Oliver Heaviside FRS was an English self-taught mathematician and physicist who brought complex numbers to circuit analysis, invented a new technique for solving differential equations, independently developed vector calculus, and rewrote Maxwell's equations in the form commonly used today. He significantly shaped the way Maxwell's equations are understood and applied in the decades following Maxwell's death. His formulation of the telegrapher's equations became commercially important during his own lifetime, after their significance went unremarked for a long while, as few others were versed at the time in his novel methodology. Although at odds with the scientific establishment for most of his life, Heaviside changed the face of telecommunications, mathematics, and science.
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, was a British mathematician, mathematical physicist and engineer born in Belfast. Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Glasgow for 53 years, he did important work in the mathematical analysis of electricity and formulation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics, and did much to unify the emerging discipline of physics in its contemporary form. He received the Royal Society's Copley Medal in 1883, was its President 1890–1895, and in 1892 was the first British scientist to be elevated to the House of Lords.
Owen Wister was an American writer and historian, considered the "father" of western fiction. He is best remembered for writing The Virginian and a biography of Ulysses S. Grant.
Granville Tailer Woods was an inventor who held more than 50 patents in the U.S. He was the first African American mechanical and electrical engineer after the Civil War. Self-taught, he concentrated most of his work on trains and streetcars. One of his notable inventions was a device he called the Synchronous Multiplex Railway Telegraph, a variation of induction telegraph which relied on ambient static electricity from existing telegraph lines to send messages between train stations and moving trains. His work assured a safer and better public transportation system for the cities of the United States.
Thomas Anstey Guthrie was an English author, most noted for his comic novel Vice Versa about a boarding-school boy and his father exchanging identities. His reputation was confirmed by The Tinted Venus and many humorous parodies in Punch magazine.
Works of fiction about the planet Venus have been written since before the 19th century. Its impenetrable cloud cover gave science fiction writers free rein to speculate on conditions at its surface; as it is very similar in size to Earth but closer to the Sun, the planet was often depicted as warmer but still habitable by humans. Depictions of Venus as a lush, verdant paradise, or fetid swampland, often inhabited by dinosaur-like monsters, became common in early pulp science fiction, particularly between the 1930s and 1950s, when science had revealed some aspects of Venus but not yet the harsh nature of its surface conditions. From the mid-20th century on, as the reality of Venus as a hostile, toxic inferno became known, the early tropes of adventures in Venusian tropics gave way to more realistic stories of the planet's colonization and terraforming.
Cromwell Fleetwood Varley, FRSA was an English engineer, particularly associated with the development of the electric telegraph and the transatlantic telegraph cable. He also took interest in the claims of parapsychology and spiritualism.
Sir Max Pemberton was a popular English novelist, working mainly in the adventure and mystery genres.
The invention of radio communication was preceded by many decades of establishing theoretical underpinnings, discovery and experimental investigation of radio waves, and engineering and technical developments related to their transmission and detection. These developments allowed Guglielmo Marconi to turn radio waves into a wireless communication system.
Edwin James Houston was an American electrical engineer, academic, businessman, inventor and writer.
John Macintyre or Mcintyre FRSE was a Scottish doctor who set up the world's first radiology department at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, in Glasgow.
Buck Nelson was an American farmer who claimed to have had an encounter with an unidentified flying object and its human crew in 1954 while living in Missouri. Buck Nelson believed the friendly occupants of the spacecraft to be humans from the planet Venus. His story is contained in a 1956 booklet he authored, My Trip to Mars, the Moon, and Venus.
Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne was an English novelist who was also known by the pen name Weatherby Chesney. He is perhaps best remembered as the author of The Lost Continent: The Story of Atlantis. He is also remembered for his Captain Kettle stories and for The Recipe for Diamonds.
Edgar Fawcett was an American novelist and poet.
H. G. Wells was a prolific writer of both fiction and non-fiction. His writing career spanned more than sixty years, and his early science fiction novels earned him the title of "The Father of Science Fiction".
The Electrician, published in London from 1861–1863 and 1878–1952, was the one of the earliest and foremost electrical engineering periodicals and scientific journals. It was published in two series: The original Electrician was published for three years from 1861–1863. After a fifteen year gap, a new series of the Electrician was in print for 72 years from 1878–1952. The Electrician is currently remembered as the publisher of Oliver Heaviside's works, in particular the first publication of the telegrapher's equations, still in wide use for radio engineering.
George Manville Fenn was a prolific English novelist, journalist, editor and educationalist. Many of his novels were written with young adults in mind. His final book was his biography of a fellow writer for juveniles, George Alfred Henty.
Munsey's Weekly, later known as Munsey's Magazine, was a 36-page quarto American magazine founded by Frank A. Munsey in 1889 and edited by John Kendrick Bangs. Frank Munsey aimed to publish "a magazine of the people and for the people, with pictures and art and good cheer and human interest throughout". Soon after its inception, the magazine was selling 40,000 copies a week. In 1891, Munsey's Weekly adopted a monthly schedule and was renamed Munsey's Magazine.
Journey to Mars the Wonderful World: Its Beauty and Splendor; Its Mighty Races and Kingdoms; Its Final Doom is an 1894 science fiction novel written by Gustavus W. Pope. The book has attracted increased contemporary attention as a precedent and possible source for the famous Barsoom novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs. A sequel, Journey to Venus, followed in 1895.
Dr James Robert Erskine-Murray FRSE MIEE (1868-1927) was a Scottish electrical engineer and inventor. A protege of Lord Kelvin, he also worked with Marconi and was a pioneer in the development of the telegraph. He wrote extensively on telegraphy and wireless communication.
