Although his father intended for him to become a businessman, Oliver Lodge instead became one of the pioneers of communication systems at the turn of the nineteenth century. Born on June 12, 1851, at Penkhull, Staffordshire, England, he was the oldest of nine children. His father, who was also named Oliver (and was the twenty-third of twenty-five children), was a pottery merchant.

Young Oliver went to work in his father's business at age 14, but occasional visits to London afforded him the opportunity to attend lectures given by John Tyndall (1820-1893) at the Royal Institution. These lectures turned Lodge's interests toward science, and in 1873, at age 22, he enrolled at the Royal College of Science and at University College in London, studying electricity and physics. He received his doctorate degree in 1877, and became the first professor of physics at University College in Liverpool in 1881. He spent the next nineteen years in Liverpool...