Part 1 of 5 · freeIntroduction
On August 16, 1858, a telegraph cable carried a message from Valentia Island in Ireland to Trinity Bay in Newfoundland: congratulations from Queen Victoria to the American president, James Buchanan. Two continents were joined for the first time. Three weeks later, the line fell silent. The blame landed on Wildman Whitehouse, the company's electrician, who had been driving enormous voltages into the wire to force the signals through.
He was not innocent. But the historian Donard de Cogan, examining cable recovered from the seabed, found manufacturing defects in it: in places, the copper core sat off-center inside its insulation. Whitehouse did not kill a sound cable. He finished off a damaged one, and the damage was there before it sailed.
The rest is in the Sophia app.The remaining parts, the open-book quiz and the full glossary. Free to start; Premium unlocks everything.
- 2The first message crosses the ocean
- 3Two theories, and the cheaper one wins
- 4Whitehouse fakes the tape
- 5The proof in a bucket of seawater
Open-book quiz8 questions whose answers are in the text.
Glossary7 terms explained in a tap.
30 languagesThe same course, from French to Japanese.
