Oliver Lodge

Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge (12 June 1851 – 22 August 1940) was an English physicist whose investigations into electromagnetic radiation contributed to the development of radio communication. He identified electromagnetic radiation independent of Heinrich Hertz's proof. At his 1894 Royal Institution lectures ("''The Work of Hertz and Some of His Successors''"), Lodge's demonstrations on methods to transmit and detect radio waves included an improved early radio receiver he named the "coherer". His work led to him holding key patents in early radio communication, his "syntonic" (or tuning) patents.

Lodge was appointed the assistant professor of applied mathematics at Bedford College, London in 1879, became the chair of physics at the University College Liverpool in 1881, and was the principal of the University of Birmingham from 1900 to 1919.

Lodge was also pioneer of spiritualism. His pseudoscientific research into life after death was a topic on which he wrote many books, including the best-selling ''Raymond; or, Life and Death'' (1916), which detailed messages he received from a medium, which he believed came from his son who was killed in the First World War. Provided by Wikipedia