CHAPTER 5A NERVOUS SYSTEM FOR THE EARTHJames Gleick

A NERVOUS SYSTEM FOR THE EARTH• The electric telegraph was likened to biological wiring:

comparing cables to nerves; the nation, or the whole earth, to the human body.

• In 1849, Alfred Smee likened the brain to a battery and the nerves to “bio-telegraphs”

• Electricity wasn’t understood in the 1800s, but Dionysius Lardner stated “The World of Science is not agreed as to the physical character of Electricity.”

• Electricity was able to be sent along wires across long distances for communication.

• The process of making wires had caused a new realm of engineering to be invented. Wires could become faintly magnetized and became the electromagnet.

• Electromagnets could sound alarms, govern the motion of wheel-work; turn a handle, or even discharge a cannon.

THE HISTORY OF TELEGRAPHS Telegraphs were invented and named by Claude Chappe The purpose of telegraphs was to send signals to other towers in line of sight Chappe collaborated with his brothers and came up with the better

telegraph that could transmit 32 symbols Chappe managed to gain the attention of legislators, and one of the

legislator, Gilbert Romme, persuaded the Convention to appropriate 6,000 francs for the construction of 3 telegraphs in northern Paris, 7 to 9 miles apart.

The telegraph system was setting a new standard for speed of communication, no other communication was able to compete against it

The telegraph system was heavily depending on the ability of operator and weather

The telegraphs were mainly used for military purpose only, but later on Chappe proposed sending other types of information like financial quotations, shipping news, and news from stock exchanges.

THE TELEGRAPH Many different schemes occurred to inventors A Frenchman named Lomond in 1787 ran a single wire

across his apartment and claimed to be able to signal different letters by making a pith ball dance in different directions.

In 1809 a German, Samuel Thomas von Sömmerring, made a bubble telegraph. Current passing through wires in a vessel of water produced bubbles of hydrogen; each wire, and thus each jet of bubbles, could indicate a single letter.

The physicist André-Marie Ampère, a developer of the galvanometer, proposed using that as a signaling device; it was a needle deflected by electromagnetism

In Russia, Baron Pavel Schilling demonstrated a system with five needles and later reduced that to one: he assigned combinations of right and left signals to the letters and numerals.

COOKE- WHEATSTONE VS. ALFRED VAIL’S TELEGRAPH KEY

The Cooke – Wheatstone telegraph used six wires to form three circuits, each controlling a magnetic needle. It also had an alarm to keep the operators attention.

The next version displayed the alphabet through a slot. 20 letters were arranged on a diamond- shaped grid.

Samuel Morse came up with the idea of closing and opening of a circuit instead of needles. The electric current flowed and was interrupted, and the interruptions could be organized to create meaning.

Vail created this vision by using a simple spring-loaded lever and the operator would control by the touch of a finger.

THE TELEGRAPH

RELAYING INFORMATION

MORSE TELEGRAPHIC ALPHABET

Unofficial name of language sent on telegraphs

Was not an actual alphabet, was a meta-alphabet

The Secret Corresponding Vocabulary

Included 56,000 words from Aaronic to zygodactylous

Examples of secret codes: mhii – My health is

improving shf – Stocks have

fallen ymir – Your message

is received

THE TELEGRAPH: WRITING IN CODE“THE MORSE TELEGRAPHIC ALPHABET”

Systems were quickly created for short hand communication enabled more transmittable info with fewer billable words.

Common phrases were assigned one word dictionary terms.

Vail’s Secret alphabet = a in the permanent alphabet may be represented by y, or e, or x.

Sender and receiver needed code book (contained 56,000 English words plus instructions)

THE ART OF CRYPTOGRAPHY

After the telegraph was introduced, cryptography became big in intellectual circles

Edgar Allen Poe, Jules Verne, and Honoré de Balzac would put codes into their writings

Charles Babbage was the first to introduce algebra into his codes

AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN AND GEORGE BOOLE

They moved to working on integrating codes and logic

Boole called it “mathematics without numbers”

Only the numbers 1 and 0 were allowed. Everything else was consisted of p’s, q’s, +’s, -’s, braces, and brackets. Then the conditionals if, either, and or were used.

PARTICIPANTS Presenters

Danny Noyes Julian Brooks Trevor Smith Zach Bichard Megan Hill Tushayna Brackenbridge Taylor Rivera

Slide Makers Jon Eggers Jee Kim Taylor Seybold Erich Marlowe James Hopkins Milton Ramer Owen Steepy Parisse Wood Courtenay Cronin