Mathematical Conversations

As telegraph lines proliferated through Europe and North America in the 1850s, plans were drawn up for a transatlantic telegraph cable.  Extended telegraph lines were modelled by William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), who showed that a transatlantic cable could not possibly work.  A bitter dispute arose between Thomson and Wildman Whitehouse, who ended up destroying the first transatlantic cable in 1858.  Although other cables were eventually laid it was not until 1892 that the cantankerous self-taught genius, Oliver Heaviside, understood the behavior of long cables and prescribed their design parameters.