important physical constant usually written as c, with a value of 299,792,458 metres per second....
.

Spectroscopy

In 1835, at the Dublin meeting of the British Association, Wheatstone showed that when metals were volatilised in the electric spark, their light, examined through a prism, revealed certain rays which were characteristic of them. Thus the kind of metals which formed the sparking points could be determined by analysing the light of the spark.

This suggestion has been of great service in spectrum analysis, and as applied by Robert Bunsen
Robert Bunsen

Robert Wilhelm Eberhard Bunsen was a Germany chemist. He investigated electromagnetic spectroscopy of heated elements, and with Gustav Kirchhoff he discovered cesium and rubidium....
, Gustav Robert Kirchhoff, and others, has led to the discovery of several new elements, such as rubidium
Rubidium

Rubidium is a chemical element with the symbol Rb and atomic number 37. Rb is a soft, silvery-white metallic element of the alkali metal group....
 and thallium
Thallium

Thallium is a chemical element with the symbol Tl and atomic number 81. This soft gray malleable poor metal resembles tin but discolors when exposed to air....
, as well as increasing our knowledge of the heavenly bodies.

Telegraph

Wheatstone abandoned his idea of transmitting intelligence by the mechanical vibration of rods, and took up the electric telegraph. In 1835 he lectured on the system of Baron Schilling, and declared that the means were already known by which an electric telegraph could be made of great service to the world. He made experiments with a plan of his own, and not only proposed to lay an experimental line across the Thames, but to establish it on the London and Birmingham Railway. Before these plans were carried out, however, he received a visit from Mr William Fothergill Cooke
William Fothergill Cooke

Sir William Fothergill Cooke was, with Charles Wheatstone, the co-inventor of the Cooke-Wheatstone electrical telegraph, which was patented in May 1837....
 at his house in Conduit Street on 27 February 1837, which had an important influence on his future.

Cooperation with Cooke

Mr. Cooke was an officer in the Madras army, who, being home on furlough
Furlough

A furlough is a temporary leave of absence, especially from duty in the armed services or from a prison term. In these cases, a furlough is a vacation....
, was attending some lectures on anatomy at the University of Heidelberg, where, on 6 March 1836, he witnessed a demonstration with the telegraph of Professor
Professor

The meaning of the word professor varies. In some English-speaking countries, it refers to a senior academic who holds a departmental chair, especially as head of the Academic department, or a personal chair awarded specifically to that individual....
 Moncke, and was so impressed with its importance, that he forsook his medical studies and devoted all his efforts to the work of introducing the telegraph. He returned to London soon after, and was able to exhibit a telegraph with three needles in January, 1837. Feeling his want of scientific knowledge, he consulted Faraday and Dr. Roget, the latter of whom sent him to Wheatstone.

At a second interview, Mr. Cooke told Wheatstone of his intention to bring out a working telegraph, and explained his method. Wheatstone, according to his own statement, remarked to Cooke that the method would not act, and produced his own experimental telegraph. Finally, Cooke proposed that they should enter into a partnership, but Wheatstone was at first reluctant to comply. He was a well-known man of science, and had meant to publish his results without seeking to make capital of them. Cooke, on the other hand, declared that his sole object was to make a fortune from the scheme. In May they agreed to join their forces, Wheatstone contributing the scientific, and Cooke the administrative talent. The deed of partnership was dated 19 November 1837. A joint patent was taken out for their inventions, including the five-needle telegraph of Wheatstone, and an alarm worked by a relay, in which the current, by dipping a needle into mercury, completed a local circuit, and released the detent of a clockwork.

The five-needle telegraph, which was mainly, if not entirely, due to Wheatstone, was similar to that of Schilling, and based on the principle enunciated by André-Marie Ampère
André-Marie Ampère

Andr?-Marie Amp?re Fellow of the Royal Society , was a French physicist and mathematician who is generally credited as one of the main discoverers of electromagnetism....
 — that is to say, the current was sent into the line by completing the circuit of the battery with a make and break key, and at the other end it passed through a coil of wire surrounding a magnetic needle free to turn round its centre. According as one pole of the battery or the other was applied to the line by means of the key, the current deflected the needle to one side or the other. There were five separate circuits actuating five different needles. The latter were pivoted in rows across the middle of a dial shaped like a diamond, and having the letters of the alphabet arranged upon it in such a way that a letter was literally pointed out by the current deflecting two of the needles towards it.

Early installations

An experimental line, with a sixth return wire, was run between the Euston
Euston station

Euston station may refer to one of the following stations in London, United Kingdom:*Euston railway station*Euston tube station...
 terminus and Camden Town
Camden Town

Camden Town is the name of an area within the London Borough of Camden, situated in London, England. It is occasionally shortened to Camden....
 station of the London and North Western Railway on 25 July 1837. The actual distance was only one and a half mile (2.4 km), but spare wire had been inserted in the circuit to increase its length. It was late in the evening before the trial took place. Mr Cooke was in charge at Camden Town, while Mr Robert Stephenson
Robert Stephenson

Robert Stephenson Fellow of the Royal Society was an England civil engineer. He was the only son of George Stephenson, the famed locomotive builder and Rail transport engineer; many of the achievements popularly credited to his father were actually the joint efforts of father and son....
 and other gentlemen looked on; and Wheatstone sat at his instrument in a dingy little room, lit by a tallow candle, near the booking-office at Euston. Wheatstone sent the first message, to which Cooke replied, and 'never' said Wheatstone, 'did I feel such a tumultuous sensation before, as when, all alone in the still room, I heard the needles click, and as I spelled the words, I felt all the magnitude of the invention pronounced to be practicable beyond cavil or dispute.'

In spite of this trial, however, the directors of the railway treated the 'new-fangled' invention with indifference, and requested its removal. In July 1839, however, it was favoured by the Great Western Railway
Great Western Railway

The Great Western Railway was a History of rail transport in Great Britain that linked London with the south west and west of England and most of Wales....
, and a line erected from the Paddington
Paddington

Paddington is an area of the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. It was formerly a London_borough#Inner_London_boroughs of itself, but was integrated with Westminster and Greater London in 1965....
 terminus to West Drayton station, a distance of thirteen miles (21 km). Part of the wire was laid underground at first, but subsequently all of it was raised on posts along the line. Their circuit was eventually extended to Slough
Slough

Slough is a Borough status in the United Kingdom and unitary authority area within the Ceremonial counties of England of Berkshire, England, situated west of London....
 in 1841, and was publicly exhibited at Paddington as a marvel of science, which could transmit fifty signals a distance of 280,000 miles per minute (7,500 km/s). The price of admission was a shilling (£0.05), and in 1844 one fascinated observer recorded the following:

"It is perfect from the terminus of the Great Western as far as Slough – that is, eighteen miles; the wires being in some places underground in tubes, and in others high up in the air, which last, he says, is by far the best plan. We asked if the weather did not affect the wires, but he said not; a violent thunderstorm might ring a bell, but no more. We were taken into a small room (we being Mrs Drummond, Miss Philips, Harry Codrington and myself – and afterwards the Milmans and Mr Rich) where were several wooden cases containing different sorts of telegraphs. In one sort every word was spelt, and as each letter was placed in turn in a particular position, the machinery caused the electric fluid to run down the line, where it made the letter show itself at Slough, by what machinery he could not undertake to explain. After each word came a sign from Slough, signifying "I understand", coming certainly in less than one second from the end of the word......Another prints the messages it brings, so that if no-one attended to the bell,....the message would not be lost. This is effected by the electrical fluid causing a little hammer to strike the letter which presents itself, the letter which is raised hits some manifold writing paper (a new invention, black paper which, if pressed, leaves an indelible black mark), by which means the impression is left on white paper beneath. This was the most ingenious of all, and apparently Mr. Wheatstone's favourite; he was very good-natured in explaining but understands it so well himself that he cannot feel how little we know about it, and goes too fast for such ignorant folk to follow him in everything. Mrs Drummond
Maria Kinnaird

Maria Kinnaird was born on Saint Vincent , but was orphaned by a volcanic eruption and she was adopted by the politician, Richard Sharp . She was the heiress of her adopted father and she has been described as a accomplished, attractive, and intelligent woman....
 told me he is wonderful for
the rapidity with which he thinks and his power of invention; he invents so many things that he cannot put half his ideas into execution, but leaves them to be picked up and used by others, who get the credit of them."


Public attention and success

The public took to the new invention after the capture of the murderer John Tawell
John Tawell

John Tawell was a British Quaker and convicted murderer.Penal transportation to Australia in 1820 for the crime of forgery, he obtained a ticket-of-leave, and started as a chemist in Sydney....
. In the same year, 1845, Wheatstone introduced two improved forms of the apparatus, namely, the 'single' and the 'double' needle instruments, in which the signals were made by the successive deflections of the needles. Of these, the single-needle instrument, requiring only one wire, is still in use.

The development of the telegraph may be gathered from two facts. In 1855, the death of the Emperor Nicholas
Nicholas I of Russia

Nicholas I , , was the Emperor of Russia from 1825 until 1855, known as one of the most reactionary of the List of Russian rulers. On the eve of his death, the Russian Empire reached its historical zenith spanning over 20 million square kilometres....
 at St. Petersburg, about one o'clock in the afternoon, was announced in the House of Lords a few hours later. The result of the Oaks
The Oaks

The Oaks may refer to:*The Oaks , the upcoming FOX Broadcasting television show*The OaKs , a band from Orlando, FLHorse races*Epsom Oaks at Epsom Downs Racecourse in Epsom, Surrey, England...
 of 1890 was received in New York fifteen seconds after the horses passed the winning-post.

Differences with Cooke

In 1841 a difference arose between Cooke and Wheatstone as to the share of each in the honour of inventing the telegraph. The question was submitted to the arbitration of the famous engineer, Marc Isambard Brunel
Marc Isambard Brunel

Sir Marc Isambard Brunel, Royal Society was a France-born engineer who settled in the United Kingdom. He preferred the name Isambard, but is generally known to history as Marc to avoid confusion with his more famous son Isambard Kingdom Brunel....
, on behalf of Cooke, and Professor Daniell, of King's College, the inventor of the Daniell battery, on the part of Wheatstone. They awarded to Cooke the credit of having introduced the telegraph as a useful undertaking which promised to be of national importance, and to Wheatstone that of having by his researches prepared the public to receive it. They concluded with the words: 'It is to the united labours of two gentlemen so well qualified for mutual assistance that we must attribute the rapid progress which this important invention has made during five years since they have been associated.' The decision, however vague, pronounces the needle telegraph a joint production. If it had mainly been invented by Wheatstone, it was chiefly introduced by Cooke. Their respective shares in the undertaking might be compared to that of an author and his publisher, but for the fact that Cooke himself had a share in the actual work of invention.

Further work on telegraphs

From 1836-7 Wheatstone had thought a good deal about submarine telegraphs, and in 1840 he gave evidence before the Railway Committee of the House of Commons on the feasibility of the proposed line from Dover
Dover

Dover is a town and major ferry port in the county of Kent, in South East England. It faces France across the narrowest part of the English Channel....
 to Calais
Calais

Calais is a town in northern France in the Departments of France of Pas-de-Calais, of which it is a sub-prefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's capital is its third-largest city of Arras....
. He had even designed the machinery for making and laying the cable. In the autumn of 1844, with the assistance of Mr. J. D. Llewellyn, he submerged a length of insulated wire in Swansea Bay, and signalled through it from a boat to the Mumbles Lighthouse. Next year he suggested the use of gutta-percha
Gutta-percha

Gutta-percha is a genus of tropical trees native to Southeast Asia and northern Australasia, from Taiwan south to Malay Peninsula and east to the Solomon Islands....
 for the coating of the intended wire across the English Channel
English Channel

The English Channel is an Arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest, to only in the Strait of Dover....
.

In 1840 Wheatstone had patented an alphabetical telegraph, or, 'Wheatstone A B C instrument,' which moved with a step-by-step motion, and showed the letters of the message upon a dial. The same principle was utilised in his type-printing telegraph, patented in 1841. This was the first apparatus which printed a telegram in type. It was worked by two circuits, and as the type revolved a hammer, actuated by the current, pressed the required letter on the paper.

The introduction of the telegraph had so far advanced that, on 2 September 1845, the Electric Telegraph Company was registered, and Wheatstone, by his deed of partnership with Cooke, received a sum of £33,000 for the use of their joint inventions.

In 1859 Wheatstone was appointed by the Board of Trade to report on the subject of the Atlantic cables, and in 1864 he was one of the experts who advised the Atlantic Telegraph Company
Atlantic Telegraph Company

The Atlantic Telegraph Company was a company formed in 1856 to undertake and exploit a commercial telegraph cable across the Atlantic ocean, the first such telecommunications link....
 on the construction of the successful lines of 1865 and 1866.

In 1870 the electric telegraph lines of the United Kingdom, worked by different companies, were transferred to the Post Office, and placed under Government control.

Wheatstone further invented the automatic transmitter, in which the signals of the message are first punched out on a strip of paper, which is then passed through the sending-key, and controls the signal currents. By substituting a mechanism for the hand in sending the message, he was able to telegraph about 100 words a minute, or five times the ordinary rate. In the Postal Telegraph service this apparatus is employed for sending Press telegrams, and it has recently been so much improved, that messages are now sent from London to Bristol at a speed of 600 words a minute, and even of 400 words a minute between London and Aberdeen. On the night of 8 April 1886, when Mr. Gladstone introduced his Bill for Home Rule in Ireland, no fewer than 1,500,000 words were dispatched from the central station at St. Martin's-le-Grand by 100 Wheatstone transmitters. The plan of sending messages by a running strip of paper which actuates the key was originally patented by Bain in 1846; but Wheatstone, aided by Mr. Augustus Stroh, an accomplished mechanician, and an able experimenter, was the first to bring the idea into successful operation.

Optics

Stereopsis
Stereopsis

Stereopsis is the process in visual perception leading to the sensation of depth from the two slightly different projections of the world onto the retinas of the two eyes....
 was first described by Wheatstone in 1838. In 1840 he was awarded the Royal Medal of the Royal Society for his explanation of binocular vision
Binocular vision

Binocular vision is Visual perception in which both eyes are used together. The word binocular comes from two Latin roots, bini for double, and oculus for eye....
, a research which led him to make stereoscopic drawings and construct the stereoscope. He showed that our impression of solidity is gained by the combination in the mind of two separate pictures of an object taken by both of our eyes from different points of view. Thus, in the stereoscope, an arrangement of lenses or mirrors, two photographs of the same object taken from different points are so combined as to make the object stand out with a solid aspect. Sir David Brewster
David Brewster

Sir David Brewster, Fellow of the Royal Society was a Scotland scientist, inventor and writer.He was born at Jedburgh, where his father, a teacher of high reputation, was rector of the grammar school....
 improved the stereoscope by dispensing with the mirrors, and bringing it into its existing form with lenses.

The 'pseudoscope
Pseudoscope

A pseudoscope is a binocular optical Tool that reverses depth perception. It is used to study human stereoscopic perception. Objects viewed through it appear inside out, for example: a box on a floor, would appear as a box shaped hole in the floor....
' (Wheatstone coined the term from the Greek ?e?d?? s??pe??) was introduced in 1852, and is in some sort the reverse of the stereoscope, since it causes a solid object to seem hollow, and a nearer one to be farther off; thus, a bust appears to be a mask, and a tree growing outside of a window looks as if it were growing inside the room. Its purpose was to test his theory of stereo vision and for investigations into what would now be called experimental psychology.

Measuring time

In 1840, Wheatstone introduced his chronoscope, for measuring minute intervals of time, which was used in determining the speed of a bullet or the passage of a star. In this apparatus an electric current actuated an electro-magnet, which noted the instant of an occurrence by means of a pencil on a moving paper. It is said to have been capable of distinguishing 1/7300 part of a second (137 microsecond), and the time a body took to fall from a height of one inch (25 mm).

On 26 November 1840, he exhibited his electro-magnetic clock in the library of the Royal Society, and propounded a plan for distributing the correct time from a standard clock to a number of local timepieces. The circuits of these were to be electrified by a key or contact-maker actuated by the arbour of the standard, and their hands corrected by electro-magnetism. The following January Alexander Bain
Alexander Bain

Alexander Bain was a Scotland philosopher and educationalist....
 took out a patent for an electro-magnetic clock, and he subsequently charged Wheatstone with appropriating his ideas. It appears that Bain worked as a mechanist to Wheatstone from August to December, 1840, and he asserted that he had communicated the idea of an electric clock to Wheatstone during that period; but Wheatstone maintained that he had experimented in that direction during May. Bain further accused Wheatstone of stealing his idea of the electro-magnetic printing telegraph; but Wheatstone showed that the instrument was only a modification of his own electro-magnetic telegraph.

One of Wheatstone's most ingenious devices was the 'Polar clock,' exhibited at the meeting of the British Association in 1848. It is based on the fact discovered by Sir David Brewster
David Brewster

Sir David Brewster, Fellow of the Royal Society was a Scotland scientist, inventor and writer.He was born at Jedburgh, where his father, a teacher of high reputation, was rector of the grammar school....
, that the light of the sky is polarised
Polarization

Polarization is a property of waves that describes the orientation of their oscillations. For transverse waves such as many electromagnetic waves, it describes the orientation of the oscillations in the plane perpendicular to the wave's direction of travel....
 in a plane at an angle of ninety degrees from the position of the sun. It follows that by discovering that plane of polarisation, and measuring its azimuth with respect to the north, the position of the sun, although beneath the horizon, could be determined, and the apparent solar time obtained. The clock consisted of a spy-glass, having a nichol or double-image prism for an eye-piece, and a thin plate of selenite for an object-glass. When the tube was directed to the North Pole -- that is, parallel to the earth's axis -- and the prism of the eye-piece turned until no colour was seen, the angle of turning, as shown by an index moving with the prism over a graduated limb, gave the hour of day. The device is of little service in a country where watches are reliable; but it formed part of the equipment of the North Polar expedition commanded by Captain Nares.

Wheatstone bridge

In 1843 Wheatstone communicated an important paper to the Royal Society, entitled 'An Account of Several New Processes for Determining the Constants of a Voltaic Circuit.' It contained an exposition of the well known balance for measuring the electrical resistance of a conductor, which still goes by the name of Wheatstone's Bridge
Wheatstone bridge

A Wheatstone bridge is a measuring instrument invented by Samuel Hunter Christie in 1833 and improved and popularized by Sir Charles Wheatstone in 1843....
 or balance, although it was first devised by Samuel Hunter Christie
Samuel Hunter Christie

Samuel Hunter Christie was a British scientist and mathematician. He studied mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was particularly interested in magnetism, studying the earth's magnetic field and designing improvements to the magnetic compass....
, of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, who published it in the Philosophical Transactions for 1833. The method was neglected until Wheatstone brought it into notice. His paper abounds with simple and practical formula: for the calculation of currents and resistances by the law of Ohm. He introduced a unit of resistance, namely, a foot of copper wire weighing one hundred grains (6.5 g), and showed how it might be applied to measure the length of wire by its resistance. He was awarded a medal for his paper by the Society. The same year he invented an apparatus which enabled the reading of a thermometer or a barometer to be registered at a distance by means of an electric contact made by the mercury. A sound telegraph, in which the signals were given by the strokes of a bell, was also patented by Cooke and Wheatstone in May of that year.

Cryptography

Wheatstone's remarkable ingenuity was also displayed in the invention of cyphers. He was responsible for the then unusual Playfair cipher
Playfair cipher

The Playfair cipher or Playfair square is a manual symmetric key algorithm encryption technique and was the first literal polygraphic substitution cipher....
, named after his friend Lord Playfair
Lyon Playfair, 1st Baron Playfair

Lyon Playfair, 1st Baron Playfair, Order of the Bath, Privy Council of the United Kingdom, Fellow of the Royal Society was a Scottish scientist and Parliament of Great Britainarian....
. It was used by the militaries of several nations through at least World War I, and is known to have been used during World War II by British intelligence services.

It was initially resistant to cryptoanalysis, but methods were eventually developed to break it. He also became involved in the interpretation of cypher manuscripts in the British Museum. He devised a cryptograph or machine for turning a message into cypher which could only be interpreted by putting the cypher into a corresponding machine adjusted to decrypt it.

Electrical generators

In 1840, Wheatstone brought out his magneto-electrical machine for generating continuous currents.

On 4 February 1867, he published the principle of reaction in the dynamo-electric machine by a paper to the Royal Society; but Mr. C. W. Siemens had communicated the identical discovery ten days earlier, and both papers were read on the same day.

It afterwards appeared that Werner von Siemens, Samuel Alfred Varley, and Wheatstone had independently arrived at the principle within a few months of each other. Varley patented it on 24 December 1866; Siemens called attention to it on January 17, 1867; and Wheatstone exhibited it in action at the Royal Society on the above date.

See also


  • William Fothergill Cooke
    William Fothergill Cooke

    Sir William Fothergill Cooke was, with Charles Wheatstone, the co-inventor of the Cooke-Wheatstone electrical telegraph, which was patented in May 1837....
  • Cooke and Wheatstone Telegraph
    Cooke and Wheatstone Telegraph

    The Cooke and Wheatstone Telegraph was an early telegraph dating from the 1830s....


Further reading




  • This article incorporates text from Heroes of the Telegraph by John Munro (1849-1930) in 1891, now in the public domain
    Public domain

    File:PD-icon.svgThe public domain is a range of abstract materials?commonly referred to as intellectual property?which are not owned or controlled by anyone....
     and available at .


External links