For science and radio lovers (and who doesn’t), the German city of Karlsruhe should hold a special place in their hearts. It was there that physicist Heinrich Hertz demonstrated the existence of radio waves in the 1880s, at the university now known as the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.
It was a beautiful, but brutally hot, summer day, and I was already sweating enough when I biked onto campus and approached the Hertz Monument, a large stone sculpture of the famous physicist’s head. My “guide”, Professor Volker Krebs, wore a white straw hat to protect himself from the sun’s rays. Krebs taught engineering at this university before retiring; he now heads the Heinrich Hertz Gesellschaft (association) and helps keep the scientist’s legacy alive one hundred and thirty years ago everything that was known about electromagnetic waves was theory, everything was mathematical equations on paper.
At that time, there were two conflicting ideas about how fast these waves traveled. One side held that electric and magnetic forces were transmitted immediately from one point to another. According to this theory, if one took a magnet and waved it, it would immediately affect all the other charges in the room, without any delay.
Guglielmo Marconi
The invention of radio communication spanned many decades of experimental investigation of radio waves, establishment of theoretical foundations, technical and engineering developments, and adaptation to signaling.
The work of many scientists culminated in the construction of a complete and commercially successful wireless communication system by Guglielmo Marconi, who is often credited as the inventor of the radio. The idea that the wires necessary for the electrical telegraph could be removed, creating a wireless telegraph, had been around for a while before the establishment of radio-based communication. Inventors tried to build systems based on electrical conduction, electromagnetic induction, or other theoretical ideas.
Several inventors/experimenters came across the phenomenon of radio waves before their existence was proven; at the time it was ruled out as electromagnetic induction. The discovery of electromagnetic waves, including radio waves, by Heinrich Rudolf Hertz in the 1880s followed theoretical development on the connection between electricity and magnetism that began in the early 19th century. This work culminated in a theory of electromagnetic radiation developed by James Clerk Maxwell in 1873, which Hertz demonstrated experimentally.
Hertz considered electromagnetic waves to be of little practical value. Other experimenters, such as Oliver Lodge and Jagadish Chandra Bose, explored the physical properties of electromagnetic waves, and developed electrical devices and methods to improve the transmission and detection of electromagnetic waves. But, apparently, they did not see the utility of developing a communication system based on electromagnetic waves.
Who invented the television
The invention of radio communication spanned many decades of experimental investigation of radio waves, establishment of theoretical foundations, technical and engineering developments, and adaptation to signaling. The work of many scientists culminated in the construction of a complete and commercially successful wireless communication system by Guglielmo Marconi, who is often credited as the inventor of the radio. The idea that the wires necessary for the electrical telegraph could be removed, creating a wireless telegraph, had been around for a while before the establishment of radio-based communication.
Inventors tried to build systems based on electrical conduction, electromagnetic induction, or other theoretical ideas. Several inventors/experimenters came across the phenomenon of radio waves before their existence was proven; at the time it was ruled out as electromagnetic induction. The discovery of electromagnetic waves, including radio waves, by Heinrich Rudolf Hertz in the 1880s followed theoretical development on the connection between electricity and magnetism that began in the early 19th century. This work culminated in a theory of electromagnetic radiation developed by James Clerk Maxwell in 1873, which Hertz demonstrated experimentally.
Hertz considered electromagnetic waves to be of little practical value. Other experimenters, such as Oliver Lodge and Jagadish Chandra Bose, explored the physical properties of electromagnetic waves, and developed electrical devices and methods to improve the transmission and detection of electromagnetic waves. But, apparently, they did not see the utility of developing a communication system based on electromagnetic waves.
Radio history timeline
The early history of radio is the history of the technology that produces and uses radio instruments that use radio waves. Within the radio timeline, many people contributed theory and inventions into what became of radio. The development of radio began as “wireless telegraphy.” Later, the history of radio focuses more and more on issues of broadcasting. The idea of wireless communication predates the discovery of “radio,” with experiments in “wireless telegraphy” using induction and capacitive transmission through soil, water, and even railroad tracks since the 1980s. 1830. James Clerk Maxwell demonstrated theoretically and mathematically in 1864 that electromagnetic waves could propagate through free space.
It is likely that the first intentional transmission of a signal by means of electromagnetic waves was carried out in an experiment by David Edward Hughes around 1880, although at that time it was considered induction. In 1888, Heinrich Rudolf Hertz was able to conclusively demonstrate the transmission of electromagnetic waves in air in an experiment confirming Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism.