2. A NERVOUS SYSTEM FOR THE EARTH
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The electric telegraph was likened to biological wiring:
comparing cables to nerves; the nation, or the whole
earth, to the human body.
In 1849, Alfred Smee likened the brain to a battery and
the nerves to “bio-telegraphs”
Electricity wasn’t understood in the 1800s, but Dionysius
Lardner stated “The World of Science is not agreed as
to the physical character of Electricity.”
Electricity was able to be sent along wires across long
distances for communication.
The process of making wires had caused a new realm of
engineering to be invented. Wires could become faintly
magnetized and became the electromagnet.
Electromagnets could sound alarms, govern the motion
of wheel-work; turn a handle, or even discharge a
cannon.
3. THE HISTORY OF TELEGRAPHS
Telegraphs were invented and named by Claude Chappe
The purpose of telegraphs was to send signals to other towers in line of sight
Chappe collaborated with his brothers and came up with the better telegraph that could
transmit 32 symbols
Chappe managed to gain the attention of legislators, and one of the legislator, Gilbert
Romme, persuaded the Convention to appropriate 6,000 francs for the construction of 3
telegraphs in northern Paris, 7 to 9 miles apart.
The telegraph system was setting a new standard for speed of communication, no other
communication was able to compete against it
The telegraph system was heavily depending on the ability of operator and weather
The telegraphs were mainly used for military purpose only, but later on Chappe proposed
sending other types of information like financial quotations, shipping news, and news from
stock exchanges.
4. THE TELEGRAPH
Many different schemes occurred to inventors
A Frenchman named Lomond in 1787 ran a single wire across
his apartment and claimed to be able to signal different letters
by making a pith ball dance in different directions.
In 1809 a German, Samuel Thomas von Sömmerring, made a
bubble telegraph. Current passing through wires in a vessel of
water produced bubbles of hydrogen; each wire, and thus
each jet of bubbles, could indicate a single letter.
The physicist André-Marie Ampère, a developer of the
galvanometer, proposed using that as a signaling device; it
was a needle deflected by electromagnetism
In Russia, Baron Pavel Schilling demonstrated a system with
five needles and later reduced that to one: he assigned
combinations of right and left signals to the letters and
numerals.
5. COOKE- WHEATSTONE VS. ALFRED VAIL’S
TELEGRAPH KEY
The Cooke – Wheatstone telegraph used six wires to
form three circuits, each controlling a magnetic needle.
It also had an alarm to keep the operators attention.
The next version displayed the alphabet through a slot.
20 letters were arranged on a diamond- shaped grid.
Samuel Morse came up with the idea of closing and
opening of a circuit instead of needles. The electric
current flowed and was interrupted, and the interruptions
could be organized to create meaning.
Vail created this vision by using a simple spring-loaded
lever and the operator would control by the touch of a
finger.
8. MORSE TELEGRAPHIC ALPHABET
Unofficial name of
language sent on
telegraphs
Was not an actual
alphabet, was a metaalphabet
The Secret
Corresponding
Vocabulary
Included 56,000 words
from Aaronic to
zygodactylous
Examples of secret
codes:
mhii – My health is
improving
shf – Stocks have fallen
ymir – Your message is
received
9. THE TELEGRAPH: WRITING IN CODE
“THE MORSE TELEGRAPHIC ALPHABET”
Systems were quickly created for short hand
communication enabled more transmittable info
with fewer billable words.
Common phrases were assigned one word
dictionary terms.
Vail’s Secret alphabet = a in the permanent
alphabet may be represented by y, or e, or x.
Sender and receiver needed code book (contained
56,000 English words plus instructions)
10. THE ART OF CRYPTOGRAPHY
After the telegraph was introduced, cryptography
became big in intellectual circles
Edgar Allen Poe, Jules Verne, and Honoré de
Balzac would put codes into their writings
Charles Babbage was the first to introduce algebra
into his codes
11. AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN AND GEORGE
BOOLE
They moved to working on integrating codes and
logic
Boole called it “mathematics without numbers”
Only the numbers 1 and 0 were allowed. Everything
else was consisted of p’s, q’s, +’s, -’s, braces, and
brackets. Then the conditionals if, either, and or
were used.
Capitalists in London formed the Electric Telegraph company, laying down foundations such as wires and cables drawn through pipes and along railroad tracks. The Central office ( Founder’s Hall, Lothburty) advertised its presence by installing an electric clock.The Clock was deemed the great brain of the nervous system of Britain.Nerves were known to conduct a form of electricity and to serve as conduits for the brain’s control of the body.Nobody knew what electricity was, “An invisible, intangible, imponderable agent”Benjamin Franklin proved “the sameness of lightning with electricity” with kite-flying, identifying lightning with sparks and currents.The new method of engineering created from the use of electrical currents had caused a logical puzzle, What form would a message take? How Would the telegraph convert currents into words?Pg. 125 - 129
The very first telegraphs weren’t very successful, because it was too delicate. The government liked the triumphant news that the first 3 telegraphs transmitted from the war front, so the government decided to build more telegraphs 120 miles long, from the Louvre in Paris to Lille. Later on, a lot of European countries started using the telegraph system. Sweden, Denmark, and Belgium adopted the French model, and Russia built 220 stations from Warsaw to St. Petersburg and Moscow. Chappe proposed sending other types of information besides military information, but Napoleon would not allow it, but himself used the telegraph to proclaim the birth of his son. Entrepreneurs began to organize private telegraph system, but France banned the private use of telegraph. Law mandated imprisonment and fine for “anyone performing unauthorized transmissions of signals from one place to another, with the aid of telegraphic machines or by any other means.”Pg 129 - 136
Pg. 136 - 140
Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail were in the United States and William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone were in England. Cooke- Wheatstone telegraph went through many revisions. Vail thought that cooke- wheatstone was inefficient. Since he didn't know anything about pith balls, bubbles, or litmus paper he came up with using the circuit! Pg. 140 - 143
The turning point came in 1844, both in England and the United States. Morse was able to report proudly to Congress that an instrument could transmit thirty characters per minute and that the lines had “remained undisturbed from the wantonness or evil disposition of any one.” In England the first messages recorded in the telegraph book at Paddington concerned lost luggage and retail transactions. “Send a messenger to Mr. Harris, Duke-street, Manchester-square, and request him to send 6 lbs of white bait and 4 lbs of sausages by the 5.30 train to Mr. Finch of Windsor; they must be sent by 5.30 down train, or not at all.”The telegraph made our world astronomically smaller where information could travel as fast as if it were thoughts in our heads. Information that just two years earlier had taken days to arrive at its destination could now be there—anywhere—in seconds. This was not a doubling or tripling of transmission speed; it was a leap of many orders of magnitude. It was like the bursting of a dam whose presence had not even been known.Pg. 144 - 152
With the lightning fast transmission of information we were now able to share data about local weather patterns leading to weather predictions. In 1854 the government established a Meteorological Office in the Board of Trade. They telegraphed their cloud and wind reports twice daily. Meteorologists began to understand that all great winds, when seen in the large, were circular, or at least “highly curved.” Cultural observers began to say that the telegraph was “annihilating” time and space. It “enables us to send communications, by means of the mysterious fluid, with the quickness of thought, and to annihilate time as well as space,” announced an American telegraph official in 1860. The new form of transmitting communication afar was being implemented over many diverse areas. “Much important information consisting of messages to and from merchants, members of Congress, officers of the government, banks, brokers, police officers; parties, who by agreement had met each other at the two stations, or had been sent for by one of the parties; items of news, election returns, announcement of deaths, inquiries respecting the health of families and individuals, the daily proceedings of the Senate and House of Representatives, orders for goods, inquiries respecting the sailing of vessels, proceedings of cases in the various courts, summoning of witnesses, messages in relation to special and express trains, invitations, the receipt of money at one station and its payment at the other, for persons requesting the transmission of funds from debtors, consultations of physicians.”This lead to confusion due to all of this diverse information classified under one type of heading; messaging and sending. There was one woman who brought a dish of sauerkraut into the telegraph office in Karlsruhe to be “sent” to her son in Rastatt. She had heard of soldiers being “sent” to the front lines by telegraph. Another instance was when a telegraph operator manipulated the telegraph key and then placed the paper on the hook. The customer complained that the message had not been sent because he could still see the paper hanging on the hook. Pg. 144 - 152
Morse Code was not called an actual code at firstMorse scheme took the alphabet as a starting point and leveraged it, by substitution, replacing signs with new signs.The Secret Corresponding Vocabulary: Created by Maine congressman O. J. Smith. Was one of the first published books on secret correspondence by telegraph.Both sender and receiver had to have the book to communicate. Instructions were also provided on how to interpret the codes sent.Pg. 152 - 158
---using the telegraph was also known as writing in code---initially it was called “The Morse telegraphic alphabet” (but was not an actual alphabet.) it was a meta alphabet---it took the alphabet as a starting point and substituted and replaced signs with new signs/words used for other words.---systems and methods were adapted to further protect someone’s message to others. They feared that their communication was going to be exposed to the world.---systems were created for commonly used phrases to be assigned to dictionary terms. If you knew the meaning of the dictionary term then you were able to understand the sentence or phrase it represented as well.---by sending shorthand messages it cut done on the cost to send multiple messages as well as the time it took to relay the message. As long as the sender and receiver were using the same updated code book to be able to refer to for encoding the message received.---vails secret alphabet = when characters in an alphabet have been transposed and interchanged. Difficult to understand unless you know the code or method of transposing the information into something you understand by using the same code book and symbols as the sender.--there were many code books so had to make sure both sender and receiver were using the same one. The book enabled the receiver to look up code of the message they received and be able to fully understand it.Pg. 159 - 161
Everyone from puzzle makers, game players, mathematicians, and poets were interested in cryptography and using it in their fields. Poe was naturally secretive, so cryptography was an obsession for him.Not only did Charles Babbage create new and different codes, but he also enjoyed breaking them as well. He was known as a dilettante of cryptography. He likened making codes to the moving parts of gears, levers, and switches.Pg. 161 - 167
Logic at the time had been specific to philosophy. So moving logic into math was unheard of at the time. 1’s and 0’s were used because it was all or nothing. At the time telegraphs were only used to relay messages from point A to point B instantaneously. Making codes was about masking what they were writing to others so that it was work to have to find out what was being said. George Boole found Lewis Carroll to be is idol. Carroll wrote two volumes of instruction, puzzles, diagrams, and exercises in symbolic logic.Bertrand Russell paid George Boole an extraordinary compliment: “Pure mathematics was discovered by Boole, in a work which he called the Laws of Thought.”Pg. 161 - 167
