Tim Sprouse, age 10, of Florence, South Carolina, for his question:
Who invented radio?
If you investigate the insides of an ordinary radio set you learn that it is a mighty complicated little gadget. What's more, this receiving set is merely one nerve ending in a vast radio network. Somewhere, usually many miles away, there is a broadcasting station with a complex assortment of electronic equipment to send out the radio waves. What genius could have invented all these details and made them work together? Actually, our wondrous radio systems were invented by many great brains, piece by piece, through many patient years.
When the sun and stars started their nuclear furnaces, they began broadcasting electromagnetic energies. These dynamic energies pulse along in different wave lengths, streaking across the universe at 186,000 miles per second. We can see the wave lengths of light. But the longer wave lengths of radio electromagnetic energy are invisible. Nobody invented these radio waves and mankind had to wait for the electronic age to discover them. This began in the 1800's. But probing the secrets of the silent, invisible cosmic energy took a long time. It took more time and many geniuses to tame radio waves and put them to work for mankind.
In England, a science student named Michael Faraday invented a dynamo to generate electric current. He suggested that the forces of electricity and magnetism are related. Clark Maxwell of Scotland suggested that electromagnetic energy includes a wide range of longer and shorter wave lengths, most of them invisible. Scientists were fascinated with the possibilities of this electromagnetic spectrum. Researchers in many lands experimented to detect the longer invisible wave lengths. How they did this the devices they invented, their successes and failures is a magnificent chapter in the history of science.
Heinrich Hertz of Germany invented an oscillator that flashed radio sparks. Alexander Popoff of Russia invented an aerial. Sir Oliver Lodge, Hertz and Tesla of America identified short, medium and long radio waves. Hertz measured the speed of radio waves and proved that they behave like light waves. Lodge invented a wireless telegraphy system that sent and received radio signals. These projects proved that the invisible waves certainly exist and could be useful.
In Italy, young Guglielmo Marconi devoured these fascinating details and became inspired with a dream. He saw the possibility of assembling an oscillator, aerials and a detecting device to transmit radio messages far and wide. In 1893, at the age of 19, he succeeded in coaxing radio waves to trigger an electric bell across a distance of seven yards. The next year, with the help of friends and f^mily, he set up a more impressive experiment. He transmitted radio signals from his home, over a small hill to a receiver one mile away. So, in 1894, Marconi, aged 20, invented the first successful radio system. The young inventor now knew that his dream of world wide radio communication was possible. And, like any real genius, he also knew that his invention was possible because many other brilliant researchers had already solved the basic details.
This first success was a far cry from modern radio systems. By 1900 Marconi invented radio systems to link ships at sea and span the Atlantic. But dozens of other geniuses toiled to invent, refine and assemble the countless electronic devices required to operate the amazing systems of radio in use today.