Who was the inventor of the radio?

On the long road to the invention of the radio

The development of the worldwide The first electronic mass medium was not easy and required the collaboration of a wide variety of scientists. To develop their inventions, they drew on the findings of well-known luminaries of the 19th Century like Faraday, Ampere and Hertz. It all started with Philipp Reis in 1861, who developed a forerunner of today's telephone. For the first time, this device was able to convert sound waves into electricity and back again. In 1877 Thomas Alva Edison made the first sound recording with his tin foil phonograph. But the most important invention on the way to radio was Oliver Lodge's transceiver. With this, the wireless transmission of radio signals was possible for the first time, but only over a very short distance. Therefore Lodge is by no means the inventor of the radio.

Who is the real inventor - Popow or Marconi?

After Lodge's groundbreaking invention, the race to develop the radio began. There are two in particular Names of importance: Alexander Popow and Guglielmo Marconi. Both adorn themselves with the title "inventor of radio", but who is the real inventor? The time and the sequence of events play a decisive role. On the 7th On May 1895, Popov presented the first wireless transmission device for the transmission of acoustic waves in front of the St. Petersburg State University. He described this in 1896 in the journal of the Russian Society for Physics and chemistry. He developed this further and in March 1896 was able to send the words "Heinrich Hertz" over a distance of 250 meters. At the electrotechnical congress in Paris in 1900 he was honored for his record-breaking transmission of acoustic signals over a distance of 112 kilometers.

Meanwhile in England the scientist Guglielmo Marconi developed a similarly functioning device, which he patented in 1896. With this transmission device, he gained new knowledge about the way radio waves propagate. In the further development of his patent, Marconi succeeded in inventing the pop-spark transmitter, which had to be discharged with a loud bang after each transmission. However, it was not yet suitable for conveying words or music.

Although Popow never patented his invention like Marconi, his presentation in May 1895 was a little earlier. So he must be considered the undisputed inventor of the radio. But Marconi still haunts our heads as the supposed inventor of the radio, after all he received the Nobel Prize for 1909 together with Ferdinand Braun physics.

The first radio broadcast

Greenleaf Whittier Pickard improved the inventions of Marconi and Popow in 1902 with the development of the semiconductor detector. This finally ensured a clearly audible reception of the radio waves. In 1906 the story of radio. The world's first programmatic radio program was broadcast on Christmas Eve. In 1910 a transmitter was installed on the Eiffel Tower in Paris, which ensured the first regular transmission of acoustic signals over thousands of kilometers.

The development of the radio was a milestone in technology and provided important prerequisites for the later development of radar, television, and aviation and marine radio. Above all, two people were in charge: Popow and Marconi. But Nobel laureate Marconi was just a little late: Popow is the true inventor of the radio. Anyone who would like to know more about the invention of the radio can read Wolfgang Hagen's book “Das Radio. On the history and theory of radio: Germany/ USA ”, published by Verlag Wilhelm Fink, read on.

There's even more radio history here:

http://www.seefunknetz.de/

http://www.tonaufzeichnung.de/

http://www.fernsprecher.de/