Lightning Conductors and Lightning Guards
A Treatise on the Protection of Buildings, of Telegraph Instruments and Submarine Cables, and of Electrical Installations Generally, from Damage by Atmospheric Discharges

An eminent physicist's systematic 1892 study of the protection of buildings, cables and telegraphic instruments from lightning strikes.

Oliver Lodge (Author)

9781108052153, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 16 August 2012

590 pages, 121 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 3.3 cm, 0.74 kg

As a result of being asked to give public lectures on the subject, the eminent physicist Oliver Lodge (1851–1940) published in 1892 a pioneering study of the protection of buildings, cables and telegraphic instruments from the devastation caused by lightning strikes. This work led him almost immediately to the discovery of electromagnetic wave transmission and ultimately to the development of a version of radio telegraphy. Lodge also saw that many of the current theories about the nature of lightning were seriously in error, and his investigations led to a number of significant changes in the design of lightning conductors and lightning guards. Some of the methods and procedures that Lodge advocated have since become standard practice. They are described with Lodge's characteristic flair and accompanied by a wealth of illustrations that give a fascinating insight into how contemporary scientists and engineers tackled this significant problem.

Preface
1. General considerations concerning atmospheric electricity and lightning
2. General considerations regarding damage by lightning
3. General considerations concerning conductors for house protection
4. Further details regarding conductors
5. Experiments establishing the importance of electrical inertia
6. General explanation of these experiments
7. Application of the above mode of experimenting top determine further details
8. Further experiments
9. Liability of objects to be struck
10. Experiments bearing on the 'return stroke' and other unexpected vagaries of lightning
11. Conclusion of the Society of Arts lecture
12. Previous experiments of Messrs Hughes and Guillemin, and of Rood
13. On the theory of lightning conductors
14. Proceedings of the British Association meeting in Bath
15. Experimental lightning conductors and other observational matters
16. Summary and repetition of important points
17. Instructive extracts from reports of damage by lightning
18. Practical questions
19. Discussions
20. Theory of B circuits, of 'alternative path' experiments, and of side-flash
21. Resistance and impedance for frequencies comparable to a million per second
22. On the melting of conductors
23. On conditions under which points can be preferentially struck in Case B
24. Electric radiation
25. On the influence of self-conduction on the rate of discharge of a condenser or cloud
26. Theory and record of the experiment of the alternative path
27. Other experiments on the discharge of Leyden jars
28. Lightning conductors from a modern point of view
29. On lightning guards for telegraphic purposes , and on the protection of cables from lightning
30. Reply to criticisms
31. Construction and use of instruments
Appendices
Index.

Subject Areas: History of engineering & technology [TBX]