One of the great pioneers of electrical science, Oliver Heaviside (1850-1925) was a self-educated, fiercely independent genius who cared nothing for social or mathematical conventions. Among many achievements, he showed how to rid telephone lines of distortion and put Maxwell's wonderful but hitherto inaccessible theory of electromagnetism into its modern form. In his writings, and in life, he was always provocative, often amusing, sometimes infuriating, but never dull.This is a compelling account of Heaviside's life with a powerful insight into his scientific thinking and why it has been so influential.