Wheatstone, Sir Charles [key], 1802–75, English physicist and inventor. He was professor at King's College, London, from 1834. A pioneer in telegraphy, he was coinventor with Sir W. F. Cooke of an electric telegraph (patented 1837) and inventor of many other devices, including an automatic transmitter, an electric recording apparatus, and an automatic telegraph. He is credited with the invention of the concertina and with improving the stereoscope and the dynamo. He is known also for his research on light (color vision and spectra), sound, and electricity; he popularized a method for the measurement of electrical resistance using a network now known as the Wheatstone bridge. He was knighted in 1868.
See his collected Scientific Papers (1879).
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