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here you go for the daddies gallery on early radio and electronics fathers.please note the field was highly experimental and uncertain. Most of them had a sawtooth life, faced incredulity, sarcasms, financial problems, lack of backing, patents pending and court suiting. then this is more a mary go round history than the easy "obvious" one that compilators may suggest. it was the era of the pioneers, of the attempts which left (went...) in all the directions, which very often failed, but which did not remain less generous and poetic. as for instance, Lee De Forest, competing with Reginald Fessenden and Guglielmo Marconi on radio apparatus, went close to the bankrupt and could just afford for himself the cheapest furthest seat behind the column at the opera. he then thought he could use his radio equipment to bring music for free in every american home instead of developing it for "point to point" commercial communications. Caruso wouldn't deny it! |
British physicist,
suggests a link between static electricity and magnetism.
American candle maker, printer, inventor, negotiator, ambassador and the United States Declaration writer.
"Thomas Jefferson stated that the only reason Franklin didn't write the entire Declaration was because he would include too many jokes." founds the first public library in 1731. invents the lightning rod in the 1740s.
British inventor,
"...the idea came into my mind that , as steam was an electrical body, it would rush into a vacuum, and, if a communication were made between the cylinder and an exhausted vessel, it would rush into it, and might be there condensed without cooling the cylinder." the British Association gave his name to the unit of electrical power.
Italian physicist,
first method found for the generation of a sustained electrical current: the "voltaic" pile (first electric battery) in 1800. (the Volt "V" is the International System unit of electric potential and electromotive force, equal to the difference of electric potential between two points on a conducting wire carrying a constant current of one ampere when the power dissipated between the points is one watt).
French mathematician, physicist and chemister,
attempted to give a combined theory of electricity and magnetism in the early 1820s. publishs Mémoir on the Mathematical Theory of Electrodynamic Phenomena. (An ampere "A" is 1. a unit of electric current in the meter-kilogram-second system. It is the steady current that when flowing in straight parallel wires of infinite length and negligible cross section, separated by a distance of one meter in free space, produces a force between the wires of 2 × 10-7 newtons per meter of length. 2. a unit in the International System specified as one International coulomb per second and equal to 0.999835 ampere.)
http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Mathematicians/Ampere.html
Danish physicist and philosopher,
discovers a fundamental connection between electricity and magnetism in 1820.
The magnetism produced by a current would generate a force. Forces are capable of producing motion, then motion could come about which would lead to a current.. While this is not a conservation law, it is a statement about the fundamental interconvertibility of natural phenomena.
German physicist
"The Mozart of Electricity!"
defines the fundamental relationship between voltage, current and resistance through the "Ohm Law".
this one states that the amount of steady current through a material is directly proportional to the voltage across the material for some fixed temperature: I=V/R
"his ideas were dismissed by his colleagues... and he lived in poverty and shame..."
he also stated the fundamental principle of physiological acoustics in 1843. (A unit of measurement for electrical resistance. One ohm is the resistance in a circuit when one volt maintains a current of one amp. The symbol for ohm is the Greek letter omega O.)
British scientist and chemister,
discovers the electromagnetic induction, principle behind the electric transformer and generator.
"It was this discovery, more than any other, that allowed electricity to be turned, during the nineteenth century, from a scientific curiosity into a powerful technology". also discovers the electro-magnetic rotations, the magneto-optical effect, diamagnetism, the field theory, ..
American painter, sculptor and inventor,
filled a patent in 1837 for an electromagnetic telegraph apparatus and invented the "morse" code for use with his instrument.
German inventor, engineer and entrepreneur,
invents the world's first pointer telegraph and electric dynamo, inventions that helped put the spin in the industrial revolution. gives major contributions to wireless telegraphy.
Belgian carpenter,
invents the "Gramme dynamo" first dynamo with D.C. current, starting point of modern electric industry. this one operated as a generator and, when reversed, became an electric motor.
Scottish scientist,
predicts the existence of electromagnetic waves by mathematical equations
American inventor and entrepreneur,
patented more than a thousand inventions of which the phonograph in 1877 and the first practical incandescent electric lamp in 1879.
British physicist and writer,
contributes to the development of wireless telegraphy and transmits radio signals prior to Marconi
http://chem.ch.huji.ac.il/~eugeniik/history/lodge.html
German physicist,
detects and produce radiowaves in 1887 which opens the way for the development of radio, television and radar.
Croatian inventor,
"Tesla sailed for America in 1884, arriving in New-York, with four cents in his pocket, a few of his own poems, and calculations for a flying machine".
"Mister Marconi is a Donkey!"
http://chem.ch.huji.ac.il/~eugeniik/history/tesla.pdf
American physicist, inventor,
transmits human voice on radiowaves via high-frequency oscillator, December 23rd ,1900.
"One-two-three-four, is it snowing where you are Mr. Thiessen? If it is, would you telegraph back to me?"
Mr. Thiessen, one mile distant, confirmed. Such a luck it was snowing. Radio broadcasting was born.
American scientist,
invents the Audion grid-triode vacuum tube in 1906 used as a detector of radio signals, an audio amplifier and an oscillator for transmitting.
Italian inventor
successfully send a signal across the English Channel in 1899 and across the Atlantic in 1901.
"He learned telegraphy and Morse Code from an elderly nearly-blinded telegraphist in exchange for reading aloud to him"
access the Marconi archives here: http://www.marconicalling.com
American inventor,
patents the invention of the telephone which is recognized to Alexandre Graham Bell.
founds the Western Electric Manufacturing Company in 1872.
"On Feb. 14, 1876, Gray filed with the U.S. Patent Office a caveat (an announcement of an invention he expected soon to patent) describing apparatus 'for transmitting vocal sounds telegraphically.' Unknown to Gray, Bell had only two hours earlier applied for an actual patent on an apparatus to accomplish the same end. It was later discovered, however, that the apparatus described in Gray's caveat would have worked, while that in Bell's patent would not have."
http://chem.ch.huji.ac.il/~eugeniik/history/gray_elisha.html
German physician,
contributes to the development of crystal radio detectors in the early days of wireless telegraphy and radio. develops the cathode ray oscilloscope (precursor to the radar screen and television tube)
inventor of the junction transistor,
director of the solid state physics research program at bell labs
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1956/shockley-bio.html
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