Communicating with electricity
The discoveries of Oersted and Faraday (pp. 10-11) led to significant changes in people's lives. A telegraph message traveller 100 million times faster than a horse or ship, enabling nations to efficiently over vast areas of the globe. Electric light was brighter cheaper than gas, extending the day for work and leisure. But the biggest effect was to give people the power of information. Railway used the telegraphed to aid smooth running and distributed newspaper carrying reports telegraphed from all over the world. Some of the effects of electrical science seemed simply magical. The theoretical work of British mathematician James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) and German physicist Heinrich Hertz (1857-1894) led, by 1900, to communication with ships on the high seas. All of this was accomplished with only the crudest means of amplifying and detecting the faltering signals that crossed oceans and continents.