Wireless

The contents of Guglielmo Marconi's black box were the components he brought from Italy in 1897 when he traveled to London to interest the British authorities in his work and to seek his first patent. Taken individually those components were not remarkable, but, as William Preece told an audience at the Royal Institution, "Marconi has produced from known means . . . a new system of telegraphy that will reach places hitherto inaccessible." Sungook Hong's aim in this book is to probe "the substance and context" of scientific and engineering practice in the early years of wireless. In his first chapter he sets out the physical background to wireless in the work of Heinrich Hertz and others who had produced and detected Hertzian waves, and then describes Marconi's early work in detail. The second chapter addresses the dispute about the first demonstration of wireless telegraphy—Marconi or Oliver Lodge? Hong comes down firmly in favor of Marconi

Archaeology · Context (archaeology) · Telecommunications · Telegraphy · Wireless · Engineering · History · History of Science and Medicine