5 ms·

Also credit to this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Heaviside https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Heaviside ... Who took the original 20 equations a

Also credit to this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Heaviside https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Heaviside ... Who took the original 20 equations and simplified them to the 4 we normally see.

Retric 11y ago
That same year he patented, in England, the coaxial cable. That's a fairly major footnote, on an interesting career. He seems to be one of those people who quietly had a significant impact on the future.
- madengr 11y ago
  If you ever used Laplace transforms to solve differential equations, that is Heavisides work too. Good book: http://www.amazon.com/Oliver-Heaviside-Electrical-Genius-Victorian/dp/0801869099 http://www.amazon.com/Oliver-Heaviside-Electrical-Genius-Vic...
  - bainsfather 11y ago
    I've read that book, it is very good. A fantastic story/subject, though probably not for a general audience, just those interested in a detailed history of Heaviside and his work. It's nice to see a well-written 'technical' history book - so often such books are written by someone who doesn't really understand the subject - this is an exception. You are mistaken about Laplace Transforms - Heaviside used a different method which was rather ad-hoc - sometimes it works, sometimes not. For the same problems, we now use Laplace Transforms instead, because they are better/cleaner.
- juped 11y ago
  Heaviside was somewhat written out of history because he was considered a crank during his lifetime. His reputation is basically rehabilitated these days, but it's only physicists/mathematicians/engineers who have heard of him.
  - sklogic 11y ago
    His name was all over the physics textbooks, probably even more frequently than Maxwell, so he is not entirely forgotten.
  - arethuza 11y ago
    Bill Bryson mentions Heaviside in his latest book The Road to Little Dribbling.
dboreham 11y ago
In reading up on this the other day, when that Guardian article appeared, I was intrigued to find that there is a conspiracy theory types who advance the idea that Heaviside was the bad guy because he removed important parts of Maxwell's work that explains, well...X-Files type stuff. Read on: http://www.cheniere.org/references/maxwell.htm http://www.cheniere.org/references/maxwell.htm
- gaze 11y ago
  Man. What a pile of nonsense.
- Estragon 11y ago
  > This work is all documented in the hard French scientific literature. Be nice to have some citations.
femto 11y ago
From the Wikipedia article: "From 1882 to 1902, except for three years, he contributed regular articles to the trade paper The 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. " The prototypical hacker?
mgalka 11y ago
One other guy who deserves some credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Minkowski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Minkowski The first one to reduce them to a single equation, in relativistic form.

Retric 11y ago

That same year he patented, in England, the coaxial cable. That's a fairly major footnote, on an interesting career. He seems to be one of those people who quietly had a significant impact on the future.

madengr 11y ago
If you ever used Laplace transforms to solve differential equations, that is Heavisides work too. Good book: http://www.amazon.com/Oliver-Heaviside-Electrical-Genius-Victorian/dp/0801869099 http://www.amazon.com/Oliver-Heaviside-Electrical-Genius-Vic...
- bainsfather 11y ago
  I've read that book, it is very good. A fantastic story/subject, though probably not for a general audience, just those interested in a detailed history of Heaviside and his work. It's nice to see a well-written 'technical' history book - so often such books are written by someone who doesn't really understand the subject - this is an exception. You are mistaken about Laplace Transforms - Heaviside used a different method which was rather ad-hoc - sometimes it works, sometimes not. For the same problems, we now use Laplace Transforms instead, because they are better/cleaner.
juped 11y ago
Heaviside was somewhat written out of history because he was considered a crank during his lifetime. His reputation is basically rehabilitated these days, but it's only physicists/mathematicians/engineers who have heard of him.
- sklogic 11y ago
  His name was all over the physics textbooks, probably even more frequently than Maxwell, so he is not entirely forgotten.
- arethuza 11y ago
  Bill Bryson mentions Heaviside in his latest book The Road to Little Dribbling.

dboreham 11y ago

In reading up on this the other day, when that Guardian article appeared, I was intrigued to find that there is a conspiracy theory types who advance the idea that Heaviside was the bad guy because he removed important parts of Maxwell's work that explains, well...X-Files type stuff. Read on: http://www.cheniere.org/references/maxwell.htm http://www.cheniere.org/references/maxwell.htm

gaze 11y ago
Man. What a pile of nonsense.
Estragon 11y ago
> This work is all documented in the hard French scientific literature. Be nice to have some citations.

femto 11y ago

From the Wikipedia article: "From 1882 to 1902, except for three years, he contributed regular articles to the trade paper The 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. " The prototypical hacker?

mgalka 11y ago

One other guy who deserves some credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Minkowski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Minkowski The first one to reduce them to a single equation, in relativistic form.