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Physicist, born in Penkhull, Staffordshire England. Oliver Joseph Lodge studied at the Royal College of Science and at University College, London, and in 1881 became professor of physics at Liverpool.

Seated left, Oliver Lodge, as principal of Birmingham University (1900 - 1916).

Seated beside him is Marie Curie.

Source: The Cambridge Biographical Encyclopedia

Oliver Joseph Lodge (b. June 12, 1851, Penkhull, Staffordshire, Eng. d. Aug. 22, 1940, Lake, near Salisbury, Wiltshire), British physicist who perfected the coherer, a radio-wave detector and the heart of the early radiotelegraph receiver.

Lodge became assistant professor of applied mathematics at University College, London, in 1879 and was appointed to the chair ofphysics at University College, Liverpool, in 1881. During his tenure in Liverpool, he conducted experiments in the propagation and reception of electromagnetic waves.

In 1890 a French physicist, Édouard Branly, showed that loose iron filings in a glass tube coalesce, or "cohere," under the influence of radiated electric waves. To this basic design Lodge added a "trembler," a device that shook the filings loose between waves. Connected to a receiving circuit, this improved coherer detected Morse code signals transmitted by radio wave and enabled them to be transcribed on paper by an inker.

Lodge's device, first demonstrated before the Royal Institute in 1894, quickly became the standard detector in early wireless telegraph receivers. It was outmoded the following decade by magnetic, electrolytic, and crystal detectors. Lodge also obtained patents in 1897 for the use of inductors and capacitors to adjust the frequency of wireless transmitters and receivers.

In 1900 Lodge was chosen the first principal of the new Birmingham University, and he was knighted in 1902. After 1900 he became prominent in psychical research, believing strongly in the possibility of communicating with the dead.

Source: Britannica Online

Sir Oliver Lodge, (b: June 12, 1851 Penkhull, England, d: August 22, 1940 Amesbury, Wiltshire, England) English physicist, was educated at Newport Grammar School where he made his first acquaintance with science. Later, on a visit to London, he heard a series of Tyndall's lectures and began the study of chemistry by attending afternoon classes at Wedgwood Institute. And in 1872 he enrolled for a course at the South Kensington Chemical Laboratory.

By work and study at odd hours he matriculated at the University of London where he became much interested in mathematics. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1875, and was selected to fill the post of demonstrator of physics at University College. He published several papers on the flow of electricity, which attracted considerable attention in the scientific world.

The next year he exhibited before the British Association a model derived from Maxwell's theories for the purpose of illustrating mechanically the passage of electricity through metals, electrolytes and dielectrics. Lodge was appointed professor of physics and mathematics in the University College, Liverpool, in 1881, where he remained until 1900. He was awarded the Doctor of Science degree in 1887. Also, while lecturer at Bedford College, London, Lodge continued his research work.

In 1889 he wrote a little book titled Modem Views of Electricity, with the exposition based entirely on models. He compared the ether, of which he was one of the most persuasive and lucid interpreters, to an elastic jelly filling all space; he compared magnetism to whirlpools in that jelly, or more crudely to interlocking wheels.

To him the universe was a gigantic machine. Lodge, writing in the London Electrician in 1894, discussed the discoveries of Hertz, described his own experiments with electro-magnetic waves and commented upon the phenomenon of resonance or tuning. He pointed out that some circuits were by their nature persistent vibrators "that is, they were able to sustain for a long period oscillations set up in them" while other circuits were so constructed that their oscillations were rapidly damped.

He said that a receiver of the rapidly damped type would respond to waves of almost any frequency, while one that was a persistent vibrator would respond only to waves of its own natural period, or wavelength. Lodge found that the Hertz transmitter "radiates very powerfully" but that "in consequence of its radiation of energy, its vibrations are rapidly damped", therefore it could excite sparks in conductors barely in tune with it.

On February 1, 1898, Lodge applied for a patent which was allowed on August 16, 1898, as No. 609,154. It disclosed an adjustable induction coil in the open or antenna circuit of a wireless transmitter or receiver, or in both, to make it possible to put the transmitter and receiver in tune with each other. He used a Branly coherer as the detector. He broadly claimed that making the antenna coil or inductance variable made tuning of the antenna circuits in a system of wireless communication possible.

This "syntonic" or tuning patent won him a high place in the history of wireless, for it established him as a pioneer in experiments that recognized the necessity of tuning in order to select a desired station. This patent, incidentally, was acquired by the Marconi Company on March 19, 1912.

Lodge's tuning patent was appraised by the United States District Court (Eastern District of New York) in 1914, as "the realization of the advantages to be derived in the matter of sharpness of tuning". But it was proved that Marconi 's original patent was more specific; he had specified that his elevated capacity plates (antenna) were preferably electrically tuned with each other. Said the Court in regard to Lodge:

"He increased the persistence of vibrations of his radiating circuit at the expense of its radiating qualities, and increased the cumulative power of his receiving circuit at the expense of its absorbing qualities. Effecting this compromise by means of the introduction of an inductance coil in an open circuit, he obtained a train of waves of approximately equal amplitude, and this rendered effective syntony (tuning)."

"He is one of our greatest physicists and thinkers, but it is particularly in regard to his pioneering in wireless, which should never be forgotten. In the very early days, after the experimental confirmation of Maxwell's theory as to the existence of electric waves and their propagation through space, it was given to only a very few persons to possess clear insight in regard to what was considered to be one of the most hidden mysteries of nature. Sir Oliver Lodge possessed that insight in a far greater degree than perhaps any of his contemporaries"

"I was too busy with teaching work to take up telegraphic or any other development nor had I the insight to perceive what has turned out to be its extraordinary importance to the navy, the merchant service, and indeed, land and war services too"

"Marconi's creation like that of the poet who gathers words of other men in a perfect lyric was none the less brilliant and original.... One feels like a boy who has been strumming on a silent keyboard of a deserted organ, into the chest of which an unseen power begins to blow a vivifying breath"

After 1910 he became increasingly prominent as a spiritualist leader and a strong believer in the possibilities of communicating with the dead; he interested himself in a serious endeavor to reconcile science and religion. He expressed a belief in telepathy and the opinion that the easiest way to communicate with the planet Mars would be by means of gigantic geometrical figures drawn on the Sahara Desert.

As the years passed, Sir Oliver became more and more a believer in speech with the dead, manifestations from the mysterious unknown, even in nebulous forms that were produced from ectoplasm at seances. At the age of eighty, he announced that he would try to communicate with the world after his death. He placed a sealed document in the custody of the English Society of Psychical Research, saying that his message from the beyond would correspond with what he had recorded in the document.

Lodge had the power of crystallizing into clear statement an entire collection of thoughts or arguments. Once during a discussion about the forces that bind atom to atom he picked up a stick that lay on the lecture table, and he seemed merely to be toying with it, when suddenly he said,

"The whole problem of physics lies in this: why, when I pick up one end of the stick, does not the other end come up too? The forces that hold the stick in one are those also which bind the universe together"

"as a really magnificent figure, tall and impressive, a marvelous teacher, an enterprising thinker and a great worker, who had a remarkable influence on his contemporaries and students. He was a very distinguished man of science"

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