IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2022 - 16

Book Review
A Pioneer of Connection: Recovering the Life
and Work of Oliver Lodge-James Mussell
and Graeme Gooday (Pittsburgh, PA, USA:
Univ. Pittsburgh Press, 2020, 304 pp.)
Reviewed by Eric P. Wenaas
 There has noT been a biography of Oliver
Lodge published for decades-and with good reason.
No one cares! That is the basic thesis of this
biography. The editors observe that while Oliver
Lodge was a physicist, engineer, spiritualist, science
popularizer, university manager, and a key figure in
late 19th- and early 20th-century culture, today he
remains relatively neglected, largely because of the
apparent contradictions between different aspects of
his career. For example, Lodge was a physicist, but
at the same time, he was also a spiritualist and psychic.
Also, Lodge embraced new physics, including
Einstein's theory of relativity, which did not require
the existence of the ether to explain wave motion
through space, but at the same time, Lodge continued
to embrace the presence and importance of the
ether, even after experiments were unable to detect
or measure it, and after the concept had fallen out
of favor among mainstream scientists. The editors
claim that Lodge often used the concept of the ether
to " provide a ready explanation for what would otherwise
be occult phenomena. "
The stated objectives of this book are to clarify
aspects of Lodge's life's work that are not well known
and to explain how he connected or integrated his
thoughts about science and humanities. In doing so,
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2022.3197122
Date of current version: 16 September 2022.
16
0278-0097/22©2022 IEEE
the editors aspire to restore his importance and the
value of his contributions to both science and the
humanities. The editors believe that Lodge lost favor
with the public and scientists alike over the years,
primarily because of his affinity for psychic activities,
which actually began in 1884, when he joined
the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) and began
to write articles for its periodicals. He also served as
its president from 1901 to 1903.
The book consists of an introduction followed by
12 essays, each written by different authors, most or
all of whom are professors at various universities in
the United Kingdom. The essays, which are all narratives
about some portion of Lodge's life, are assigned
chapter numbers and divided into three parts with
the following headings: 1) " Lodge's Lives, " 2) " Science
and Communication, " and 3) " Science, Spiritualism,
and the Spaces in Between. "
In fact, the book is divided into two distinct parts
beginning with three chapters that provide a short
and superficial description of Lodge's life and scientific
work between 1881 and 1914 while he was
a professor at the Universities of Liverpool and
Birmingham. The last seven chapters provide an
account and analyses of Lodge's writings and lectures
after he retired in 1919. This latter material is
the raison d'être for this book because they cover
much new ground that has not been generally available.
The book does not focus on the subject of his
writings and lectures about the spiritual and psychic
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2022

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