Overview

Charles Grafton Page (1812-68) was an American electrical experimenter and inventor, physician, patent examiner, patent advocate, and professor of chemistry. He began his career as an astute natural philosopher who developed innovative work with natural phenomena through direct observation and experimenting. Through his work Page developed a deep understanding of electromagnetism which he applied in the service of the US Patent Office in support of other inventors, and in pursuit of his own ill-fated dream of electromagnetic locomotion. His work had a lasting impact on telegraphy and in the practice and politics of patenting scientific innovation. Comfortable himself in public performance as a popular lecturer and singer, and being also a skilled ventriloquist, Page was astute in detecting the misuse of performative acts in defrauding the public. One of the most prevalent fraudulent schemes of the time involved communications with spirits by means of rapping sounds, the motion of a table, or other similar signs in the vicinity of the perpetrator-medium, these sounds and motions being attributed to occult forces and forms of electricity. Page investigated some of these performers in person, and in this book published in 1853 he exposes the various means of deception they employed, including his analysis of the techniques he witnessed during a sitting with the notorious Fox sisters of Rochester, New York. Page's efforts to expose these frauds stemmed in part from his keen concern for furthering public understanding of science and, in common with other scientists throughout history, his strong desire to debunk the unscrupulous applications of pseudoscience upon a willing and gullible public.

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9781847021731

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