Charles Wheatstone’s name was once familiar to students because they used his eponymous bridge to measure resistances. That usage seems to be disappearing—we all have access to digital ohmmeters—but the techniques that he developed for making electrical measurements can still be used with profit. Also, his work with measuring very short time intervals and his work with musical acoustics are still with us, if in modified forms. Here are a few examples of his work.
References
1.
2.
Thomas B.
Greenslade
Jr., “Marloye’s harp and the thumb piano
,” Phys. Teach.
38
, 310
–312
(May
2001
).3.
Charles
Wheatstone
, “Description of the kaleidophone; a new philosophical toy, for the illustration of several interesting and amusing acoustical and optical phenomena
,” Q. J. Sci.
344
–351
(1827
). Note: readers might want to look at The Scientific Papers of Charles Wheatstone (Taylor and Francis, London, 1879), which is available on the internet. This contains the article referred to here, and also the ones in Refs. 6, 8, and 10.4.
John
Tyndall
, Sound
, 3rd ed. (D. Appleton and Company
, New York
, 1881
), pp. 158
and 163
.5.
Thomas B.
Greenslade
Jr. , “Nineteenth century textbook illustrations LI, the kaleidophone
,” Phys. Teach.
30
, 38
–39
(Jan.
1992
);Thomas B.
Greenslade
Jr. , “Devices to illustrate Lissajous figures
,” Phys. Teach.
41
, 351
–354
(Sept.
2003
);J. A.
Daffron
and Thomas B.
Greenslade
Jr. , “Modern kaleidophones
,” Phys. Teach.
53
, 407
–408
(Oct.
2015
).See also
Robert J.
Whittaker
, “The Wheatstone kaleidophone
,” Am. J. Phys.
61
, 722
–728
(Aug.
1993
).6.
Charles
Wheatstone
, “An account of some experiments to measure the velocity of electricity and the duration of electric light
,” Phil. Trans.
124
, 583
–591
(1834
).7.
Thomas B.
Greenslade
Jr., “The rotating mirror
,” Phys. Teach.
19
, 253
–255
(April
1981
).8.
Charles
Wheatstone
, “An account of several new instruments and processes for determining the constants of a voltaic circuit
,” Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond.
133
, 303
–327
(1843
).9.
Samuel Hunter
Christie
, “Experimental determination of the laws of electro-magnetic induction
,” Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond.
123
, 95
–142
(1833
).10.
Charles
Wheatstone
, “On some remarkable, and hitherto unobserved, phenomena of binocular vision
,” Phil. Trans.
128
(1838
).11.
Merritt W.
Green
III and Thomas B.
Greenslade
Jr., “Experiments with stereoscopic images
,” Phys. Teach.
11
, 215
–221
(April
1973
).12.
Brian
Bowers
, Sir Charles Wheatstone
(Her Majesty’s Stationery Office
, London
, 1975
). A revised edition was published in 2001.© 2017 American Association of Physics Teachers.
2017
American Association of Physics Teachers
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