Background

Lodge was born on June 12, 1851, in Penkhull, England, the eldest of nine children - eight sons and a daughter - of the merchant Oliver Lodge and grandson of the clergyman and schoolmaster Oliver Lodge, who had twenty-five children; his mother was Grace Heath, likewise descended from educators and clergymen.

Education

Lodge was educated at Haberdashers' Adams' Grammar School, until he was fourteen and then entered the business of his father, who was a supplier of materials used in the pottery industry. His interest in science was periodically sparked by visits to London, where he heard John Tyndall and others lecture at the Royal Institution. He resumed his education in 1872 at the Royal College of Science and at University College in London, where for a time he served as a demonstrator in physics for George Carey Foster. He received the Doctor of Science degree in 1877 and began publishing papers on electricity, mechanics, and allied topics.

Career

In 1881 Lodge became the first professor of physics at the new University College in Liverpool, where he remained for nineteen years. It was during those years that he made his principal contributions, mainly in two areas: theory of the ether and electromagnetic propagation.

Lodge is also remembered for his experiments on electromagnetic radiation, in which he came close to anticipating Heinrich Hertz’s discovery of propagating waves, and for his participation in the beginnings of radiotelegraphy. Lodge’s 1887-1888 discovery that oscillations associated with the discharge of a Leyden jar result in waves and standing waves along conducting wires, with measurable wavelengths and other characteristics predicted by Maxwell’s theory, was overshadowed by the more spectacular results that Hertz obtained in free space in the same year.

On June 1, 1894, in a lecture to commemorate the untimely death of Hertz live months earlier, Lodge spoke at the Royal institution on "The Work of Hertz," stressing the experimental aspects of the work, including the importance of "syntony" (resonant tuning) in obtaining good results. The lecture was published and subsequently incorporated in a book; it had a widespread influence on the development of radiotelegraphy, inspiring experimenters in Germany, Italy, Russia, and other countries. With an associate, Alexander Muirhead, Lodge formed a syndicate to exploit one of his ideas, the resonant antenna circuit and obtained some important patents.

In 1900 the University of Birmingham became the first British civic institution to receive a charter as a full-fledged university, and Lodge was appointed its first principal. He held the post until 1919, devoting himself increasingly to administrative work and the leadership of professional societies. He was president of the Physical Society in 1900 and of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1913. He received many prizes and honors, including the Rumford Medal of the Royal Society (1898) and the Faraday Medal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (1932). He was knighted in 1902.

On two occasions he served as president of the Society for Psychical Research. He lived to the age of eighty-nine.

Achievements

• Lodge is best known for perfecting the coherer, a radio-wave detector, and the heart of the early radiotelegraph receiver. He also gave a major contribution to the development of the spark plug for automobiles and his sons manufactured them under Lodge Plugs, Ltd.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Science and Human Progress

    (Originally delivered as a series of lectures for the Hall...)

    1927
  • Signalling Across Space Without Wires

    (Being a Description of the Work of Hertz & His Successors)

  • Modern Views of Electricity 1889
  • Atoms and Rays: An Introduction to Modern Views on Atomic Structure and Radiation
  • Modern Views on Matter 1903
  • Electrons, or The Nature and Properties of Negative Electricity 1907
  • Raymond or Life and Death 1916

Politics

In political life, Lodge was an active member of the Fabian Society and published two Fabian Tracts: Socialism & Individualism, and Public Service versus Private Expenditure.

Views

The nineteenth-century concept of the ether left numerous questions unresolved, one of which was whether the ether in the vicinity of moving matter moved along with it. The Michelson-Morley experiment of 1887 was thought to have answered the question in the affirmative. But in 1893 - by an ingenious experiment involving the interference between two opposing light rays traveling around the space between a pair of rapidly rotating parallel steel disks - Lodge showed that the ether was not carried along. The apparent contradiction helped to discredit the theory of the ether and to set the stage for the theory of relativity.

Lodge’s interest extended to improved methods of detecting electromagnetic waves, in one of which he utilized the observation that electromagnetic irradiation of loosely connected metals makes them stick together. This principle, simultaneously observed and elaborated by others, formed the basis for an early detector of radio waves, a container of loose metal particles subjected to mechanical vibration (so as continually to restore the original conductivity) that he named the coherer.

Membership

• Fellow

  Royal Society of London , United Kingdom

  1887

Personality

Beginning in 1883, Lodge also became interested in psychic research - telepathy, telekinesis, and communication with the dead - an interest that was intensified after his son’s death and his own retirement in 1919.

Interests

• psychic research

Connections

Lodge married Mary Fanny Alexander Marshall at St George's Church, Newcastle-under-Lyme in 1877. They had twelve children, six boys, and six girls. 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 airplanes. After his retirement in 1920, Lodge and his wife settled in Normanton House, near Lake in Wiltshire, a few miles from Stonehenge.

Father:

Oliver Lodge

Mother:

Grace Heath

Spouse:

Mary Fanny Alexander Marshall

Son:

Oliver William Foster Lodge

Lodge was a poet and author.

Son:

Francis Brodie

Son:

Alexander Marshall Lodge

Lodge was an English inventor who did early work and held some patents on the spark plug.

Son:

Lionel Lodge

Son:

Noel Lodge

Daughter:

Violet Lodge

Son:

Raymond Lodge

Lodge was a Second Lieutenant and was killed in action in World War I.

Daughter:

Honor Lodge

Daughter:

Lorna Lodge

Daughter:

Norah Lodge

Daughter:

Barbara Lodge

Daughter:

Rosalynde Lodge

Brother:

Richard Lodge

Lodge was Professor of History at the University of Glasgow from 1894-1899 and then Professor of History at the University of Edinburgh from 1899 to 1925.

Sister:

Eleanor Constance Lodge

Lodge was a British academic who served as Vice-Principal of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford from 1906 to 1921 and then Principal of Westfield College, Hampstead, in the University of London, from 1921 to 1931.

Brother:

Alfred Lodge

Lodge was an English mathematician, author, and the first president of The Mathematical Association.

Friend:

George Fitzgerald

colleague:

Sidney Webb

colleague:

George Shaw

References

• Dictionary of Scientific Biography Volume 7
  1973
• Reflections on "Raymond"
  1917
• Raymond: A Rejoinder Questioning The Validity of Certain Evidence and of Sir Oliver Lodge's Conclusions Regarding It
  1917
• The Follies and Frauds of Spiritualism
  1919