奥利弗·洛奇1851—1940

Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge (12 June 1851 – 22 August 1940) was an English physicist and electrical engineer whose investigations into electromagnetic radiation (EMR) contributed to the development of radio. He identified EMR independent of Heinrich Hertz's proof. In his 1894 Royal Institution lecture, The Work of Hertz and Some of His Successors, Lodge's demonstrations on methods to transmit and detect radio waves included an improved early radio receiver he named the coherer. His work led to his holding key patents in early radio communication, his "syntonic" (or tuning) patents.

Lodge was a pioneer of spiritualism; his pseudoscientific research into life after death was a topic on which he wrote many books, including the best-selling Raymond; or, Life and Death (1916), which detailed messages he received from a medium, which he believed came from his son who was killed in the First World War.

Biography

Oliver Joseph Lodge was born on 12 June 1851 at The Views in Penkhull, Staffordshire, England, the eldest of seven boys of Grace (née Heath; 1826–1879) and Oliver Lodge (1826–1884), a successful potters' merchant. Between the ages of eight and twelve, Lodge attended Newport Grammar School (now Haberdashers' Adams) in Shropshire. Due to being unhappy there, he transferred to the Combs School in Suffolk, which he left at age fourteen to work at his father's business full-time.

In 1871, Lodge matriculated at the University of London, where he passed the examinations for his Bachelor of Science and Doctor of Science degrees in 1875 and 1877, respectively.

Research

Electromagnetism and radio

In 1873, James Clerk Maxwell published A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, and by 1876 Lodge was studying it intently. But Lodge was fairly limited in mathematical physics, both by aptitude and training—and his first two papers were a description of a mechanism (of beaded strings and pulleys) that could serve to illustrate electrical phenomena such as conduction and polarisation. Indeed, Lodge is probably best known for his advocacy and elaboration of Maxwell's aether theory, a later deprecated model postulating a wave-bearing medium filling all space.

Paranormal investigations

Lodge is remembered for his studies in psychical research and spiritualism. He began to study psychical phenomena (chiefly telepathy) in the late 1880s, was a member of The Ghost Club, and served as president of the London-based Society for Psychical Research from 1901 to 1903. After his son, Raymond, was killed in World War I in 1915, he visited several mediums and wrote about the experience in a number of books, including the best-selling Raymond; or, Life and Death (1916). Lodge was a friend of Arthur Conan Doyle, who also lost a son in World War I and was a Spiritualist.

Personal life and death

In 1877, Lodge married Mary Fanny Alexander Marshall at St George's Church in Newcastle-under-Lyme. They had twelve children—six boys and six girls—including Oliver, Alexander (Alec), Francis, Lionel, and Noel. Four of his sons went into business using Lodge's inventions. Brodie and Alec created the Lodge Plug Company, which manufactured spark plugs for cars and aeroplanes.

Recognition

Commemoration

Oliver Lodge Primary School in Vanderbijlpark, South Africa is named in his honour.

Lodge is commemorated in Liverpool with a bronze figure entitled Education, at the base of the Queen Victoria Monument

and the Oliver Lodge Building which houses the physics department of the University of Liverpool.

Lodge archives

Lodge's letters and papers were divided after his death. Some were deposited at the University of Birmingham and University of Liverpool and others at the Society for Psychical Research and the University College London. Lodge was long-lived and a prolific letter writer and other letters of his survive in the personal papers of other individuals and several other universities and other institutions. Among the known collections of his papers are the following: