Oliver Heaviside

Physicist and engineer — Oliver Heaviside (London 1850 – Torquay 1925) was a self-taught English physicist and electrical engineer, one of the most original figures of Victorian science. Without any formal academic training, he recast Maxwell’s complex equations of electromagnetism into the compact vector form we still study today. He developed operational calculus for solving circuit problems and the telegrapher’s equations, fundamental for long-distance communications. He also predicted the existence of a conducting layer in the upper atmosphere, the ionosphere, which allows radio waves to propagate around the Earth. Many of his ideas, initially misunderstood, were fully recognised only after his death.

Fun fact

A solitary and eccentric man, in his later years he lived reclusively and is said to have painted his nails pink and furnished his house with granite blocks; the ionospheric layer he had predicted was long called the ‘Heaviside layer’.

Theories and contributions

• Maxwell’s equations in vector form — Rewrote the equations of electromagnetism into the four vector equations still used today.
• Heaviside step function — Function equal to 0 for $t<0$ and 1 for $t>0$, used in signal analysis: $H(t)$.
• Heaviside layer — Predicted an ionised layer of the atmosphere (the ionosphere) that reflects radio waves, explaining long-distance communications.

Present in chapters

19

Linked atoms

1 linked atom.

19 Le equazioni di Maxwell e le onde elettromagnetiche

• Maxwell’s equations in differential form