Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi, 1st Marquis of Marconi was an Italian inventor and electrical engineer, known for his creation of a practical radio wave-based wireless telegraph system. This led to Marconi being credited as the inventor of radio, and he shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand Braun "in recognition of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy".
The early history of radio is the history of technology that produces and uses radio instruments that use radio waves. Within the timeline of radio, many people contributed theory and inventions in what became radio. Radio development began as "wireless telegraphy". Later radio history increasingly involves matters of broadcasting.
Wireless telegraphy or radiotelegraphy is transmission of telegraph signals by radio waves. Before about 1910, the term wireless telegraphy was also used for other experimental technologies for transmitting telegraph signals without wires. In radiotelegraphy, information is transmitted by pulses of radio waves of two different lengths called "dots" and "dashes", which spell out text messages, usually in Morse code. In a manual system, the sending operator taps on a switch called a telegraph key which turns the transmitter on and off, producing the pulses of radio waves. At the receiver the pulses are audible in the receiver's speaker as beeps, which are translated back to text by an operator who knows Morse code.
Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose (;, IPA: [dʒɔɡodiʃ tʃɔndro boʃu]; 30 November 1858 – 23 November 1937) was a biologist, physicist, botanist and an early writer of science fiction. He pioneered the investigation of radio and microwave optics, made significant contributions to plant science, and was a major force behind the expansion of experimental science on the Indian subcontinent. IEEE named him one of the fathers of radio science. Bose is considered the father of Bengali science fiction, and also invented the crescograph, a device for measuring the growth of plants. A crater on the moon has been named in his honour. He founded Bose Institute, a premier research institute of India and also one of its oldest. Established in 1917, the institute was the first interdisciplinary research centre in Asia. He served as the Director of Bose Institute from its inception until his death.
The coherer was a primitive form of radio signal detector used in the first radio receivers during the wireless telegraphy era at the beginning of the 20th century. Its use in radio was based on the 1890 findings of French physicist Édouard Branly and adapted by other physicists and inventors over the next ten years. The device consists of a tube or capsule containing two electrodes spaced a small distance apart with loose metal filings in the space between. When a radio frequency signal is applied to the device, the metal particles would cling together or "cohere", reducing the initial high resistance of the device, thereby allowing a much greater direct current to flow through it. In a receiver, the current would activate a bell, or a Morse paper tape recorder to make a record of the received signal. The metal filings in the coherer remained conductive after the signal (pulse) ended so that the coherer had to be "decohered" by tapping it with a clapper actuated by an electromagnet, each time a signal was received, thereby restoring the coherer to its original state. Coherers remained in widespread use until about 1907, when they were replaced by more sensitive electrolytic and crystal detectors.
Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge, was a British physicist and writer involved in the development of, and holder of key patents for, radio. He identified electromagnetic radiation independent of Hertz's proof and at his 1894 Royal Institution lectures, Lodge demonstrated an early radio wave detector he named the "coherer". In 1898 he was awarded the "syntonic" patent by the United States Patent Office. Lodge was Principal of the University of Birmingham from 1900 to 1920.
Jozef Murgaš was a Slovak inventor, architect, botanist, painter and Roman Catholic priest. He contributed to wireless telegraphy and helped in the development of mobile communications and the wireless transmission of information and the human voice.
Édouard Eugène Désiré Branly was a French inventor, physicist and professor at the Institut Catholique de Paris. He is primarily known for his early involvement in wireless telegraphy and his invention of the Branly coherer around 1890.
The invention of radio communication spanned many decades of establishing theoretical underpinnings, discovery and experimental investigation of radio waves, and engineering and technical developments related to their transmission and detection. This scientific work preceded Guglielmo Marconi's use of radio waves in a wireless communication system.
Alexander Popov is a 1949 biographical film directed by Herbert Rappaport about the life and work of Alexander Stepanovich Popov, who was the notable physicist and electrical engineer, and early developer of radio communication.
The magnetic detector or Marconi magnetic detector, sometimes called the "Maggie", was an early radio wave detector used in some of the first radio receivers to receive Morse code messages during the wireless telegraphy era around the turn of the 20th century. Developed in 1902 by radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi from a method invented in 1895 by New Zealand physicist Ernest Rutherford it was used in Marconi wireless stations until around 1912, when it was superseded by vacuum tubes. It was widely used on ships because of its reliability and insensitivity to vibration. A magnetic detector was part of the wireless apparatus in the radio room of the RMS Titanic which was used to summon help during its famous 15 April 1912 sinking.
Radio Day, Communications Workers' Day or Radio and Television Day is a commemoration of the development of radio in Russia. It takes place on 7 May, the day in 1895 on which Alexander Stepanovich Popov demonstrated a radio based lightning detector.
The timeline of radio lists within the history of radio, the technology and events that produced instruments that use radio waves and activities that people undertook. Later, the history is dominated by programming and contents, which is closer to general history.
Boris Pavlovich Grabovsky was a Soviet engineer of Ukrainian descent who invented a first fully electronic TV set that was demonstrated in 1928. In 1925, one of the pioneers of television Boris Rosing advised and helped him apply for a patent of a fully electronic TV set called Telefot. Son of the Ukrainian poet Pavlo Grabovsky.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to telecommunication:
Camille Papin Tissot was a French naval officer and pioneer of wireless telegraphy who established the first French operational radio connections at sea.
Dmitry Aleksandrovich Lachinov was a Russian physicist, electrical engineer, inventor, meteorologist and climatologist.
Eugène Adrien Ducretet was a French scientific instrument manufacturer, who performed some of the first experiments on wireless telegraphy in France. His father, Louis Joseph Ducretet, was a Savoy textiles merchant who moved to Paris. He never completed a formal education, leaving primary school at age 15. After several years apprenticed to Paris engineer Paul-Gustav Froment, Ducretet opened his own workshop in 1864 at 21 Rue des Ursulines where with a few employees he manufactured classical physics research, teaching and demonstration apparatus, such as galvanometers, Wimshurst machines, and Crookes tubes. Over time his reputation grew and he became instrument supplier to several large Paris educational and scientific institutions. He was awarded a gold medal for his quality instruments at the 1878 Paris Universal Exposition and from then on his firm was a regular presence at important international expositions, winning another gold at the 1881 International Electricity Exposition in Paris. He was made a Knight of the Legion of Honour in 1885.
The A.S. Popov Central Museum of Communications is a museum of science and technology founded in 1872. It is located in the historic centre of Saint Petersburg, Russia, near Saint Isaac's Square.
