Paul Nahin, emeritus of electrical engineering at U of New Hampshire, wrote a richly technical and also riveting biography about Heaviside. The book doesn't pu

Paul Nahin, emeritus of electrical engineering at U of New Hampshire, wrote a richly technical and also riveting biography about Heaviside. The book doesn't pull any punches with the math nor the physics because equations are provided for the discerning reader whenever the discussion turns technical, which is every other page. But also on every other page is a picture of 19th century people and placesthat helps flesh out the dramatic race for electrical power. Worth mentioning is the whole chapter given to dramatizing Heaviside's arch-nemesis, a Mr. William Henry Preece who's Chief Engineer at the British Post Office. At the end of the chapter, Nahin repeats Preece's analysis of the viability of residential electrical lighting, a problem then known as 'subdivision of light', and his conclusion that Edison is doomed to fail. The error turns out to be taking the wrong limits. I can't resist including this excerpt: "It is almost impossible to understand why the 'subdivision of light' was so difficult to understand a mere century ago. Perhaps a century hence somebody will write the same about our present confusion over time-travel!"