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Guglielmo
Marconi
Marconi,
Guglielmo, Marchese (1874-1937), Italian
electrical engineer and Nobel laureate,
known as the inventor of the first
practical radio-signalling system. He was
born in Bologna and educated at the
University of Bologna. As early as 1890 he
became interested in wireless telegraphy,
and by 1895 he had developed apparatus
with which he succeeded in sending signals
to a point a few kilometres away by means
of a directional antenna. After patenting
his system in Britain, he formed (1897)
Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company Ltd
in London. In 1899 he established
communication across the English Channel
between England and France, and in 1901 he
communicated signals across the Atlantic
Ocean between Poldhu, in Cornwall, and St
John's, in Newfoundland, Canada. His
system was soon adopted by the British and
Italian navies, and by 1907 had been so
much improved that a transatlantic
wireless telegraph service was established
for public use. Marconi was awarded
honours by many countries and received,
jointly with the German physicist Karl
Ferdinand Braun, the 1909 Nobel Prize for
Physics for his work in wireless
telegraphy. During World War I he was in
charge of the Italian wireless service and
developed short-wave transmission as a
means of secret communication. In the
remaining years of his life he
experimented with short waves and
microwaves.
It
was the Italian electrical engineer and
inventor Guglielmo Marconi who then took
the most significant steps, combining
technical inventiveness with business
acumen. He succeeded in developing both a
suitable receiver, or "coherer", and an
improved spark oscillator, which was
connected to a crude but effective antenna
to transmit radio waves over significant
distances. His transmitter was modulated
with an ordinary telegraph key, and a
crude amplification relay activated a
telegraphic instrument at the receiving
end.
In
1896 Marconi transmitted signals for a
distance exceeding 1.6 km (1 mi) and
applied for his first British patent.
Within a year of his first demonstration
he transmitted signals from shore to a
ship at sea 29 km (18 mi) away. In 1899 he
established commercial communication
between England and France, and in 1901 he
succeeded in sending a simple message
across the Atlantic. He had demonstrated
that radio waves could travel beyond the
horizon, and had used his flair for the
dramatic to bring the concept of radio to
the attention of governmental agencies and
business interests.
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