Great discoveries: the year Popov invented radio communications. Who first invented radio? A dispute that lasts a century
Today it is difficult to imagine our life without a radio: some people listen to it from morning to evening at work, some turn it on in the car on the way home to listen to their favorite music, and some only listen to the latest news. But few people know who and what is behind the invention of the radio itself.
Photo: depositphotos/ [email protected]
At a meeting of the Russian Physico-Chemical Society in St. Petersburg on May 7, 1895, Alexander Popov demonstrated “a device designed to show rapid fluctuations in atmospheric electricity.” In other words, a radio receiver, and carried out the first radio communication session. The half-century anniversary of this event in the USSR was celebrated on the eve of the Victory, on May 7, 1945. It was then that the decision was made to make Radio Day an annual holiday.
Popov is considered the inventor of radiotelegraphy in the post-Soviet countries. In other countries, around the same time, the best scientists were also working on creating similar devices. Therefore, in the USA, Nikola Tesla is considered the inventor, in Germany - Heinrich Hertz, in France - Edouard Branly, in Brazil - Landel de Moura, in England - Oliver Joseph Lodge, and in India - Jagadish Chandru Bose.
At the speed of light
The world community cannot decide who invented radio, because all these great scientists in one way or another contributed to the development of science. A brief chronology of discoveries is as follows: in 1845, the English physicist and chemist Michael Faraday discovered the electromagnetic field, and this was one of the most important discoveries of mankind in the 19th century. 20 years after this, the Englishman James Clark Maxwell developed the theory of the electromagnetic field and calculated that the speed of electromagnetic waves is equal to the speed of light. His discoveries played a key role in the development of physics and served as the foundation for the special theory of relativity.
Another 20 years later, Heinrich Hertz created a generator and resonator of electromagnetic oscillations and demonstrated the presence of electromagnetic waves propagating in free space. In fact, this device was the predecessor of the radio, but Hertz's design transmitted and received electromagnetic signals only at a distance of several meters. In India, millimeter wave radio transmission was first demonstrated in November 1894, a year before Alexander Popov. The author of the Indian invention was Jagadish Chandra Bose.
Therefore, from a technical point of view, the Russian inventor Alexander Popov and the Italian scientist Guglielmo Marconi did not discover anything new, but only created a device, using the discoveries of their other predecessors as a basis. However, the idea of radio came to these scientists at about the same time.
Palm of the Championship
The main contenders for the title of inventor of the radio are Popov, Marconi and Tesla. All three scientists were in no way related to each other and, living in different countries, simultaneously worked on the same invention.
Alexander Popov invented a radio transmitter for naval purposes. In 1895, at a meeting of Russian physicists, he gave a lecture “On the relationship of metal powders to electrical vibrations” and demonstrated his device capable of transmitting signals in Morse code. The scientist began improving the operation of the device and the signal reception and transmission range from 60 to 250 meters, soon achieving an increase in the distance to 600. And in 1899, the possibility of receiving signals using a telephone was discovered, an invention of Alexander Bell, patented in the mid-1870s .
However, Popov did not strive to tell the whole world about his research, and was in no hurry to publish articles about his invention, being interested mainly in the practical part. Therefore, having demonstrated the operation of a radio receiver in 1895, he did not document his invention in any way.
Patent No. 7777
Guglielmo Marconi invented his radio receiver and applied for a patent only in June 1896. The paper was issued on July 2, 1897, two years after Popov demonstrated his work. Marconi received a document legally confirming his authorship, which is why some historians take his side and give him the palm. In 1900, Marconi received patent No. 7777 for a radio tuning system, and on December 12, 1901, he conducted the first transatlantic radio communication between England and Newfoundland over a distance of 3,200 kilometers, which had previously seemed impossible.
Radio receiver "Zvezda-54", presented at the exhibition "Soviet Design 1950-1980s" at the Manege Central Exhibition Hall. Photo: TASS/Alexandra Mudrats
Americans' queue
And in 1943, the Americans intervened in the dispute about who invented radio. In court, they managed to prove that their compatriot, the great scientist Nikola Tesla, was the first to patent a radio transmitter - this happened in 1893, and two years later - in 1895 - a radio receiver. His device worked on the same principle on which modern devices work, converting a radio signal into acoustic sound, and the inventions of Popov and Marconi could transmit and receive radio signals only in Morse code.
Since then, of course, both radio broadcasting and the radios themselves have changed. Once upon a time the radio woke up the whole country with its anthem at six in the morning, today aesthetes listen to jazz, and collectors are ready to pay a lot of money for vintage radios. But no one questions the significance of this invention: whoever created it first, the principle on which the operation of the receiver was based subsequently made possible the invention of mobile communications, wireless Internet and remote control of electronic devices, without which we cannot imagine our lives today.
Greetings to everyone who strives for knowledge! Do you know who invented radio? Of course, you will now answer me in unison: “I have a question too! Of course, Popov! And I thought so, or rather, I was 200 percent sure. Until I came across numerous questions on the Internet about who was first. It turns out that there is something to argue about here!
Lesson plan:
Who exactly: there are many contenders, but only one radio!
Everyone wants to be the first in the world to whom the palm will be given in inventing something new. They fought for this especially sharply at a time when discoveries in the field of various sciences poured out like from a cornucopia.
The discovery of radio is inextricably linked with the study of electricity, which is why scientists are confused about who should give victory over radio waves, since in those years among physicists only the lazy ones did not strive to get to know electrical conductivity better. It is believed that the radio history begins in 1895, but before that several names were noticed in it.
First of all, Russians remember Alexander Popov. Some people know the name Marconi. More advanced and well-read people can show off the Tesla, Lodge, Maxwell and Hertz they know. Have you heard of such inventors? And all of them could become scientists who invented the radio. Why?
Faraday
His idea of the electromagnetic field was the most important discovery since Newton's era. This was in 1845.
Maxwell
Continuing the work of his predecessor in 1865, he came to the conclusion that in an electromagnetic field, radiation propagates freely at the speed of light. The electromagnetic waves he discovered were later called radio waves. Thanks to them, radio technology began to develop, transmitting signals.
Hertz
With the help of the devices he designed in 1887 - a generator and a resonator of electrical oscillations, he proved that the electromagnetic waves previously predicted by Faraday and Maxwell exist. His inventions worked several meters apart, showing a weak spark in the receiver.
That is why the Germans call Hertz the inventor of radio. But the scientist’s ideas were not put into practice; he did not know and did not want to know what to do next with radio waves, not attaching much importance to the experiments. It was enough for him to confirm that his predecessors were right.
If we assume that radio is propagating electromagnetic waves, then we can confidently assume that it was this trinity that discovered it. If we consider a specific device to be a radio, then the invention can be attributed to Hertz.
Branly
Shortly before Hertz began his experiments, the French inventor designed a device called a coherer. At first, his device was nicknamed the “Branly tube”, since it was a glass flask with conductors soldered at both ends, and the space between them was filled with sawdust.
This invention can be considered the first radio wave receiver. That is why France demands that Branly be recognized as the first inventor of radio. Why wasn't he given the glory? Other scientists improved his device and achieved the greatest results.
Lodge
A physicist from England was among the first to demonstrate to an assembled audience how a radio signal is transmitted. This took place in 1894 at Oxford University. Using the same “Branly tube,” or coherer, he transmitted a message in the form of Morse codes over 40 meters.
But again a paradox - the physicist did not further develop his invention and apply for a patent. But having actually become the first to assemble a chain from source to receiver, he became an undeniable contender among the British for the inventor of radio.
Landel de Mora
The Brazilian scientist was engaged in experiments with signal transmission, but for some reason did not announce his results until 1900. He received a patent for the invention in Brazil and in America after Marconi and became a pioneer in transmitting the human voice over radio waves. So Brazil also requires recognition of a compatriot as an inventor.
Tesla
The Serbian scientist, who gave most of his life to America, did not pass by the radio. He was, of course, more interested in the wireless transmission of energy rather than information, but he also succeeded in the field of radio engineering. It was he who owned the mast antenna, which later became an indispensable part for the devices of Popov and Marconi.
Moreover, in 1893 he demonstrated the principle of how radio communication works. So the Balkans and America often call Tesla the inventor of radio.
Bose
A Bengali inventor working in India studied radio waves using Lodge's experiments as an example. Unlike other scientists, he became interested in waves of a certain length, the study of which was resumed only after 50 years, and some of his discoveries are still used in microwave radio communications.
What did the world-famous Russian-Italian couple do?
If little is known about the inventors we talked about above, but they had a hand in the advent of radio by creating a platform, then the topic of radio communications is directly related to the names of Popov and Marconi.
It was between them that a dispute arose about who was first. What were they doing when others were actively working, and why is the discovery of radio associated with them?
Working in different parts of the globe, both of them did approximately the same thing. They added an antenna and grounding to Hertz's invented devices. In addition, both placed the coherer invented by Branly into the receiver and filled it with metal powder discovered by Lodge. In general, they collected what had been discovered before them and, due to the scattered existence of all the elements, was not used in practice.
Who did it first is still being debated. When was this? In 1895, on May 7, Popov showed his device with an antenna - a lightning sensor, which he called a lightning rod, and a little later, in 1896, he demonstrated the transmission of a radio signal between university buildings in St. Petersburg. In 1900, under his leadership, a radio station was built, which was used for military purposes.
Marconi was the first to transmit a radio signal across the Atlantic, patenting his invention by June 1896, thereby beating the Russian scientist. At the same time, his invention was based on the drawings of Popov’s receiver. The corporation he built introduced the use of radio communications, first into the military ranks, and then into civilian life. That is why they began to consider him the first in the world to invent radio.
As is now clear, it is difficult to give someone priority over one of mankind’s inventions. Many scientists made their contributions to the development of radio communications. Some historians believe that military secrecy prevented Popov from becoming the first without regard to anyone - the secrecy regime of the navy for which he worked did not make it possible to publicize the results obtained. Whether this was actually the case will forever remain unknown to us.
In general, many authors prefer not to argue and today talk about the invention of Popov-Marconi, thereby, as it were, resolving a dispute that is more than a hundred years old. Nevertheless, being patriots, we annually celebrate Radio Day on May 7, believing that it is our a compatriot gave us all a radio frequency.
Do you know what?! Today there are more than 50 thousand radio stations in the world, more than three million radio amateurs who can communicate on short radio waves, and there are even more receivers, too many to count! Both mobile communications and satellites carry the inventions of the founders of radio.
That's all for today. Good luck to you on the school waves!
Don't forget to subscribe to blog news and join to our VKontakte group.
Today, radio does not seem like some unusual and unique device that is capable of wireless communication. However, there was a time when radio became a real breakthrough in the development of new technologies. The history of radio has its roots in the distant past, which this article will explore.
A brief history of radio: how did it all start?
Prerequisites for the emergence of radio
The first assumptions regarding the existence of electromagnetic waves arose in the late 1600s. Two centuries later, ultraviolet and infrared radiation were officially discovered. In the 30s of the 19th century, a scientist from England, Michael Faraday, declared with great confidence the existence of electromagnetic waves. Another 30 years later, another British scientist, James Maxwell, completed the construction of the theory of the electromagnetic field, which found its application in physics.
In the 1880-1890s. There were some other discoveries that made it possible to bring closer the time when a full-fledged radio would be created. Thus, the German physicist Heinrich Hertz proved the existence of electromagnetic waves through experiment. In subsequent years, several scientists repeated this experiment, using more advanced elements to detect electromagnetic waves.
Invention of the radio
In 1898, Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge received a patent for the use of certain elements in wireless transmitters or receivers. The resulting patent became the basis for a mechanism for tuning the radio to the required frequency. It is noteworthy that Lodge did not conduct further research in this area, as a result of which the honor of bearing the title of inventor of the first radio went to the Russian physicist, professor, and electrical engineer Alexander Stepanovich Popov.
It was Popov who was the first to demonstrate the ability to transmit a radio signal that would carry certain information. From this time on, the era of the creation of radio engineering equipment began.
Controversial moments in history
The history of radio has not been without incidents. Currently, several countries claim that it was their scientist who invented radio. In Germany they say that the credit belongs exclusively to Heinrich Hertz, in the USA they will tell you that Thomas Edison invented radio, etc.
Be that as it may, in 1872, the first ever patent for wireless communications was received by Malon Loomis.
Modern radio broadcasting
In 1906, Canadian Reginald Fessenden made the first broadcast of a radio program in which he personally played the violin and read a short text from the Bible. Since then, voice broadcasting has begun to develop more and more every year. New entertaining radio programs appeared, broadcasting to a wide audience.
In 1918, Edwin Armstrong introduced the superheterodyne, which improved the sensitivity of radio receivers over a wide range of frequencies. More than 15 years later, the same American scientist patented FM radio, which uses frequency modulation to reduce interference on the airwaves.
At the very beginning of the 80s of the 20th century, work began in the field of creating digital radio broadcasting, which made another revolution in the history of radio.
Nowadays it is difficult to find a person who has never listened to the radio. At the same time, few people think about who invented it, what it cost those people who spent many years of their lives for the sake of technical progress.
Today, radio remains one of the most common means of broadcasting, despite the development of television technologies, computer equipment, etc. The radio airwaves are still filled with sounds that seem to never end.
One of the inventions that changed the face of our civilization was the discovery of radio waves and the invention of radio.
It stretched the first threads between residents of distant lands and regions, made the cultural riches of different countries more accessible to everyone, and gave a powerful impetus to the further development of technology. But who should we thank for all this, who invented radio and when did it happen?
Background to the invention of radio
In the second half of the nineteenth century, electricity and related phenomena aroused the greatest interest among physicists around the world, so the efforts of many researchers were concentrated in this area of science. In 1845, Michael Faraday irrefutably proved the existence of the electromagnetic field, which served as an incentive for a number of researchers.
Twenty years later, J. Maxwell created the famous theory of the electromagnetic field, which describes all its inherent laws. Among other things, it stated that electromagnetic radiation propagates in space at a speed equal to .
The theory of the electromagnetic field was brilliantly proven by the experiments of Heinrich Hertz, who in 1887 created an electromagnetic wave generator and a resonator, i.e. receiver of electromagnetic radiation. However, Hertz, caring only about obtaining experimental data confirming Maxwell's theory, did not think about other aspects of the use of his instruments.
His instruments were located within the same laboratory, and he did not think about using them for long-distance communications. Meanwhile, the bulk of the work on the invention of radio communications had already been done, and done by the three above-mentioned people.
Invention of Alexander Popov
The son of a priest, Alexander Popov initially intended to continue the family spiritual tradition, however, once in St. Petersburg, he became seriously interested in physics and entered the capital’s university, from which he graduated brilliantly a few years later. 
By nature of his service, he worked in electrical engineering on warships of the Russian Navy. At the same time, he worked on his own invention, which was wireless radio communication.
On May 7, 1895, Popov presented to the Russian Physicochemical Society his apparatus, called a lightning detector, which detected electromagnetic oscillations of a thunderstorm front. Almost a year later, on March 24, at a meeting of the same society, he demonstrated in action a full-fledged radio apparatus, consisting of a transmitter and receiver of radio signals.
Invention by Guillermo Marconi
Guillermo Marconi, an Italian inventor, moved towards the creation of radio in a similar way. The most interesting thing is that he built the radio receiver and transmitter almost simultaneously with A. Popov, moving along the same path, and structurally both installations turned out to be extremely similar to each other.
However, Marconi thought of getting a patent for his installation, while Popov limited himself to demonstrating it to the scientific community. That is why in Europe it is Marconi, and not Popov, who is considered the inventor of radio.
Invention of Nikola Tesla
Meanwhile, in the USA it is believed that neither Popov nor Marconi are the inventors of radio, because priority in this area belongs to Nikola Tesla, a US citizen. Tesla received a patent for a radio transmitter in 1893 and a patent for a radio receiver in 1895, according to the US Patent Office. At the same time, he used a more advanced design that allowed the transmission and reception of sounds and voices, while Marconi and Popov used only Morse code to transmit radio signals. 
Perhaps it would indeed be more fair to consider Tesla the inventor of radio. In any case, all three researchers announced their inventions in 1895, so this date can be considered the birthday of radio, regardless of the identity of the inventor.
In this article we will take an excursion into the history of radio and radio communications. This topic is quite controversial, since until now, as with any other important invention, there is debate about who exactly this idea originally belonged to. Each side has its own candidate for the title of discoverer, and each side has quite enough arguments to prove its case. We will not argue who is more right, but simply list all known historical facts
Most scientists consider the creators of the first full-fledged radio installation to be an engineer from Italy named Gugliermo Marconi, who created it in 1985. Nevertheless, we generally consider Popov to be the discoverer of radiotelegraphy, who in the same year assembled a stable working receiver that was capable of operating at a distance of up to sixty meters 
In the USA, two years earlier, a similar transmitter was invented and even patented by Nikola Tesla, and this happened in 1893. In 1895 he also created a receiver. Only 5 decades later, in 1943, Tesla's priority over Marconi was established in court. This is quite logical, since all modern radio installations and walkie-talkies are built exactly after Tesla’s model. 
However, each country in the world had its own inventor at approximately the same time; in France it was Edouard Branly, in England Oliver Lodge, and even in India there was Jagadish Chandra Bose, who demonstrated the wonders of radio transmission. The only thing on which all opinions still agree is that the radio waves themselves were discovered directly by the German scientist Heinrich Hertz in 1888 
What’s also interesting is that the world’s first patent for wireless communications was received by US dentist Mahlon Loomis back in 1872, as was government funding for the experiments. Unfortunately, for unknown reasons, no information at all has been preserved about his experiments. 
As early as 1893, Tesla was sending signals over distances of up to 30 miles, while his competitor achieved such results much later. In 1897, the Frenchman Ducrete, using Popov’s schemes, created an experimental telegraph receiver. The next few years became a continuous race of inventions and signal transmission distances. And here is the same Ducrete apparatus:
Already in 1899, radio communications were used for the first time in a real operation to rescue crew members and passengers of the ship Masens. In 1901, Marconi established the first signal transmission across the Atlantic Ocean, the letter C of Morse code was transmitted from England to Newfoundland. The signal covered a distance of 3,200 kilometers, which everyone previously considered impossible. In 1906, a way to transmit not only signals, but also human speech was invented; researchers Fessenden and de Forest distinguished themselves. Well, in 1909, Marconi and Brown became laureates of the Nobel Prize in Physics as a sign of their achievements in the field of telegraphy 
Now, with the Internet and cellular communications, the inventions of the past no longer seem so significant, and such miracles of technology as the Megajet radio station are unlikely to surprise anyone, however, it was thanks to the research of that time that a qualitative and rapid leap in technology began, which served the imminent start of technological progress 
