The Father of Radio: a Brief Chronology of the Origin and Developments of Wireless Communication and Supporting Electronics
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The Father of Radio: A Brief Chronology of the Origin and Developments of Wireless Communication and Supporting Electronics Magdalena Salazar-Palma*, Tapan K. Sarkar**, Dipak Sengupta*** *Dept. of Signal Theory & Communications, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid Avenida de la Universidad, 30, 28911 Leganes - Madrid, Spain, E-mail: salazar@tsc.�c3m.es **DePa:tment of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Syracuse University, 323 Lmk Hall, Syracuse, New York 13244-1240, USA, E-mail: [email protected] ***Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan, 1301 Beal Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2122, USA, E-mail: [email protected] Abstract - This paper presents a brief chronology of the synonymous. It should be pointed out that the history of origin and developments of wireless (or radio) communications, wireless as presented here is planned on the basis of three according to the following pattern: it gives credit to some of the different types of discoveries: those that made it possible, scientists who performed the initial observations and the understanding of electric and magnetic phenomena; it mentions those that made it realistic, and those that provided quality [ 1]. the experiments and inventions carried out towards the evolution Because of all these issues, it is not easy to objectively state of scientific and engineering models; and focuses on the who the Father of Radio was. Often, the invention of radio is implementation of practical wireless systems. The presentation delegated to one or two persons, the names of whom vary leads us to conclude that the invention and development of from country to country, depending on the country of origin of wireless/radio system can neither be credited to one individual nor to one specific country. The chronology strongly indicates an the authors of the paper, book or so on. The aim of this overlapping of human thinking in time in many countries. This presentation is to illustrate that simultaneous developments fact precludes the possibility of giving the title of Father of Radio were going on all over the world and that each invention to one individual. provided a solution to a portion of the puzzle. Index Terms - Radio, Wireless, Communication, History. II. BACKGROUND I. INTRODUCTION The history of Wireless Communications explicitly involving electromagnetic signals (i.e., not using optical The name wireless indicates communication without the use means) starts with the observation and understanding of of wires. Of course such a name may be applied to visual magnetic and electric phenomena (already observed during the signaling systems or mechanical-optical systems like those very early days of the Chinese, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman invented by the French engineer Claude Chappe, with the help cultures and advanced during the medieval and the renaissance of the French watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet. Here we periods) and related experiments and inventions carried out refer to communication systems that explicitly involve during the seventeenth century and from then onwards [2, Ch. electromagnetic signals. Various mechanisms were tried for 1]. Scientists having various interests and from different such purpose: electrostatic coupling, conduction, magnetic countries were involved in those observations, experiments induction and electromagnetic radiation or waves. The first and inventions. In the following we name a few of them from three, while indeed wireless, were extremely limited in the year 1600 up to 1785, the year chosen to start this chronology: distance they were capable of covering. The breakthrough in the English physician Sir William Gilbert, the Italian Jesuit wireless communication was the successful use of the fourth priest Niccoli> Cabeo, the English diplomat and naval one which allowed long distance transmission. The term radio commander Sir Kenelm Digby, the Irish natural philosopher was coined as a short name for electromagnetic radiation. and experimenter Sir Robert Boyle, the French physicist, Hence it is possible to speak of some wireless systems as not physiologist, mathematician, and philosopher Rene Descartes, being radio systems. However, because all the other types of the English physicians Walter Charlton and Robert Browne wireless mechanisms were abandoned, nowadays the word the German physicist Otto von Guericke, the French wireless is synonymous with radio. Also, because the earliest mathematician, physicist, and astronomer Honore Fabri, the radio communications used Morse's code for transmitting French astronomer Jean Picard, the English scientist and information, it should be distinguished from this early form of mathematician Sir Isaac Newton, the English astronomer and radio communication and radio transmission of information in mathematician Edmund Halley, the English physicist Francis a readily understandable audio (and/or visual) form. In this Hawksbee, the Englishman Stephen Gray, the English chronology the terms wireless and radio are considered to be scientist Servigton Savery, the French physicist Charles 978-1-4244-7451-6/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE Fran�ois de Cisternay du Fay, the Englishman Gowen 1795: Spanish physician Francisco Salva i Campillo Knight, the Frenchmen Thomas Le Seur and Francis suggested using electricity without wires for telegraphic Jacquier, the French-born scientist and Englishman by purposes across the sea. It was the first suggestion of a adoption Jean-Theophile Desaguliers, the Dutch physicists Wireless Conduction Telegraph. Pieter van Musschenbroek and Andreas Cunaeus, the French 1789: Italian physicist Alessandro Guiseppe Antonio physicist Abbe Jean-Antoine Nollet, the English apothecary, Anastasio Count Volta professor of Natural Philosophy at the Galvani's physicist, physician, and botanist Sir William Watson, the University of Pavia, realized that the main factors in discovery were the two different metals - the steel knife and German professor of philosophy and physics Johann Heinrich the tin plate - upon which the frog was lying. The different Winckler, the Scottish Dr. Spence, the American writer, metals, separated by the moist tissue of the frog, were statesman, inventor and scientist, Benjamin Franklin, the generating electricity. The frog's leg was simply a detector. English scientist John Mitchell, the Swiss philosopher Johann 1800: Volta presented the first electric battery that he Georg Sulzer, the German physicist Franz Maria Ulrich constructed in 1799 extending the research of Galvani. Even Theodor Hoch Aepinus, the German born Swedish physicist though Volta gets the credit for developing the battery, a Johan Carl Wilcke, the English physicist Robert Symmer, the "Galvanic" cell composed of copper and iron immersed in Swiss-Dutch mathematician Daniel Bernouilli, the English wine or vinegar called the Baghdad Battery, was excavated in physicist John Canton, the Italian-French mathematician and Baghdad, Iraq, by the German archeologist Wilhelm Konig in astronomer Joseph-Louis Lagrange, the English Presbyterian 1938, and radio carbon dated to 250 BC! Hence, the discovery minister and chemist Joseph Priestley, the Scottish physicist of battery predates Volta by many centuries [3]. Within six John Robison, the English chemist and physicist Henry weeks of Volta's report the English chemist William Cavendish, the Dutch professor of natural history Sebald Nicholson and his friend the English surgeon Anthony Justin Brugmans, the Italian anatomist and medical scientist Carlisle constructed a cell similar to the voltaic pile and Luigi Galvani, and the French mathematician Pierre-Simon discovered the electrolytic decomposition of water. The Laplace. It must be pointed out that although many of the English chemist Sir Humphrey Davy developed a theory for references in [2, Ch. 1] do not directly deal with wireless the pile based on the contact potentials. communication, the observations and the theoretical and 1807: French mathematician Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier experimental investigations reported therein were instrumental discovered what is now called Fourier's theorem. This earned for the discovery and understanding of wireless/radio him his Baron title. communication and eventually led to the development of 1809: German anatomist Samuel Thomas von Sommering wireless communication or radio systems. demonstrated a Wireless Electrochemical Telegraph, already suggested independently by Salva i Campillo. 1811: Davy discovered that an electrical arc passing between III. CHRONOLOGY two poles produced light. In fact, he invented the bright arc light sending a powerful current of electricity between two A chronology of the main events follows. Details can be found carbon terminals. in [2] and in other references. It should be pointed out that the 1812: Michael Faraday, an English bookbinder's apprentice, various principles and discoveries related to the transmission wrote to Davy asking for a job as a scientific assistant. Davy and reception of wireless communication systems were found that he had educated himself by reading the books he developed nearly about the same time as those of their wired was supposed to bind. He became the director of the counterpart, e.g., wired telegraph and telephony. However for laboratory after Davy's death, and chair of chemistry from the sake of brevity, unless considered necessary, 1833. French mathematician Simeon-Denis Poisson further developments on wired communications will be omitted, developed the two-fluid theory of electricity, showing