Sir Charles Wheatstone-
Born 1802 Died 1875
Detailed research and experimentation was the common thread in
Charles Wheatstone's life work. Wheatstone worked as Musician/
instrument maker in to his early thirties. He then pursued a career
as an academic and scientist for the rest of his natural life.
His early experiments in acoustics, optics, and electricity won
him recognition in the scientific community while his work with
the telegraph made his name a household word. 1834 Wheatstone
was appointed professor of experimental physics at King's College.
In 1836 he became a fellow of the royal Society and in 1868 he
was Knighted. The French made Wheatstone a foreign associate of
the Paris Academy of Sciences in 1873. These are just a few of
Wheatstone's many awards and appointments.
Although Wheatstone did not have any "formal scientific education"
it is important that Wheatstone was an aggressive learner out
side of the classroom and did the maxim to educate him self-starting
early in his childhood. He taught himself to read and write in
the French, German, Italian, Latin, and Greek languages. The ever
so curious youngster was constantly reading about science experiments
and reproducing those inquiries at home with the aid of his brother.
Though his father was a shoemaker his family had a long history
in the music business in London which dated back to the 1750.
The family worked as music publishers and instrument makers.
The acoustic research was driven to open a door of understanding
to the properties of a tone, such as timber, in terms of vibration.
Wheatstone spent 15 years on his acoustic research. He studied
the comprehensive book on sound by the German Physicist Chladni."
As an admirer of music… [Remarked that the theory of sound was
more neglected then most of the other branches of natural philosophy,
which gave rise in me for the desire of supplying this defect."
German Physicist Chladni
Much attention was paid to the investigations of the mechanical
transmissions of sound. Visible demonstrations of vibrations and
the vibrating air column. Most of his acoustic experiments were
conducted with reed based instruments because the family musical
instrument business in London produced flutes. After Wheatstones
studies of vibrations through solid bodies he creates his most
famous instrument enchanted lyre it was activated by a vibrations
from a remote piano transmitted long wire. This was not a simple
instrument that one would carry along to a performance but a rather
large musical installation.
(Also note: Wheatstones flute harmonique 1818)
Music
At the age of 15 he had written two songs. Wheatstone thought
that his uncle who was in the music publishing business would
not publish the work if he knew it was his, so Charles Wheatstone
gave the two songs to a known musician named Omera. Omera presented
the songs to Wheatstone’s uncle and they were both excepted and
published
Creative imaginative analytical
Wheatstones approach to the construction of musical instruments
came from two points of view simultaneously, the first as imaginative
creative individual and second as an analytical scientist.
Wheatstones approached the construction of musical instruments
as an imaginative creative individual as well as an analytical
scientist. Through known for the telegraph Wheatstone would design
and construct musical instruments throughout his entire life.
His first instrument was the flute harmonique constructed in 1818.
His first experiments on the transmission of sound came from his
observation of the distance between strings and sounding boards
of different instruments. In one of Wheatstones first acoustic
experiments investigating the variation of distances and how those
distances would effect sound. He attached a he stretched a string
to a steel bow and connected the bow to a soundboard of the piano
through a glass rod nearly two meters long. Wheatstone found that
the string sounded that same as if it we attached right to the
sounding board. He then tried the same experiment with a tuning
fork. The experiment would actually become part of a performance
piece at the theatre of the Royal Institution.
Wheatstones experiments on the transmission of sound were first
set up as public demonstrations are turned into what was to be
hailed by critics as an evening of wonderful music that should
be seen!
The first demonstration was at his father’s shop in Pall Mall.
The Acoucryphone (Greek for "Hearing a hidden sound") or Enchanted
Lyre-This was written up in several London publications.
When Wheatstone played this instrument is was not a simple walk
on performance but more a musical installation. The Enchanted
Lyre was suspended from the ceiling and surrounded, but not touched
by a velvet hoop supported on the floor by three rods. The horns
of the lyre were like bugles bent down towards the floor and discs
on both sides of the body of the instrument were of metallic appearance.
The lyre was suspended by a brass wire, which passed through the
ceiling and connected with the soundboards of instruments in a
room above, where Wheatstone played pieces the harp, piano, and
the dulcimer. Wheatstone used the string instruments for his "telemusic"
pieces because it was easy for him to transmit sound over those
devices as opposed to the flutes in which the only vibration was
in a column of air.
The concerts were conducted quite frequently and very well received
by the music critics who urged the public to go and hear the wonderful
music of the "Unseen performer". Wheatstone addressed the crowed
and explained that the Lyre was working based on an application
of a general principle for conducting sound, and could also be
applied to wind instruments.
The high point of Wheatstones music career came in 1822 when he
conducted the sound of a whole orchestra in one of the shops along
the Royal Arcade. The cost for the one-hour performance was 5
shillings. Wheatstone demonstrated bot5h music and voice conduction
with his "Diaphonicon", a horizontal sound conductor running between
rooms. Wheatstone continued his performances until the fall of
1823. He continued to call himself a musical instrument maker
even after his academic appointment as a professor at Kings College
in London.
Music education
Wheatstone met H.C. Orsted in1923 in London. Orsted was in England
conducting research on optics. Although Wheatstone was still working
as an instrument maker his first research formal paper "New Experiments
on Sound", had just been published. Orsted had read this paper
written by the young Wheatstone and was very interested in the
experiments, which related to the work of Ernst Florens Friedrich
Chladni (1756-1827) a German Physicist.
Wheatstone had reproduced one of Chladni's experiments replacing
Chladni's sand with water, which dealt with visualizing sound
waves and vibration. H.C. Orsted stated that he him self had reproduced
Chladni's experiments but used alcohol and lycopodion powder instead
of sand and attained similar results to Whetstones. Orsted was
in his mid forties when he met Wheatstone who was only 21 at the
time. Orsted encouraged Wheatstone continue his research and to
publish the results in the scientific community.
1834 Wheatstone was appointed professor of experimental physics
at King's College, London.
Some of his lectures were on acoustics but most of his work at
this point dealt with electricity and optics. It is important
to note that Wheatstone was painfully shy in public. At home,
among friends he was "the life of the party" however lacked the
nerve to speak in public. It was not unlike Wheatstone to set
up a speaking engagement and cancel at the very last minute due
to an awful case of stage fright. As a result of this condition
Michael Faraday commentated much of Whetstone's work to the Royal
Society through Faradays famous Friday night lectures. On one
such occasion Wheatstone was scheduled to speak at the Royal society
and of course literally ran out the back door of the conference
hall at the last minute. Faraday stepped onto the stage and delivered
one of his most famous lectures, which was on the discovery of
the Electro magnetic field.
Wheatstone’s early electricity work was the measurement of the
velocity of an electrical discharge through a wire. Wheatstone
studied the rapid motions by reflection from a rotating mirror.
After trying unsuccessfully to draw out the spark produced by
an electric discharge, he used the orating mirror technique to
observe the intervals between sparks produced by a single discharge
across three spark gaps, located side by side and connected to
each other by quarter-mile lengths of copper wire. From the displacement
of the middle spark relative to the other two, he estimated the
velocity of electricity to be over 250,00 miles per second.
Optics kaleidophone and stereoscope
Telegraph
1836 England, William Cooke is introduced to Charles Wheatstone
by an old friend Peter Roget (creator of the first thesaurus).
Wheatstone is well known in the scientific community of England
for the ingenious series of experiments to determine the velocity
of electricity.
London England -Cooke and Wheatstone experiment by building a
link between Euston and Camden- railway stations at a distance
of 1 mile and a quarter
In England Charles Wheatstone and William Cook patent the firs
English telegraph. The "five needle telegraph" It is a device
with five pointers, which point to letters of the alphabet. Electric
telegraph company- the first telegraph line links Liverpool and
Manchester which starts the growth of the telegraph network which
will shortly span the globe.
1839 -Wheatstone and cook start the first Commercial telegraph
system in England
The telegraph network begins to grow at an accelerated rate. It
is not long before the telegraph begins to appear in popular culture.
1845- Wheatstones telegraph is used in England to apprehend a
criminal traveling on a train. The "Quake Murderer" is seen at
the boarding a London bound train at Slough. The authorities send
a telegram up the railway line to the Paddington station where
the suspect is arrested. 1846- Werner Von Siemens improves Wheatstones
telegraph by making it self-acting.
This is accomplished by adding make or break contacts.
Bowers, Brain
Sir Charles Wheatstone1977
Hubbard, Geoffrey
Cooke and Wheatstone and the invention of the electrical telegraph