SIPHON RECORDER

摘要

William Thompson, later Lord Kelvin, was one of the outstanding scientific figures of the 19th Century, responsible for crucial theoretical and practical contributions to submarine telegraphy. In 1854, in a ground-breaking application of Fourier analysis, he showed that the cable was 'dispersive'- different frequency components travelled down the cable at different speeds - with the amplitude of the individual components decaying exponentially. This analysis provided an accurate explanation of the phenomenon of pulse retardation and spreading, evident in early cross-channel submarine cables.