There is radio in the house, mobile and computer devices, car interiors. During the war years, this device informed the civilian population of news from the battlefields. But there is still no consensus about who invented the radio.
The creators of the radio are called Alexander Stepanovich Popov and Guglielmo Marconi. The first inventor lived in Russia, the other in Italy. But even a few years before them, the ideas of wireless transmission were literally obsessed with some of the scientists and engineers.
James Maxwell and Heinrich Hertz
In 1864, scientist James Maxwell developed the theory of electrodynamics. He argued that there are waves in space, the speed of which can be compared with the speed of light. Later, his theory became one of the fundamental in modern physics.
Heinrich Hertz, inspired by the work of his colleague, created an apparatus that could receive and send such waves. In 1886, he published the results of some of his studies, which proved the validity of Maxwell's theory.
The apparatus was gradually improved and modernized. And the idea that with the help of waves it was possible to transmit information at a distance was literally in the air. It only remained to understand it and bring it to mind.
Popov and Marconi
Alexander Stepanovich Popov was the son of a village priest and was going to follow in his father's footsteps. But his interests changed with age, after which he graduated with honors from the Department of Mathematics of St. Petersburg University. Later he developed an interest in electrical engineering. Having studied new discoveries in this area, Popov became an instructor at the Moscow School, which was located in Kronstadt.
There he also learned about Hertz's work. Alexander Stepanovich repeated his experiments and in 1896 demonstrated his experiments in front of the Physical Society of the Northern Capital. Using Morse code, he transmitted messages within the university. Then the Russian physicist began cooperation with the navy. Over time, the distance over which the waves propagated reached 50 km.
At the same time, on the other side of Europe, the Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi worked on the creation of such an apparatus. At the technical school of Livorno, he became acquainted with Hertz's experiments and repeated them. The distance he was able to transmit the waves was 2 km.
But at home, the scientist could not find support and in 1984 he moved to London. There he continued his research and increased the distance to 10 km. After that, he received a patent for his invention and founded the Marconi Wirelessand Telegraph Company. This started the mass production of the radio.
Thus, the inventor of radio in the usual sense is Marconi. Popov invented an apparatus that was capable of transmitting signals. But this development was of a non-commercial and military nature, so the Russian scientist could not get a patent.
