Please expand this article. Further information might be found in a section of the talk page or at Requests for expansion.

William Henry Preece

Sir William Henry Preece (1834-1913) was a Welsh electrical engineer and inventor. Preece relied on experiments and physical reasoning in his life's work. Preece was knighted in 1899. Image File history File links Wiki_letter_w. ... Download high resolution version (550x672, 57 KB)This is William Henry Preece, from Oliver Heaviside: Sage in Solitude (ISBN 0-87942-238-6), p. ... Download high resolution version (550x672, 57 KB)This is William Henry Preece, from Oliver Heaviside: Sage in Solitude (ISBN 0-87942-238-6), p. ... 1834 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... 1913 (MCMXIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday. ... The Welsh are an ethnic group associated with Wales and the Welsh language, which is a Celtic language. ... An engineers degree is an academic degree which is intermediate in rank between a masters degree and a doctorate; it is occasionally to be encountered in the United States in technical fields. ... An inventor is a person who creates new inventions, typically technical devices such as mechanical, electrical or software devices or methods. ... In the scientific method, an experiment (Latin: ex-+-periri, of (or from) trying), is a set of actions and observations, performed in the context of solving a particular problem or question, to support or falsify a hypothesis or research concerning phenomena. ... A statue of an armoured knight of the Middle Ages For the chess piece, see knight (chess). ...

Biography

Preece was born in Caernarfon (Gwynedd), Wales. Preece studied at the Royal Institution in London (Great Britain) under Michael Faraday. He later was the consulting engineer for the Post Office (1870s). He became Engineer-in-Chief of the British General Post Office in 1892. He developed several improvements in railroad signaling system that increased railway safety. Preece and Oliver Lodge maintained a correspondence during this period. Upon Lodge's proposal of "loading coils" applied to submerged cables, Preece did not relize that "Earthing" would extend the distance and efficiency. Caernarfon, 2002 Caernarfon (the Welsh spelling is now normally used in preference over the anglicised forms, Caernarvon or Carnarvon) is a royal town in north-west Wales. ... Gwynedd is an administrative county in Wales, named after the old Kingdom of Gwynedd. ... Motto: (Welsh for Wales for ever) Anthem: Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau Capital Cardiff Largest city Cardiff Official language(s) English, Welsh Government Constitutional monarchy  - Queen Queen Elizabeth II  - Prime Minister Tony Blair MP  - First Minister Rhodri Morgan AM Unification    - by Gruffudd ap Llywelyn 1056  Area    - Total 20,779 km² (3rd... London (pronounced ) is the capital city of England and of the United Kingdom. ... Michael Faraday from a photograph by John Watkins, British Library [1] Michael Faraday, FRS (September 22, 1791 – August 25, 1867) was a British chemist and physicist (he considered himself a natural philosopher) who contributed significantly to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. ... 1892 (MDCCCXCII) was a leap year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... Vanity Fair cartoon. ... In electronics, a loading coil is a coil (inductor) that does not provide coupling to any other circuit, but is inserted in a circuit to increase its inductance. ... Ground symbols The term ground or earth usually means a common return path in electrical circuits. ...

Preece also developed a wireless telegraphy and telephony system also in 1892. Preece developed a telephone system and implemented it in England. A similar telephone system was patented in the United States by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. In 1885, Preece and Arthur West Heaviside (Oliver Heaviside's brother) experimented with parallel telegraph lines and an unwired telephone receiver, discovering radio induction (later identified with the effects of crosstalk). Wireless telegraphy is the practice of remote writing (see telegraphy) without the wires normally involved in an electrical telegraph. ... Oliver Heaviside (May 18, 1850 – February 3, 1925) was a self-taught English engineer, mathematician and physicist who adapted complex numbers to the study of electrical circuits, developed techniques for applying Laplace transforms to the solution of differential equations, reformulated Maxwells field equations in terms of electric and magnetic... In telecommunication, the term crosstalk (XT) has the following meanings: 1. ...

In 1897, with Marconi radio experiments from Lavernock Point in south Wales to the island of Flatholm, became one of Marconi's most ardent supporters. He made various efforts to support Guglielmo Marconi in the wireless field. Preece gained financial assistance from the Post Office to help expand Marconi's work. Preece believed that the Earth’s magnetic field was critical in the propagation of radio waves over long distances. Although Guglielmo Marconi is widely credited as the Inventor of Radio, for some this title is controversial, and competing claims are reviewed in History of radio and Invention of Radio. ... The magnetosphere shields the surface of the Earth from the charged particles of the solar wind. ...

He had a long-standing rivalry with O. Heaviside over his traditional ideas about electricity. It was derisively referred to as "the drain-pipe theory" by Heaviside, because Preece presented the analogy of electricity and water for thought experiments. Reportedly, he never understood James Clerk Maxwell's advances to "mathematical sciencific theory" ^{[citation needed]}. Analogy is either the cognitive process of transferring information from a particular subject (the analogue or source) to another particular subject (the target), or a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process. ... In philosophy, physics, and other fields, a thought experiment (from the German Gedankenexperiment) is an attempt to solve a problem using the power of human imagination. ... James Clerk Maxwell (13 June 1831 – 5 November 1879) was a Scottish mathematical physicist, born in Edinburgh. ... Mathematical physics is the scientific discipline concerned with the application of mathematics to problems in physics and the development of mathematical methods suitable for such applications and for the formulation of physical theories1. ...

Preece once stated, conveying setiments which were later made by Edwin Armstrong, Edwin Howard Armstrong (December 18, 1890 – January 31, 1954) was an American electrical engineer and inventor. ...

True theory does not require the abstruse language of mathematics to make it clear and to render it acceptable [...] All that is solid and substantial in science and usefully applied in practice, have been made clear by relegating mathematic symbols to their proper store place --- the study. - Preece's inaugural speech as president of the Institution of Electrical Engineers in 1893

Not to be confused with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE, I-triple-E). ... 1893 (MDCCCXCIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ...

References and external articles

• Russell Naughton , "Adventures in CyberSound: Preece, William Henry".
• " 100 Welsh Heroes / 100 Arwyr Cymru", 73. Sir William Henry Preece, Groundbreakers . Culturenet Cymru, 2004.
• Oil on canvas painting by Beatrice Bright of Sir William Preece

(1834-1913).