Charles Wheatstone

Sir Charles Wheatstone FRS (6 February 1802 – 19 October 1875) was an English scientist and inventor. He was knighted in 1868 for his research on telegraphy.

Charles Wheatstone in 1868

Quotes

• I have also rendered the phonic molecular vibrations visible, when produced by the longitudinal oscillations of a column of air ...
  • (August 1823)"New Experiments on Sound. Article I". Annals of Philosophy, New Series 6: 81–90. (quote from p. 84)

• The instruments and processes I am about to describe being all founded on the principles established by Ohm in his theory of the voltaic circuit, and this beautiful and comprehensive theory being not yet generally understood and admitted, even by many persons engaged in original research, I could scarcely hope to make my descriptions and explanations understood without prefacing them with a short account of the principal results which have been deduced from it. It will soon be perceived how the clear ideas of electro-motive forces and resistances, substituted for the vague notions of intensity and quantity which have been so long prevalent, enable us to give satisfactory explanations of most important phenomena, the laws of which have hitherto been involved in obscurity and doubt.
  • (1 January 1843)"XIII. The Bakerian lecture.—An account of several new instruments and processes for determining the constants of a voltaic circuit". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 133: 303–327. ISSN 0261-0523. DOI:10.1098/rstl.1843.0014.

Quotes about Wheatstone

• ... Wheatstone was to become a household name for his work on electric telegraphs, and indeed the Prince Consort consulted him as a parent of the telegraph system. Wheatstone had other claims to fame. He held a Chair at King's College London for 41 years and, although he hardly ever gave a lecture, the College subsequently named a laboratory after him. He invented the concertina and he discovered the principle of stereoscopy. He used his encyclopaedic knowledge of the literature to spread scientific ideas. He designed ingenious electro-mechanical devices and pioneered precise electrical measurements.
  • Brian Bowers: Sir Charles Wheatstone FRS: 1802-1875 (2nd ed.). 2001. p. 1. ISBN 9780852961032.  (originally published in 1975)