CHRISTIE, S. HUNTER. - THE INVENTION OF "THE WHEATSTONE BRIDGE"

The Bakerian Lecture.- Experimental Determination of the Laws of Magneto-electric Induction in different masses of the same Metal, and of its Intensity in different Metals. Read Feb. 28, 1833.

(London, Richard Taylor, 1833). 4to. No wrappers as extracted from "Philosophical Transactions" 1833 - Part I. Pp. 95-142 a. 2 engraved plates (showing the apparatus, the Wheatstone Bridge).

First appearance of the paper in which Christie describes his invention of the electrical circuit meant to measure an unknown electrical resistance by balancing two legs of a bridge circuit, one leg of which includes the unknown component. It was later (1843) improved and popularized by Charles Wheatstone, and then baptized "Wheatsone's Bridge". Wheatstone called the circuit a "Differential Resistance Measurer."

"Christie’s paper "Experimental Determination of the Laws of Magneto-electric Induction" was the Bakerian lecture for 1833. In it Christie showed that "the conducting power, varies as the squares of [the wires’] diameters directly, and as their lengths inversely." He also concluded that voltaelectricity, thermoelectricity, and magnetoelectricity are all conducted according to the same law, which lent further support to the theory that all these electricities are identical. In this paper (the paper offered) Christie also gave the first description of the instrument that came to be known as the Wheatstone bridge."(DSB).

Order-nr.: 46365