Description

Oliver Heaviside (1850-1925) was a scientific maverick and a self-taught electrical engineer, physicist and mathematician. He patented the co-axial cable, pioneered the use of complex numbers for circuit analysis, and reworked Maxwell's field equations into a more concise format. In 1891 the Royal Society made him a Fellow for his mathematical descriptions of electromagnetic phenomena. Along with Arthur Kennelly, he also predicted the existence of the ionosphere. Often dismissed by his contemporaries, his work achieved wider recognition when he received the inaugural Faraday Medal in 1922. First published between 1893 and 1912, these three volumes bring together Heaviside's contributions to electromagnetic theory. They include his first description of vector analysis and the reworking of Maxwell's field equations into the form we know today. He also compares the propagation of electromagnetic waves with physical analogues, and argues that physical problems (such as the age of the Earth) drive mathematical ideas.