- TitleEther and the Planets
- ReferenceMOOR/P/1/29
- Production date1939 - 1939
- Lodge, Oliver JosephBiographyBiography(1851-1940), Knight, physicist Oliver Joseph Lodge, born on the 12th June 1851 in Penkhull, Staffordshire, perfected the coherer, a radio-wave detector and the heart of the early radiotelegraph receiver. Two of his brothers, including Sir Richard Lodge (1855–1936), and his sister, Eleanor Constance Lodge (1869–1936), also had distinguished academic careers. After attending a local dame-school Lodge studied and boarded at Newport grammar school, Shropshire, from 1859 to 1863, and then for two years with his uncle at Combs, Suffolk. He worked in his father's business until 1874 before enrolling s a full-time student at University College, London, obtaining the BSc degree in the following year. In June 1877 he was awarded the degree of DSc. In June 1881 Lodge was elected professor of physics at the new University College, Liverpool, ahead of fifteen other candidates, and immediately went on a scientific tour of Europe, where he met such great physicists as Helmholtz and Hertz. In 1883 he discovered the electrostatic condensation of fog. This observation eventually led to the development of the commercial electrostatic precipitator. After making a name for himself as a public lecturer He was elected FRS on 9 June 1887. Lodge was awarded the Rumford medal of the Royal Society in 1898, and became president of the Physical Society in 1899, a year in which he narrowly survived a bout of typhoid fever. A major career change occurred in 1900 when, he left Liverpool to become principal of the new University of Birmingham, where he remained until his retirement in February 1919. Lodge was knighted in June 1902 and other awards included the Albert medal of the Royal Society of Arts (1919) and the Faraday medal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (1932), and he was president of the British Association at Birmingham in 1913. Although he had less time for research at Birmingham, Lodge took up the commercial exploitation of radio. The Lodge–Muirhead Syndicate was formed in 1901, and a new receiver, the wheel coherer, patented in 1902. The syndicate won a major contract with the Indian government in 1904, to link Burma and the Andaman Islands, but was never able to break the Marconi Company's commercial stranglehold. In 1911, however, Lodge's patent was extended in the law courts. This led to a settlement with Marconi. The syndicate was wound up; Lodge was paid for his patents and became a nominal consultant to Marconi. On the 22nd August 1877 Lodge married Mary Fanny Alexander Marshall (1851–1929) of Newcastle under Lyme, they had six sons and six daughters. After 1900 he became prominent in psychical research, believing strongly in the possibility of communicating with the dead. In his later years he wrote his autobiography, Past Years (1931), and his summary, My Philosophy (1933). Lodge died at his home, Normanton House, Lake, near Salisbury, on 22 August 1940, and was buried at St Michael's Church, Wilsford.
- Extent1 volume
- Physical descriptionBound by Patrick Moore
- LanguageEnglish
- Level of descriptionFILE
- Repository nameScience Museum, London
- Moore, PatrickBiographyBiography(1923-2012), amateur astronomer, writer, broadcaster Patrick Alfred Caldwell-Moore was born at Pinner, Middlesex on 4 Mar 1923. When war came, he turned down a place at Cambridge and lied about his age to join the RAF, serving as a navigator with Bomber Command and rising to the rank of Flight Lieutenant. War brought personal tragedy as his fiancee, Lorna, was killed when an ambulance she was driving was hit by a bomb. He never married. After the war he momentarily taught at a prep school, but he pursued his interest in astronomy by building his own telescope in the garden of his Sussex home. He produced detailed maps of the moon's surface which were used by Nasa as part of the preparations for the moon landing. A growing interest in extra-terrestrial matters persuaded the BBC to launch a new programme explaining the mysteries of space; Moore was chosen to present it. The first edition of The Sky at Night was broadcast on 24th April 1957; Moore presented the programme for more than four decades. In 1965, for three years, he became the director of a new planetarium at Armagh, Northern Ireland. In 1969 he was part of the BBC commentary team to describe the moon landings. Despite his expertise on the solar system, Moore described himself as an amateur astronomer as he never had any formal training. Moore was awarded an OBE in 1968 and was knighted and appointed an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society in 2001. In 2009, after saving Airdrie Public Observatory from closure in 2002, Moore accepted the position of Honorary President of Airdrie Astronomical Association, a position which he held until his death. He wrote more than 70 books during his lifetime, most of the manuscripts banged out on a 1908 manual typewriter. Moore died at his home in Selsey, West Sussex on the 9th December 2012, aged 89.
- Conditions governing accessOpen Access
- Conditions governing ReproductionCopies may be supplied in accordance with current copyright legislation and Science Museum Group terms and conditions
- Finding aidsBox 17B
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- contains 16 partsTOPMOOR Archive of Sir Patrick Moore
- contains 3 partsSERIESMOOR/P Research Library
- contains 35 partsSUB-SERIESMOOR/P/1 Books by other authors, owned by Patrick Moore