LODGE, SIR Oliver Joseph, English physicist: b. Penkhull, Staffordshire, 12 June 1851. He was educated at University College, London, became demonstrator in physics there in 1875, and professor of the same subject in 1877. He was professor of physics at Univer sity College, Liverpool, 1881-1900, and in the latter year was appointed principal of the Uni versity of Birmingham. He was Rumford Medallist of the Royal Society in 1898; Ro manes lecturer at Oxfor'd 1903; president of the Physical Society of London 1899-1900; president of the Society for Psychical Research 1901-04; and president of the British Associa tion, 1913-14. He was knighted in 1902. He achieved eminence as a physicist in his work in connection with electricity, including the theo ries of contact electricity and electrolysis, the oscillatory discharge of Leyden jars, the pro duction of eleotro-magnetic waves in air, ex periments in the mitigation of fogs through electrical dispersion, and in the invention of the "coherer° in wireless telegraphy. His work as an educational reformer has been overshadowed in the public mind by his atti tude on the vexed question of religion and science, and by his views on psychical research and spiritualism. He has expounded the view
that communication between the living and the dead may be attained unhampered. In this connection his latest book, 'Raymond; or •Life and Death' (1916) has a pathetic interest. His son Raymond was killed in September 1915 in the Great War, and the hook records com munications begun soon after his death, made in the ordinary spiritualist way at seances held in presence of Sir Oliver and his family. His works include 'Elementary Mechanics' (1877);
Views of Electricity) (1889) ;
ning Conductors and Lightning Guards) (1892) ; (Pioneers of
(1893);
ern Views on Matter) (1903) •,,
and Mat ter' (4th ed., 1907) ; (The Substance of Faith) (1907);
and the Universe' (5th ed., 1909); 'The Immortality of the Soul) (1908) ; (The Ether of Space) (1909);