What do you think? Discuss this story in our online discussion boards
Program Committee The Program Committee is committed to providing a program which is of relevance and interest to all existing and new members of our diverse industry, and which meets or exceeds the highest level of commercial & technical excellence of previous SubOptic conventions. In addition to the above seven Program Vice Chairs, the Program Committee also includes John Horne (the secretary of the SubOptic Executive Committee), and the Program Chair for SubOptic 2010, Colin Anderson of NEC Corporation.
John Horne Secretary SubOptic EC
Colin Anderson PC Chair (NEC Corporation)
The members of the Program Committee represent a wide range of organisations from the industry, and have between them some 200 man-years and woman-years of experience in the telecoms industry.
47
tion Back Reflec stewart ash by
When the first transatlantic telegraph cable failed in September 1858, one newspaper, the Boston Courier, suggested that the cable had never worked, and that the entire project had been part of an elaborate stock fraud. “Was the Atlantic cable a humbug?” There was also a public outcry in Britain when, shortly afterwards, the Red Sea cable (Suez-Aden-Karachi) also failed.
The committee heard evidence from many experts of the time, but perhaps the most notable was Professor William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin). The committee’s report was finally published in 1861, and was described at the time as ‘the most valuable collection of facts, warnings, and evidence ever compiled concerning submarine cables.’ It concluded that ocean telegraphy was not as simple as previously thought and there was much still to learn. The report set out a series of recommendations for the construction of submarine cables, the methods of laying them and, thanks largely to Thomson, the methods of testing during production and installation.
So, 150 years ago the British Government and the Atlantic Telegraph Company set up a joint committee of enquiry to look into the failures of the Atlantic and Red Sea cables. The eight man committee was chaired by Captain Douglas Galton RE, the members were all pioneers of the telegraph One of its greatest recommendations industry and included electrical was for the standardisation of engineering legends Charles William Thomson measurement of electric current and (Lord Kelvin) Wheatstone and Cromwell Varley. resistance. This report formed the The other members were, William basis of the first set of standards for Fairbain, submarine President of c a b l e the British systems, Association many of for the which have Advancement survived of Science; to this day. George Parker H o w e v e r, Bidder, who perhaps the invented the committee’s concertina and greatest is responsible contribution for the word may have “microphone”; been that it engineers existed at all; Latimer and this group Edwin Clark; was the and Atlantic Telegraph Company Secretary George first of its kind and set the standard for many other Saward (history buffs can Google the names for rigorous inquiries into scientific failures that have more info). taken place in the years since it sat. Images courtesy of www.Atlantic-Cable.com