Wednesday
Who Invented Radio?
Ask the average person "Who invented radio?" and the average answer will be "Marconi."
More correctly it was the product of many great minds such as Guglielmo Marconi, Nikola Tesla, Alexander Popov, Oliver Lodge, Reginald Fessenden, Heinrich Hertz, Mahlon Loomis, Nathan Stubblefield, James Clerk Maxwell, Edwin Howard Armstrong, William Gilbert, David Hughes, William H. Peerce, A.W. Heaviside, Edouard Branly, Lee DeForest, Ambrose Fleming, Amos Emerson Dolbear, and Thomas Edison, among others.
Where would these scientists have been without the work of those who came before them such as, Hans Christian Oersted, Andre M. Ampere, Georg Simon Ohm, Joseph Henry, Michael Faraday, and Charles Coulomb?
Radio also owes its development to two other great inventions, the telegraph and the telephone, so credit also goes to Samuel Morse and Alexander Graham Bell.
David Sarnoff was neither a scientist nor an engineer but saw the vast commercial value in putting radio in the home. The Galvin brothers put radio in the car and started the Motorola Company.
I think the answer to the question of who invented radio lies in how you define "radio". If “radio” is what I listen to on the drive to work, maybe it isn’t finished being invented but is in a constant state of flux and is constantly being reinvented.
Now, who invented Television?
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Hi Paul
Tesla ought to get most of the credit. Marconi used 17 of his patents to get to that first broadcast, and then Tesla got shoved aside while Marconi got the glory -- including the Nobel Prize.
After WWII, the US Supreme Court restored Tesla's original patent, overriding Marconi's.
Tesla ought to get most of the credit. Marconi used 17 of his patents to get to that first broadcast, and then Tesla got shoved aside while Marconi got the glory -- including the Nobel Prize.
After WWII, the US Supreme Court restored Tesla's original patent, overriding Marconi's.
It's easy to quote things we hear or read on sites such as: http://inventors.about.com/od/tstartinventions/a/Nikola_Tesla.htm without further investigation.
That site states "The Tesla coil, invented in 1891, is still used in radio and television sets and other electronic equipment." I collect and repair all kinds of radios. I was a communications and navigation technician in the US Air Force. I don’t know of any radio that has a Tesla coil. If you give Tesla credit for all coils and transformers you might be forgetting Michael Faraday, Joseph Henry and others.
I don’t believe Tesla or Marconi for that matter, ever foresaw “Radio” as it is used in “Broadcasting”, that is one signal transmitted to many receivers. I believe they both must have thought of “Wireless Communications” as one signal transmitted to one receiver like our modern telephone. It was people like David Sarnoff, Lee Deforest and Reginald Fessenden amongst others, who saw that “Radio” could be used to transmit voice and music for entertainment.
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That site states "The Tesla coil, invented in 1891, is still used in radio and television sets and other electronic equipment." I collect and repair all kinds of radios. I was a communications and navigation technician in the US Air Force. I don’t know of any radio that has a Tesla coil. If you give Tesla credit for all coils and transformers you might be forgetting Michael Faraday, Joseph Henry and others.
I don’t believe Tesla or Marconi for that matter, ever foresaw “Radio” as it is used in “Broadcasting”, that is one signal transmitted to many receivers. I believe they both must have thought of “Wireless Communications” as one signal transmitted to one receiver like our modern telephone. It was people like David Sarnoff, Lee Deforest and Reginald Fessenden amongst others, who saw that “Radio” could be used to transmit voice and music for entertainment.
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