Everything’s going wireless these days – it’s the new technical buzzword; there are wireless speakers and headphones, wireless mobile phone charging, wireless networking, wireless starting for cars and even wireless fridge-freezers. Wireless devices are replacing devices that would have traditionally been wired to something, be it a music player or a mains electricity supply. But this quest for wireless technology is not a new idea, it goes back over one hundred years and the advent of radio – wireless communication.
So, who invented radio?
Many think that Marconi invented the radio, but that’s not true. Marconi took existing ideas and perfected them, inventing a few of his own related products along the way; but he didn’t invent radio. Don’t get me wrong, he did a tremendous job and achieved something that had never been done before, he made a radio wave travel across the Atlantic ocean making contact with somebody in the Americas from the shores of the United Kingdom.
So, where does it all begin?
Discovery of electricity
The discovery of electricity can probably be credited to the ancient Greeks who noticed that fur would be attracted to amber when the two were rubbed together; they’d stumbled across static electricity. There is subsequent evidence that the Romans had rudimentary batteries to provide light. Similar discoveries have also been made in Persia.
Magnetism
Magnetism plays a large part in the generation of the electromagnetic radio waves that we use to transmit information wirelessly through the atmosphere and beyond.
References