1 Who invented the lightning rod? Easy -- Ben Franklin. Who invented the
telephone? Easy -- Alexander Graham Bell. Who invented the radio? Not so easy.
At one time individual people invented many new machines. However, as technology
became more complex, more and more inventions were the result of several
people's work. Sometimes more than one person built the same invention. Also,
sometimes good businessmen made an invention popular and got the credit.
2 Here is what happened with the invention of the radio, called wireless
telegraphy at the time.
3 Guglielmo Marconi, the person who generally gets the credit for inventing the
radio, began experimenting with wireless communication in the attic of his
father's villa in Italy. In 1895, he sent a wireless signal one and one-half
miles.
4 Marconi found that England was interested in his discovery. They hoped to use
it for communication with ships at sea. So, in 1896, Marconi moved to England
and began his Wireless Communication and Signal Company. By 1899, he was able to
send a signal across the English Channel, a distance of 31 miles.
5 At the same time, an inventor in the United States, Nikola Tesla, was also
experimenting with wireless communication. As early as 1893, he had experimented
with the technology and conducted demonstrations and lectures on the subject.
Unfortunately, his progress was slowed when a fire destroyed his laboratory.
6 Several other people were also working on the same invention, including a
college professor from Liverpool, England, a physics teacher from the US, a
Canadian professor, and an American dentist. But Marconi and Tesla seemed to be
the top competitors for the honor of being named the inventor of wireless
telegraphy.
7 Both Marconi and Tesla applied for patents on their invention. Marconi
received the first patent. Soon after that, Tesla received a patent. When
Marconi applied for a United State patent, he was turned down, because the
patent office believed that Tesla had discovered wireless telegraphy first.
Twenty years after the telephone was invented and music was first sent down a
telephone line, Guglielmo Marconi sent radio signals.
Marconi (1874-1937) was born in Italy and studied at the University of Bologna.
He was fascinated by Heinrich Hertz's earlier discovery of radio waves and
realised that it can be used for sending and receiving telegraph messages,
referring to it as "wireless telegraphs."
Marconi's first radio transmissions, in 1896, were coded signals that were
transmitted only about 1,6 km (a mile) far. Marconi realised that it held huge
potential. He offered the invention to the Italian government but they turned it
down. He moved to England, took out a patent, and experimented further. In 1898
Marconi flashed the results of the Kingstown Regatta to the offices of a Dublin
newspaper, thus making a sports event the first "public" broadcast. The next
year Marconi opened the first radio factory in Chelmsford, Essex and established
a radio link between Britain and France. A link with the USA was established in
1901. In 1909 Marconi shared the Nobel prize in physics for his wireless
telegraph. Marconi became a wealthy man.
Signals only
But Marconi's wireless telegraph transmitted only signals. Voice over the air,
as we know radio today, came only in 1921. Marconi went on to introduce short
wave transmission in 1922.
Marconi was not the first to invent the radio, however. Four years before
Marconi started experimenting with wireless telegraph, Nikoli Tesla, a Croatian
who moved to the USA in 1884, invented the theoretical model for radio. Tesla
tried unsuccessful to obtain a court injunction against Marconi in 1915. In 1943
the US Supreme Court reviewed the decision. Tesla became acknowledged as the
inventor of the radio - even though he did not build a working radio.
Who then, tell me?!
There are other claims to the throne of radio inventor.
Indian scientist Sir J.C. Bose demonstrated the radio transmission in 1896 in
Calcutta in front of the British Governor General. The transmission was over a
distance of three miles from the Presidency College and Science College in
Calcutta. The instruments ('Mercuri Coherer with a telephone detector') are
still there in the science museum of the Calcutta University. Thus writes
contributor Dipak Basu, referencing the Proceedings of the IEEE, January, 1998.
Bose repeated his demonstration in the Royal Society in London in 1899 in the
presence of Lord Rayleigh (Nobel prize winner in Physics, 1904), Fleming
(Professor at London university and later an advisor to the Marconi company),
and Lord Lister (President of the Royal Society). As a result he was offered
Professorship in Cambridge, but declined.
Bose had solved the problem of the Hertz not being able to penetrate walls,
mountains or water. Marconi was present in the meeting of the Royal Society and
it is thought that he stole the notetbook of Bose that included the drawing of
the 'Mercuri Coherer with a telephone detector'. Marconi's Coherer, which he
used in 1901, was the exact copy of that of Bose. Apparently Marcon was unable
to explain how he got to the design. He said that an Italian Navy engineer
called Solari had developed it, but Solari late denied it. Marconi then said
that Italian Professor Timasina did, which later was exposed as a lie by another
Italian professor, Banti.
Bose did not apply for a patent on his design because he believed in the free
flow of inventions in science. But under pressure from American friends, he
applied for the patent in September 1901. He was awarded the US patent for the
invention of the radio in 1904. By that time Marconi had received his patent and
international recognition.
"Hello Rainey!"
It is reputed that Nathan B. Stubblefield, a farmer from Murray, Kentucky, made
a voice transmission four years before Marconi transmitted radio signals. in
1892, Stubblefield handed his friend Rainey T. Wells a box and told him to walk
away some distance. Wells said later: "I had hardly reached my post.. when I
heard I heard HELLO RAINEY come booming out of the receiver."
Stubblefield demonstrated his invention to the press in 1902 but, being afraid
that his invention will be stolen, never marketed his wireless radio. When he
was found dead in 1929, his radio equipment was gone. Nikoli Tesla remains to be
acknowledged as the inventor of the radio.
Radio everywhere
Today, there are more than 33,000 radio stations around the world, with more
than 12,000 in the US alone. Worldwide there are 2,24 billion radio sets, or one
radio for every 2.5 persons; proof that video never killed the radio star.
Tesla's drawing published in 1893, showing the first radio communication
Nikola Tesla
The Guglielmo Marconi Case
Who is the True Inventor of Radio?
How many mistakes are there in our history books after all? How many facts are
erroneously described and so replicated throughout the world, while the reality
is completely different?
The invention of radio is one of these cases. Despite the fact that almost every
book mentions Guglielmo Marconi as the inventor of radio, the only thing Marconi
did seems to be nothing more than reproducing apparati Nikola Tesla had
registered years ago. Marconi copied Tesla, made some modifications, built a
large industry producing radio devices in Europe and spent huge amounts to
advertise his supposed invention.
Yet, the inventor of radio is Nikola Tesla, as proved by official court
decisions and as great scientists of his era admit.
The Facts
1893 Tesla carries his first experiments with high frequency electric currents.
The first demonstration of wireless communication. In his articles and lectures
Tesla describes his first radio apparatus in detail.
1895 Marconi presents a radio device in London, claiming it as his invention.
However, the device is the same as what Tesla had already described in his
articles. Later on, Marconi will claim that he had not read Tesla's articles,
despite that they were translated in many languages very quickly.
1897 First patent registered by Nikola Tesla on radio communication, Patent No.
645576.
1898 Tesla constructs the first remotely controlled boat and demonstrates it in
New York. He registers this invention under Patent No. 613809.
1899 Tesla builds a large radio station in Colorado Springs, USA and starts his
experiments. His observations are noted in his diary.
1900 Marconi starts selling his radio apparatus. Tesla says he wants to sue him.
1901 Tesla begins the construction of a huge radio station in Wanderclyffe, near
New York. This station, Tesla's biggest dream, would transmit electric signals
and energy to the whole planet. It was never completed, due to lack of financial
means. The same year, Marconi transmits his first message over the Atlantic. The
world was impressed, but did not learn that Marconi was only using Tesla's
Patent No. 645576 (1897).
1916 Marconi starts exploiting the rights of his supposed invention, considering
himself, and not Tesla, the patent holder.
1917 In an article in "Electrical Experimenter" Tesla announces a system to
locate metallic objects through radio signal reflection. This is the beginning
of the radar.
1943 Nine months after Tesla's death, the Supreme Patent Court of the USA
decides that Nikola Tesla must be considered the father of wireless transmission
and radio. Justifying its decision the court notes that in Marconi's related
Patent (No. 763772 of 1904) there is nothing new not having been earlier
published and registered by Tesla. The Court considered Marconi's claim that he
did not knew of Tesla's patents false.
Other Scientists' Opinions
• Alexander Popov, radio pioneer, in front of the Congress of Russian Electrical
Engineers in 1900: "the emission and reception of signals by Marconi by means of
electric oscillations is nothing new. In America, the famous engineer Nikola
Tesla carried the same experiments in 1893."
• James Wait, in charge of the USA project for radio communications with
submarines at low frequencies: "from a historic point of view, Nikola Tesla
imagined a world communications system employing a huge emitter in Colorado
Springs in 1899; unfortunately, his sponsor cut all financial support. Tesla's
experiments however have a tremendous similarity to the future development of
low frequency communications."
• B.A. Behrend, famous American scientist. It is said that when his colleagues
thought they had discovered something new, he suggested they first had a look at
Tesla's patents before proceeding with publishing their findings.
• Edwine Armstrong, Tesla's colleague, later honored with a Nobel prize: "I
believe that the world will wait long time for a progress and imagination equal
to Tesla's."
In one of his rare moments of expressing anger when asked to comment on Marconi,
Tesla said: "Marconi is a... donkey"
Despite all these, Marconi received the Nobel prize in 1909 for wireless
telegraphy! When the possibility of honoring Nikola Tesla with the Nobel Prize
was discussed later (likely for his work on electric energy transmission) he
publicly refused it, noting that the importance of his inventions was not yet
understood and that for him it would be more important to see his name on each
of his numerous inventions that changed the world. Even for one such invention,
he concluded, he would give the Nobel Prize away for a thousand years.
Sources
1. "Tesla: Man out of time", Margaret Cheney, Ed. Layrel, N.York 1983. (probably
the best Tesla biography)
2. "Nikola Tesla, Life and Work of a Genius", Yugoslavian Society for the
Promotion of the Scientific Thought "Nikola Tesla", Belgrade 1976. (Proceedings
of the Nikola Tesla conference for the pronouncement of the year 1976 as the
Nikola Tesla Year in Yugoslavia)
The Invention of Radio
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Radio owes its development to two other inventions, the telegraph and the
telephone, all three technologies are closely related. (Read the history found
on the telegraph and telephone pages to better understand the roots of radio)
Few radio broadcasts travel through the air exclusively, while many are sent
over telephone wires. In the 1860s, James Clerk Maxwell, a Scottish physicist,
predicted the existence of radio waves, and in 1886 Heinrich Rudolph Hertz, a
German physicist, demonstrated that rapid variations of electric current could
be projected into space in the form of radio waves similar to those of light and
heat.
Guglielmo Marconi, an Italian inventor, proved the feasibility of radio
communication. He sent and received his first radio signal in Italy in 1895. By
1899 he flashed the first wireless signal across the English Channel and two
years later received the letter "S", telegraphed from England to Newfoundland.
This was the first successful transatlantic radiotelegraph message in 1902.
(Note: Nikola Tesla is now credited with having inventing modern radio; the
Supreme Court overturned Marconi's patent in 1943 in favor of Tesla.)
Wireless signals proved effective in communication for rescue work when a sea
disaster occurred. Effective communication was able to exist between ships and
ship to shore points. A number of ocean liners installed wireless equipment. In
1899 the United States Army established wireless communications with a lightship
off Fire Island, New York. Two years later the Navy adopted a wireless system.
Up to then, the Navy had been using visual signaling and homing pigeons for
communication.
In 1901, radiotelegraph service was instituted between five Hawaiian Islands. By
1903, a Marconi station located in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, carried an exchange
or greetings between President Theodore Roosevelt and King Edward VII. In 1905
the naval battle of Port Arthur in the Russo-Japanese war was reported by
wireless, and in 1906 the U.S. Weather Bureau experimented with radiotelegraphy
to speed notice of weather conditions.
In 1909, Robert E. Peary, arctic explorer, radiotelegraphed: "I found the Pole".
In 1910 Marconi opened regular American-European radiotelegraph service, which
several months later, enabled an escaped British murderer to be apprehended on
the high seas. In 1912, the first transpacific radiotelegraph service linked San
Francisco with Hawaii.
Overseas radiotelegraph service developed slowly, primarily because the initial
radiotelegraph set discharged electricity within the circuit and between the
electrodes was unstable causing a high amount of interference. The Alexanderson
high-frequency alternator and the De Forest tube resolved many of these early
technical problems. The Navy made major use of radio transmitters -- especially
Alexanderson alternators, the only reliable long-distance wireless transmitters
- for the duration.
During World War I, governments began using radiotelegraph to be alert of events
and to instruct the movement of troops and supplies. World War II demonstrated
the value of radio and spurred its development and later utilization for
peacetime purposes. Radiotelegraph circuits to other countries enabled persons
almost anywhere in the United States to communicate with practically any place
on earth.
Since 1923, pictures have been transmitted by wire, when a photograph was sent
from Washington to Baltimore in a test. The first transatlantic radiophoto relay
came in 1924 when the Radio Corporation of America beamed a picture of Charles
Evans Hughes from London to New York. RCA inaugurated regular radiophoto service
in 1926.
Two radio communication companies once had domestic networks connecting certain
large cities, but these were closed in World War II. However, microwave and
other developments have made it possible for domestic telegraph communication to
be carried largely in part over radio circuits. In 1945 Western Union
established the first microwave beam system, connecting New York and
Philadelphia. This has since been extended and is being developed into a
coast-to-coast system. By 1988 Western Union could transmit about 2,000
telegrams simultaneously in each direction.
The first time the human voice was transmitted by radio is debateable. Claims to
that distinction range from the phase, "Hello Rainey" spoken by Natan B.
Stubblefield to a test partner near Murray, Kentucky, in 1892, to an
experimental program of talk and music by Reginald A. Fessenden, of Brant Rock,
Massachusetts, in 1906, which was heard by radio-equipped ships within several
hundred miles.
In 1915 speech was first transmitted across the continent from New York City to
San Francisco and across the Atlantic Ocean from Naval radio station NAA at
Arlington, Virginia, to the Eiffel Tower in Paris. There was some experimental
military radiotelephony in World War I between ground and aircraft.
The first ship-to-shore two way radio conversation occurred in 1922, between
Deal Beach, New Jersey, and the S.S. America, 400 miles at sea. However, it was
not until 1929 that high seas public radiotelephone service was inaugurated. At
that time telephone contact could be made only with ships within 1,500 miles of
shore. Today there is the ability to telephone nearly every large ship wherever
it may be on the globe.
Commercial radiotelephony linking North America with Europe was opened in 1927,
and with South America three years later. In 1935 the first telephone call was
made around the world, using a combination of wire and radio circuits.
Until 1936, all American transatlantic telephone communication had to be routed
through England. In that year, a direct radiotelephone circuit was opened to
Paris. Telephone connection by radio and cable is now accessible with 187
foreign points.
The Invention of Radio
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Radio owes its development to two other inventions, the telegraph and the
telephone, all three technologies are closely related. (Read the history found
on the telegraph and telephone pages to better understand the roots of radio)
Few radio broadcasts travel through the air exclusively, while many are sent
over telephone wires. In the 1860s, James Clerk Maxwell, a Scottish physicist,
predicted the existence of radio waves, and in 1886 Heinrich Rudolph Hertz, a
German physicist, demonstrated that rapid variations of electric current could
be projected into space in the form of radio waves similar to those of light and
heat.
Guglielmo Marconi, an Italian inventor, proved the feasibility of radio
communication. He sent and received his first radio signal in Italy in 1895. By
1899 he flashed the first wireless signal across the English Channel and two
years later received the letter "S", telegraphed from England to Newfoundland.
This was the first successful transatlantic radiotelegraph message in 1902.
(Note: Nikola Tesla is now credited with having inventing modern radio; the
Supreme Court overturned Marconi's patent in 1943 in favor of Tesla.)
Wireless signals proved effective in communication for rescue work when a sea
disaster occurred. Effective communication was able to exist between ships and
ship to shore points. A number of ocean liners installed wireless equipment. In
1899 the United States Army established wireless communications with a lightship
off Fire Island, New York. Two years later the Navy adopted a wireless system.
Up to then, the Navy had been using visual signaling and homing pigeons for
communication.
In 1901, radiotelegraph service was instituted between five Hawaiian Islands. By
1903, a Marconi station located in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, carried an exchange
or greetings between President Theodore Roosevelt and King Edward VII. In 1905
the naval battle of Port Arthur in the Russo-Japanese war was reported by
wireless, and in 1906 the U.S. Weather Bureau experimented with radiotelegraphy
to speed notice of weather conditions.
In 1909, Robert E. Peary, arctic explorer, radiotelegraphed: "I found the Pole".
In 1910 Marconi opened regular American-European radiotelegraph service, which
several months later, enabled an escaped British murderer to be apprehended on
the high seas. In 1912, the first transpacific radiotelegraph service linked San
Francisco with Hawaii.
Overseas radiotelegraph service developed slowly, primarily because the initial
radiotelegraph set discharged electricity within the circuit and between the
electrodes was unstable causing a high amount of interference. The Alexanderson
high-frequency alternator and the De Forest tube resolved many of these early
technical problems. The Navy made major use of radio transmitters -- especially
Alexanderson alternators, the only reliable long-distance wireless transmitters
- for the duration.
During World War I, governments began using radiotelegraph to be alert of events
and to instruct the movement of troops and supplies. World War II demonstrated
the value of radio and spurred its development and later utilization for
peacetime purposes. Radiotelegraph circuits to other countries enabled persons
almost anywhere in the United States to communicate with practically any place
on earth.
Since 1923, pictures have been transmitted by wire, when a photograph was sent
from Washington to Baltimore in a test. The first transatlantic radiophoto relay
came in 1924 when the Radio Corporation of America beamed a picture of Charles
Evans Hughes from London to New York. RCA inaugurated regular radiophoto service
in 1926.
Two radio communication companies once had domestic networks connecting certain
large cities, but these were closed in World War II. However, microwave and
other developments have made it possible for domestic telegraph communication to
be carried largely in part over radio circuits. In 1945 Western Union
established the first microwave beam system, connecting New York and
Philadelphia. This has since been extended and is being developed into a
coast-to-coast system. By 1988 Western Union could transmit about 2,000
telegrams simultaneously in each direction.
The first time the human voice was transmitted by radio is debateable. Claims to
that distinction range from the phase, "Hello Rainey" spoken by Natan B.
Stubblefield to a test partner near Murray, Kentucky, in 1892, to an
experimental program of talk and music by Reginald A. Fessenden, of Brant Rock,
Massachusetts, in 1906, which was heard by radio-equipped ships within several
hundred miles.
In 1915 speech was first transmitted across the continent from New York City to
San Francisco and across the Atlantic Ocean from Naval radio station NAA at
Arlington, Virginia, to the Eiffel Tower in Paris. There was some experimental
military radiotelephony in World War I between ground and aircraft.
The first ship-to-shore two way radio conversation occurred in 1922, between
Deal Beach, New Jersey, and the S.S. America, 400 miles at sea. However, it was
not until 1929 that high seas public radiotelephone service was inaugurated. At
that time telephone contact could be made only with ships within 1,500 miles of
shore. Today there is the ability to telephone nearly every large ship wherever
it may be on the globe.
Commercial radiotelephony linking North America with Europe was opened in 1927,
and with South America three years later. In 1935 the first telephone call was
made around the world, using a combination of wire and radio circuits.
Until 1936, all American transatlantic telephone communication had to be routed
through England. In that year, a direct radiotelephone circuit was opened to
Paris. Telephone connection by radio and cable is now accessible with 187
foreign points.