British Scientists to be Commemorated on Amateur Radio in 2016

Throughout 2016 the Phoenix ARC and other UK clubs will commemorate the lives and achievements of over 20 British Scientists with short 'pop-up' events on anniversary days and sometimes from related locations.

The programme starts on 8 January 2016 by commemorating the birthday of Prof. Stephen Hawking, culminating on Christmas Day 2016 with Sir Isaac Newton.

Bronze, Silver and Gold Awards will be available for 5, 10 or 15 contacts made with the Commemorative Stations. Various clubs callsigns will be used for the events, and several events will use a UK Special Event ('GB') Callsign. All UK clubs can participate, most especially if they have a local connection to one of the scientists being commemorated.

More information is available on the PARC website - www.PhoenixARC.org.uk
or email PARC: info@phoenixarc.org.uk

( The full URL is https://sites.google.com/site/phoenixaradiouk/british_scientists_award )

 

What about " James Clerk Maxwell" the man who changed the world and gave us radio really

 

Uhh..

Joseph Swan? You want us to celebrate Joseph Swan?

Do you guys need a history lesson? In a word...Ed-i-son. Hope the light bulb went on for you.

Reminds me of the specious claim that a Siberian scientist invented fractal antennas...

73
Chip W1YW

 

Or Heaviside... who gave us Maxwell's Equations.

 

What about Martin Ryle??

He was ham to boot.

 

...Robert Watson-Watt?

 

It sounds like a fun event. Maybe you could add the scientists listen here plus Nikola Tesla and who ever is added later and make it a two year event.

 

Hello Chip,

Sorry, but Edison wasn't British.

 

And Edison didn't invent the light bulb. He made one that lasted longer. Or, rather, his paid help invented it and took credit for it. What did Edison "invent"??? He invented General Electric.

If we had followed Edison, we'd have a power plant on each block of New York City.

For me, the greatest American inventor of that era was Alexander Graham Bell.

However, Tesla was also an American...
http://www.activistpost.com/2012/01/10-inventions-of-nikola-tesla-that.html

 

According to Wiki and other publications, it was Joseph Swan that invented the incandescent light bulb, not Edison.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Swan

Edison, instead, was credited for making the original invention more useable by improving the filaments, but it was actually a black man, Lewis Latimer, who ended up working for Edison that actually did the improvements, some prior to his employment with Edison. Edison (an Company) took credit for the work.

 

Latimer worked for Bell, too, helped with the telephone and never got credit for any of that. To think the Bell single handedly invented the telephone is erroneous. Read up on Latimer and his work with the great, so called, inventors of that era.

 

Even though Maxwell was Scottish-born, he should definitely be included.

 

Thanks for that info. First I heard of Latimer. But it is typical of big corporations to have as part of their employment agreements that anything that the new employee invents belongs to the corporation. This seems logical except for when the invention was not done on company time. Three IBM engineers had a habit of meeting years ago ON THEIR TIME to create inventions so they could reap the benefits. They somehow left IBM later to form their own company, according to the magazine article.

When you go back to see who were the great Nobel Prize winners in the past. The majority of them were from Great Britain, and a significant number of those were from Scotland, especially relating to mathematics and physics. To me, this is also interesting.

Here are some interesting links relating to Latimer:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Howard_Latimer
http://www.biography.com/people/lewis-howard-latimer-9374422
http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/bhistory/inventors/latimer.htm
http://inventors.about.com/od/lstartinventors/a/Lewis_Latimer.htm
http://grist.org/climate-energy/mee...rican-american-who-enlightened-thomas-edison/

Interesting also is that Latimer also worked for Hiram Maxim where he invented the light bulb... This is from the last website linked above:

"... In 1880, Latimer began working for the United States Electric Lighting Company, which was run by Edison’s rival Hiram S. Maxim.

"A biography on EEI’s site states that while working for Maxim, 'Latimer invented and patented a process for making carbon filaments for light bulbs,' and helped install broad-scale lighting systems for New York City, Philadelphia, Montreal, and London. Latimer holds the patents for the electric lamp, issued in 1881, and for the “process of manufacturing carbons” (the filament used in incandescent light bulbs), issued in 1882. It was roughly 1885 when he finally joined forces with Edison and began improving upon his boss’s invention."

 

When I was in the first year of my apprenticeship, one of the questions was 'who invented the light bulb?' with the answer given as Edison. I challenged that answer and with some back up paperwork managed to get the answer changed, so that either Edison or Latimer was the correct answer.

 

Well, obviously.

My point is that I have no idea why we should 'celebrate' Joseph Swan. If its because he 'invented the practical incandescent lamp', the facts show otherwise.

73
Chip W1YW