Guglielmo Marconi
By Illa Vij

THIS world of switchgear and, scientific achievements that seem to be miracles, is the result of many hard working, foresighted, creative and courageous people. The radio was the work of a genius, Guglielmo Marconi. Marconi was not a great scientist, he was an applied scientist, an inventor. He used science to make something new.

He was born at Bologna on April 25, 1874. His father was a wealthy man and Guglielmo was tutored privately at Bologna, Florence and Leghorn. As a child he was keenly interested in physical science and research in electricity. When he was about 15 years old he heard of Heinrich Rudolf Hertz who had discovered electric waves. Actually, a mathematical genius, James Clerk Maxwell had predicted electric waves, what we now call wireless waves. But his theory was neither accepted nor proved. Later Hertz conducted a series of experiments to prove Maxwell correct.

Hertz’s discoveries were published in series of papers between 1887 and 1889. These papers got Guglielmo thinking. He was sure that these waves could be used as a means of communication. He

felt that messages could be sent through the air without any wires at all. He set up a laboratory, and began experimenting. He repeated Hertz’s experiment with the kind of oscillator used by the latter. He was successful in controlling the sparks, and increased the range. He used equipment that had been invented earlier and improved it further. He managed to transmit a wireless message over a distance of more than a mile. By 1896, the distance extended to 2 miles. He took his apparatus to England and applied for a provisional patent on June 2.

His first demonstration in England was made from the roof of the General Post Office at St. Martin-Le-Grand, London. Government officials, army and navy representatives, watched his experiment. Soon the distance was extended to 10 miles, then 12 miles and soon the world realised the practical value of Marconi’s invention. In 1898 he installed the first wireless apparatus on a lightship, enabling the East Goodwin lightship to be in communication with a lighthouse, about 12 miles away. In March 1899, the lightship was run down by a steamer. A message was immediately sent to the lighthouse. Lifeboats were sent and the crew saved.

He then sent messages across the English Channel and then the Atlantic. He put up a transmitting station at Cornwall and receiving station at Newfoundland. Theoretical Physicists laughed at his apparent ignorance of the curvature of the earth. Marconi was a practical scientist and proved that he was receiving messages from his Cornish transmitters. Many scientists disbelieved him but scientists Oliver Heaviside and A.E. Kennelly deduced the existence of a layer in the upper atmosphere that acted as a reflector, bending wireless waves back to the earth. Marconi made many improvements in his invention. He also proved that wireless messages can be received over a greater distance at night.

In 1910, wireless telegrams were sent over a distance of 6,000 miles and on September 22, 1918, wireless contact between England and Australia was first made. Marconi also experimented with short waves. In 1909, Marconi won the Nobel Prize for Physics, the Albert Medal of the Royal Society and, in the United States, the Franklin and John Fritz Medals. In the same year he was nominated by the king of Italy to be a member of the Italian senate. After World War I, during which he served in the Italian army and navy, Marconi attended peace conferences in London and Paris. He was made a Marquis in 1929, and in 1931 upon the completion of a radio station in the Vatican, he was made a member of the Vatican Academy. The radio had knit the world together. People could switch a button and hear a voice that could be transmitted around the world. Marconi, after giving his best to the world, died on July 20, 1937.