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| Contents | ||
| Oliver Heaviside | |
|---|---|
| Scholar | |
| Born | May 18, 1850 Camden Town, London, England |
| Died | February 3, 1925 Paignton, Devon, England
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Heaviside was born in Camden Town, London ( England). He was short and red-headed, and suffered from scarlet fever during his youth, the illness having a lasting impact on him, leaving him partly deaf. Although he was a good scholar (placed fifth out of five hundred students in 18651865 is a common year starting on Sunday. Events January 31 American Civil War: Confederate General Robert E. Lee becomes general-in-chief. February 17 American Civil War: Columbia, South Carolina burns as Confederate forces flee from advancing Union forc), he left school at 16 and began learning about Morse code and electromagnetism.
Heaviside became a telegraph operator, initially in Denmark and, later, at the Great Northern Telegraph Company . Heaviside continued to study and, in 1872, while working as a chief operator in Newcastle upon Tyne, he started an analysis of electricity. In 1874, Heaviside left this position and researched in isolation at his parents' house. Here he helped develop transmission line theory (also known as the " telegrapher's equations").
Heaviside showed mathematically that uniformly distributed inductance in a telegraph line would diminish both attenuation and distortion, and that, if the inductance were great enough and the insulation resistance not too high, the circuit would be distortionless while currents of all frequencies would be equally attenuated. Heaviside's equations helped further the implementation of the telegraph.
