British physicist, spiritualist, and principal of Birmingham University. In Dialogue 38 Cameron uses him to complete the optophone's chain of connections: because Fournier d'Albe was not a Fellow of the Royal Society, his 1914 optophone paper reached it only as "a communication from a physicist by the name of Sir Oliver Lodge," in whose lab Fournier d'Albe had worked. Lodge was also the uncle of Rupert Lodge, McLuhan's mentor in Winnipeg — the link that, for Bob, makes the whole convergence a "God's eye view."
Across the dialogues
Enters as the hidden hinge of the God's-eye view — the physicist who put the optophone before the Royal Society and whose nephew shaped McLuhan, linking the machine to McLuhan by blood
Lodge enters as the Royal Society sponsor who alone could carry Fournier d'Albe's optophone into the record — the establishment channel behind the machine.
"It was a communication from Sir Oliver Lodge."
Cameron closes the loop — Oliver Lodge's nephew is McLuhan's Winnipeg mentor, so the optophone's science and McLuhan's formation share a family tie.
"he was the uncle of Rupert Lodge,"
Connections
Oliver Lodge was the uncle of Rupert Lodge, McLuhan's philosophy mentor at Winnipeg.