"The Victorian Internet"

[fiefoe]

Tom Standage covers a lot of ground in this slim book.

• The simultaneous exclamations and contortions of a mile-long line of monks revealed that electricity could be transmitted over a great distance; and as far as Nollet could tell, it covered that distance instantly.
• Unlike light, electricity could be transmitted along wires and around corners; a line of sight from one place to another was not needed.
• Claude could then transmit numbers by going "clang" as the second hand passed over the number on the clock face that he wished to send.
• Chappe was put on a government salary, complete with the use of a horse.
• Napoleon Bonaparte, who seized power in 1799, was a firm believer in the telegraph;
• He also advocated a state-sanctioned daily national news bulletin. But Napoleon rejected both ideas, though he did agree to allow the weekly transmission of winning national lottery numbers.
• "Let us have electric conversazione offices, communicating with each other all over the kingdom, if we can."
• As Oersted discovered, it will cause a nearby compass needle to move. For the first time, there was a reliable, repeatable, and practical way to detect electricity.
• He found that in conjunction with a suitable electromagnet, a large number of small batteries connected in a row, rather than a single large battery, enabled the signal to travel much farther.
• Before the telegraph, there was no way to send information faster than a speeding train, so their getaway was assured. However, the presence of the telegraph alongside the Paddington-Slough line meant it was now possible to alert the police at the other end before the train's arrival.
• Thomas Edison and steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie both started out as telegraph messenger boys.
• One young girl asked her mother how the messages "get past the poles without being torn." The mother is said to have replied, "They are sent in a fluid state, my dear."