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The Invention of Radio

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the invention of radio.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the invention of radio. In the early 1860s the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell derived four equations which together describe the behaviour of electricity and magnetism. They predicted the existence of a previously unknown phenomenon: electromagnetic waves. These waves were first observed in the early 1880s, and over the next two decades a succession of scientists and engineers built increasingly elaborate devices to produce and detect them. Eventually this gave birth to a new technology: radio. The Italian Guglielmo Marconi is commonly described as the father of radio - but many other figures were involved in its development, and it was not him but a Canadian, Reginald Fessenden, who first succeeded in transmitting speech over the airwaves.

With:

Simon Schaffer
Professor of the History of Science at the University of Cambridge

Elizabeth Bruton
Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Leeds

John Liffen
Curator of Communications at the Science Museum, London

Producer: Thomas Morris.

Available now

42 minutes

Last on

Thu 4 Jul 2013 21:30

LINKS AND FURTHER READING

READING LIST:

Hugh Aitken, Syntony and Spark: The Origins of Radio (Princeton University Press, 1992)

Rollo Appleyard, Pioneers of Electrical Communication (Macmillan, 1930)

W. J. Baker, A History of the Marconi Company 1874-1965 (Routledge, 1970)

Russell W. Burns, Communications: An International History of the Formative Years. Vol. 32, IEE History of Technology Series (Institution of Electrical Engineers, 2004)

David Edgerton, The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History since 1900 (Profile, 2008)

G. R. M. Garratt, The Early History of Radio from Faraday to Marconi (Institution of Engineering and Technology, 1993)

Daniel R. Headrick, The Invisible Weapon: Telecommunications and International Politics, 1851-1945 (Oxford University Press, 1991)

Sungook Hong, Wireless: From Marconi鈥檚 Black Box to the Audion (MIT Press, 2010)

Rowland F. Pocock, The Early British Radio Industry (Manchester University Press, 1988)

Credits

Role Contributor
Presenter Melvyn Bragg
Interviewed Guest Simon Schaffer
Interviewed Guest Elizabeth Bruton
Interviewed Guest John Liffen
Producer Thomas Morris

Broadcasts

  • Thu 4 Jul 2013 09:00
  • Thu 4 Jul 2013 21:30

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