A Thread across the Ocean: The Heroic Story of the Transatlantic Cable

Cooper, Richard N.; Gordon, John Steele; Galamdos, Louis; Abrahamson, Eric

doi:10.2307/20033365

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…To ensure acceptable conductivity, Thomson established a quality check on copper used for the Atlantic submarine cables. 38,47 The present authors believe this was most likely the first instance of 'quality control' applied to copper destined for electrical applications.…”

Section: Genesis Of Copper Quality For Electrical Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 71%

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Development of copper quality: an historical perspective

Mackey¹,

Wraith²

2004

Mineral Processing and Extractive Metallurgy

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The high quality standards of copper produced commercially today depend upon two process factors: (i) the effectiveness of the primary extraction step in safely eliminating damaging minor impurity elements; and (ii) the sustained refining capabilities of electrolytic cathode production. The principal source of new copper remains the sulphidic ores, and the evolution of primary extraction technology for sulphides from the mid-19th century to the present is briefly reviewed in relation to impurity treatment. Earlier industrial uses of copper in, for example, the sheathing of wooden ships' hulls, were tolerant of the relatively high impurity levels in fire refined copper, although the significance of impurities on service life was recognised. Modern electrolytic refining, which began in Wales in 1869, grew out of the Victorian fascination with decorative electrodeposition. By that time, studies of the links between copper composition and electrical conductivity in relation to the development of the submarine telegraph cable were beginning to show the crucial importance of copper purity for electrical applications. The rapid growth of these applications around the turn of the century produced a corresponding growth in demand for high purity copper, establishing electrorefining as the basis for modern, and increasingly exacting, quality standards. This growth has taken place against a background of profound changes in the geographical location, complexity and mineral processing of mineable copper deposits which continue to challenge the achievement of those standards. P. J. Mackey is at Noranda-Falconbridge, Falconbridge Technology Centre, Montreal Office, 2250 boul. Alfred Nobel, St Laurent QC, Canada H4S 2C9 and A. E. Wraith is in the

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Section: Genesis Of Copper Quality For Electrical Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 71%

“…Following several failed attempts over the period 1856-1857, the completion of the first successful trans-Atlantic submarine cable in the summer of 1858 by The Atlantic Telegraph Company [36][37][38] heralded an era of long distance communications that the world had not seen before. Fig.…”

Section: Genesis Of Copper Quality For Electrical Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of copper quality: an historical perspective

Mackey¹,

Wraith²

2004

Mineral Processing and Extractive Metallurgy

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“…Circuits appear in the traditional literature only when dealing with nerve and muscle cells [16][17][18]70]. The cable equation was widely known to workers in Cambridge UK in the 1930's in the afterglow of the triumphant technology of Victorian England including the trans-Atlantic cable [104][105][106]. That history and physics/engineering is not widely known to biologists today and the importance of the cable equation has been more or less lost to the common knowledge of molecular and cellular biologists.…”

Section: Current Lawsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is historically interesting that the analysis of the action potential depends on the Maxwell current law (3) in the form of the cable equation used in 1850 [104,105] to describe the telegraph under the ocean [106], the trans-Atlantic cable. Hodgkin and Huxley used the cable equation [16,17] and Cole's voltage clamp [18] to show that action potentials arose from conduction currents through channels (then called conductances) in the membrane of nerve fibers.…”

Section: Chemiosmotic Hypothesis Revisitedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Maxwell’s True Current

Eisenberg

2024

Computation

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Maxwell defined a ‘true’ or ‘total’ current in a way not widely used today. He said that “… true electric current … is not the same thing as the current of conduction but that the time-variation of the electric displacement must be taken into account in estimating the total movement of electricity”. We show that the true or total current is a universal property of electrodynamics independent of the properties of matter. We use mathematics without the approximation of a dielectric constant. The resulting Maxwell current law is a generalization of the Kirchhoff law of current used in circuit analysis, that also includes the displacement current. The generalization is not a long-time low-frequency approximation in contrast to the traditional presentation of Kirchhoff’s law.

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International Communications and International Crises in Latin America, 1867-1881

Britton¹

2008

The Latin Americanist

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The building of the network of submarine telegraph cables in Latin America changed the ways in which diplomats, politicians, business leaders and journalists conducted their affairs. This new network played a part in the resolution of several international crises. Cable communications alerted a British gunboat that brought an end to the summary executions in Cuba (ordered by a Spanish general) of sailors and passengers from a captured ship, the Virginius, that carried a United States flag. International telegraphy made possible the quick settlement of the consequent dispute between Spain and the United States. International cables enabled British businesses, the London press, and the Foreign Office to monitor the Argentine political crisis of 1880 and agree that direct intervention was not advisable. U.S. diplomats helped Chile and Argentina resolve their long standing boundary dispute in 1881. The main point of this paper, however, is that the solutions to these crises obscured early signs of significant problems that became more pronounced in the use of cables in later events: sensationalist coverage of international crises in the U.S. press, an uneven and often misunderstood intimacy between Argentina and Britain, and the intrusiveness of the United States in Chilean politics.

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A Thread across the Ocean: The Heroic Story of the Transatlantic Cable

Cited by 7 publications

References 0 publications

Development of copper quality: an historical perspective

Development of copper quality: an historical perspective

Maxwell’s True Current

International Communications and International Crises in Latin America, 1867-1881

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