Guglielmo Marconi- Italian engineer and inventor, best known as one of the inventors of radio, was born April 25, 1874 in the city of Bologna in the family of a large landowner and an Irish countess.

The state of his father, as well as Guglielmo's passion for invention from an early age and a precocious mind played an important role in the development of the future engineer and inventor. At the age of 13, he enters a technical institute in the city of Livorno, where he is interested in the transmission of electromagnetic waves over a distance - the future of radio communications.

In 1894 he privately enters to study with the well-known at that time professor of the University of Bologna, Augusto Righi, who was also thoroughly engaged in the study of electromagnetic waves. In the same place, Marconi closely begins to conduct practical experiments on the transmission of a radio signal over a distance. And a year later in 1895 Guglielmo Marconi manages to send a radio signal over a distance of about 3 km. Although the transmitter he created did not find due attention among the officials of the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs of Italy, to whom he suggested using the invention, Guglielmo did not despair and took him to London to show his invention.

In London, Marconi's work, on the contrary, found due interest from the British Post Office and has already in 1896 the young engineer begins work on the improvement and refinement of the receiver and transmitter. On September 2 of the same year, he holds the first public demonstration of signal transmission over a distance. For this purpose, he uses a modified generator by Heinrich Hertz and a receiver by Alexander Stepanovich Popov - Russian engineer, the second contender for the championship in the invention of radio.

It cannot be said that Guglielmo Marconi simply stole Popov's device and appropriated the title of discoverer of radio to himself. He significantly redesigned the receiver, adding to it his own developed vacuum coherer, which made it possible to significantly increase the stability of the receiver and its sensitivity. Also, unlike Popov, he completely created a transceiver system, improving the Hertz transmitter together with his mentor Augusto Riga.

July 2, 1897 Marconi receives a patent for his invention and almost immediately organizes the Marconi Co. company. So, in addition to ingenuity, Guglielmo's entrepreneurial qualities also appeared. By the end of the summer, his company managed to transmit a radio signal over a distance that was unthinkable at that time - 14 km. And by the autumn it increased by another 7 km. By the beginning of winter, a stationary radio station on the Isle of Wight was put into operation, providing signal transmission over a distance of up to 23 km.

And although Marconi mistakenly believed that a radio signal could be transmitted without loss even through water, even through the ground, this gross oversight (the impossibility of radio waves propagating in these media was proved by Nikola Tesla) helped Guglielmo Marconi to achieve generally unimaginable at that time success. Since 1901 he managed to organize permanent radio communications across the Atlantic.

As it turned out later, this is possible due to the fact that low-frequency radio waves are able to bend around Earth, reflecting (rather than passing through) from the surface of the earth and the ionosphere.

In 1905 Marconi receives a patent for directional communication. In 1932 he organizes the first radiotelephone microwave communication, and two years later develops microwave transmitters for use in maritime navigation.

For his invaluable services in the field of radio engineering, Guglielmo Marconi was awarded many awards and titles. And although for all the time he occupied not only public useful posts in the government of Italy (he held leading positions in the government of Mussolini), his services to society do not diminish from this.

In this article we will talk about a wonderful person. His ingenious mind, vast knowledge and extraordinary craving for progress literally linked the continents together. The airport is named after him, he is the owner of many honorary titles and prizes, including the Nobel Prize. So, let me introduce you to the brilliant physicist and inventor - Guglielmo Marchese Marconi!

Childhood

The boy was raised by his mother. The family did not live in poverty, and this made it possible to hire the best teachers for the child.

Like most children from wealthy families in Italy, the baby mastered the piano remarkably.

Youth

When the future genius Marconi Guglielmo, Interesting Facts from whose life we ​​will tell in the article, turned 18, he tried to get into the maritime academy, but failed the exam.

The young man enthusiastically listened to the lectures of Augusto Riga at the university. In the UK attended classes in famous school Rugby school.

When he turned 20, everything related to electromagnetic radiation began to attract his attention. He became interested in the works of famous scientists who devoted their lives to the study of this area.

First experiments

The first serious experiments Marconi conducted in Griffon. There was the father's estate. He managed to send a signal to the bell, first standing nearby, then at the other end of the house, and later - completely on the street. With each new experience, it was possible to increase the distance and achieve more and more interesting results.

In 1895, the inventor significantly improved his device. In this way he crossed the threshold for about a mile and a half.

No prophet in his own country

Oddly enough, in his native Italy, Marconi devices did not interest anyone. In vain he knocked on the thresholds of numerous offices and ministries, everywhere there was a turn from the gate. Even the solid connections of his teacher, Professor Augusto Riga, did not help.

Desperate to be useful in his homeland, Guglielmo decides to go to England in order to patent his invention there.

The chances that the UK would be interested in this device were quite high. The country had a huge military and merchant fleet, and radio communications could be a very valuable acquisition.

However, England met the inventor is not very happy. First of all, at the customs, his instruments were broken (they seemed suspicious to them). To a young man I had to rebuild everything.

September 2, 1896 Guglielmo Marconi radio showed in action. His radio signal covered a distance of two miles. Almost all English newspapers wrote about this invention then.

As often happens, along with numerous admirers, Guglielmo acquired many envious people and people who are trying to challenge the priority of his inventions.

In 1897, the scientist was called to the Italian military service. Rich dad's connections help out. The young genius is accepted into the service of the Italian embassy.

Businessman

Marconi was not just a talented engineer and physicist. Without a commercial vein, he could not do.

In 1897, the scientist managed to send a radio signal across the entire Bristol Bay (9 miles). The length of the antenna at the same time was more than 90 meters!

After such success, the British Post could not resist and bought several devices from a talented inventor to maintain contact with their lightships. From that time on, Marconi began to be thought of not only as a talented physicist and engineer, but also as a successful businessman.

In the summer of 1897, the inventor creates Joint-Stock Company Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company. Since the firm uses his patent, Marconi receives 60 per cent of all shares and 15,000 pounds in addition.

The main goal of the organization was the construction of radio stations along the entire coast. In early 1898, the apparatus was installed on the Isle of Wight.

So who's first?

The most violent opponent of the Italian was the English physicist Oliver Lodge. He accused him of the fact that Marconi Guglielmo did not create inventions according to his own ideas.

In fact, there is a certain amount of truth in this statement. In 1894, when Hertz died, Oliver Lodge gave a lecture at the British Academy. He finalized Hertz's experiments and created an apparatus that became the basis of many radio receivers.

Lodge published the results of the experiments in the Electrician magazine, which made it possible to repeat these experiments to other famous scientists, including Marconi.

In 1897, already in his homeland, Guglielmo demonstrated the capabilities of his radio stations. Now he managed to transmit a radio signal through 12 miles. At the same time, he set up a radio link between the Queen's residence and her son's yacht, which demonstrated that his device is also excellent for sending personal messages.

In 1898, for the first time, a distress signal was received by radio. In the same year, the first factory producing radio transmitters was launched in the city of Chelmsford.

Through the distance

Already in 1899, the scientist decided with the help of his invention to overcome the English Channel (28 miles). It was a huge success. But Marconi was not enough, he wanted to connect the continents.

In the spring of 1900, he receives a new patent. By adding a capacitor, the transmitter has been upgraded, which enhances the effect of oscillations.

After receiving this patent, the Italian became practically the master of the radio engineering market. In 1900, his firm changed its name to Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company Limited.

Then the inventor overcomes the threshold of 150 miles, and six months later he puts new record- 186 miles.

For the next experiment, the firm gives him 50,000 pounds.

The Italian places radio stations near the city of Poldu (England) and at Cape Cod in the USA. And then the problems began. At first, the antennas in England were blown away by the wind. Then a storm broke the antenna masts on the American coast. The scientist built a new station in Canada (Glace Bay). After long attempts to set up the system, Guglielmo finally found a way out.

The antenna was a two-hundred-meter wire tied to a kite. But he fails again, the wind breaks the wire and carries the kite away. The scientist does not lose heart and continues to try. The same thing happens with the second kite.

On December 12, 1901, the first intercontinental transmission took place with the help of a third kite at 12:30. The radio signal was sent over 2,000 miles.

The experiment proved the groundlessness of the assertions of physicists who said that due to the curvature of the surface, the waves could not travel more than 300 miles.

In the United States, the resourceful Italian expanded his commercial activities, especially since the fame of his inventions ran ahead of him. He opens the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America. The Canadian government orders transmitters from him. In 1902 they were already installed. And five years later, through the efforts of Marconi, a regular connection across the Atlantic was set up.

In 1909, Marconi received the Nobel Prize in Physics.

In December of the same year, he delivered his famous Nobel lecture on wireless telephony.

From 1918 the Italian devoted himself entirely to experiments with ultrashort waves.

In 1919 he went to Paris for a peace conference as a representative of Italy.

In the summer of 1920, the first radio program was released. A couple of years later, his firm opens another, since 1927 called the BBC ("BBC").

In 1932, Guglielmo establishes radiotelephone communications.

Family

Marconi Guglielmo, whose biography has never been simple, was married twice. First time on Beatrice O'Brien. They lived together for 19 years and separated in 1924. Guglielmo had three children from his first marriage.

The second time he married the young Countess Maria Bezzi-Scali.

At 56, Marconi's daughter Elettra is born.

Awards and titles

The Nobel Prize in Physics is not Marconi's only award. The inventor received quite a few awards and titles. And he didn't even have a higher education!

In 1909, the King of Italy appointed Marconi as a senator. In 1929, he was solemnly presented with the title of Marquis, and a year later he was elected head of the Royal Academy.

His portrait flaunts on a banknote of 2 thousand lira. The airport in Bologna was named after him.

Epilogue

The famous physicist Marconi Guglielmo died on July 20, 1937. The funeral took place in the family estate, at the Villa Griffin. On this day, all radio stations stopped broadcasting for two minutes to honor the man who taught the continents to communicate.

In 1915, the US Federal Court ruled in favor of Guglielmo. But after his death Supreme Court canceled all his patents, awarding them to Nikola Tesla.

Perhaps Guglielmo used equipment created by other scientists and inventors in his instruments and experiments. But it was he who turned out to be more far-sighted and enterprising in this case. And it is this person that we must thank for such a rapid introduction and development of wireless communications.

The son of a large landowner from Bologna, Guglielmo Marconi was interested in radio engineering since childhood. Apparently, he was a child prodigy, so at the age of 13 he already became a student at a technical institute in Livorno. Reading the works of Heinrich Hertz and Nikola Tesla, the young man tried to independently conduct experiments to establish communication using electromagnetic waves. The experiments were crowned with success: in 1895, the 21-year-old Marconi for the first time managed to transmit a wireless signal over a three-kilometer distance. After that, the young man turned to the Ministry of Post and Telegraph with a proposal to use wireless communication. But there they dismissed him.

Then Guglielmo decided to leave for the UK. It was 1896. A young radio technician demonstrated the operation of his device to specialists by sending a Morse code signal from the roof of the London Post Office to another building located one and a half kilometers from the post office. This time, Marconi was more fortunate. The invention interested the then director of the British post and telegraph V.G. Pris, and he offered the young inventor cooperation.

On September 2, 1896, Marconi's invention was first demonstrated to the general public. The experiment took place on Salisbury Plain. The transmitter was a modified Hertz oscillator, and the receiver was an improved Popov device. This time the radiogram was transmitted over a distance of three kilometers.

In July 1897, Marconi finally managed to patent his invention. In addition, he created the joint-stock company Marconi and Co. The company's shares were acquired by many prominent scientists and engineers of the time. That same summer, Guglielmo and his team were able to transmit radio signals across Bristol Bay for a distance of 14 kilometers. In October, the signal was already transmitted over a distance of 21 kilometers. In November of the same year, the first fixed radio station appeared on the Isle of Wight, which maintained contact with the mainland at a distance of 23 kilometers.

In 1900, Marconi patented a radio tuning system. Soon the first wireless telegraph was opened in Chelmsford.

In December 1901, a radio signal crossed the Atlantic Ocean for the first time, and by the end of 1902 regular transatlantic radio communications were established. In 1905, Marconi and his colleagues received a patent for directional communication.

On this, Marconi did not calm down. In 1932, he was able to establish radiotelephone microwave communications for the first time, and in 1934 he demonstrated how it could be used for navigation on the high seas.

In 1894, Mr.. M. read about the experience demonstrated in 1888: an electric spark that jumped through the gap between two metal balls, generated periodic oscillations, or impulses (Hertzian waves). M. immediately got the idea to use these waves to transmit signals through the air without wires. He devoted the next 40 years of his life to wireless telegraphy, achieving ever greater efficiency and transmission range.

After receiving advice from Riga, M. used the Hertzian vibrator and the Branly coherer (a Hertzian wave detector that turns oscillations into electricity) and transmitted a signal that turned on an electric bell located on the other side of the lawn of his father's estate. By mid-1895, Mr.. M. created a more sensitive and reliable coherer: included a telegraph key in the transmitter circuit, grounded vibrator and attached one of its ends to a metal plate located high above the ground. As a result of these improvements, he was able to transmit a signal over a distance of 1.5 miles. Since the Italian government showed no interest in his invention, M. went to England in the hope of finding funds there to continue research and develop the commercial use of his invention. In 1896 cousin M. Henry James Davis helped him draft the first patent application for an invention in the field of radiotelegraphy.

M.'s stay in England began with trouble: suspicious customs officers smashed his wireless device. Restoring his offspring, M. managed to attract the attention of British entrepreneurs and government officials. In September 1896, having improved his system, he transmitted a signal over a distance of almost 2 miles. When the Italian government called him to a three-year military service, M. managed to secure a formal service, being a cadet at the naval school at the Italian embassy in London. In May 1897 he transmitted signals across Bristol Bay to a distance of 9 miles. In July of that year, M. and a small group of contributors founded the "Wireless Telegraph and Signals Company", whose task was to install devices on floating and land-based lighthouses along the coast of England.

In the course of work M. found that the transmission range is proportional to the number and length of the antennas used. To transmit a signal to a distance of 28 miles across the English Channel, M. used a group of antennas, each of which was 150 feet high. In 1900, based on the discovery of Ferdinand Brown, M. included in his transmitter capacitor and tuning coil, which increased the signal energy. The capacitor enhanced the effect of the oscillations created by the spark gap, and the coils made it possible to achieve the coincidence of the period of oscillations in the antenna with the period of enhanced oscillations. From now on, these two circuits could be tuned so that the oscillations in them would occur in concert, and thus there would be no damping of the oscillations due to interference. This minimized signal attenuation.

At the same time, M. also improved signal reception by including a tuning coil in the receiver, as a result of which only oscillations tuned to the transmitter oscillations are transmitted from the received signal to the coherer. This prevents the reception of signals transmitted by all other antennas. Patent No. 7777, issued in April 1900, essentially secured for M. a monopoly on the use of transmitters and receivers tuned to each other. The company he founded was renamed the Marconi Wireless Telegraphy Company.

By the end of 1900 M. managed to increase the range of signaling up to 150 miles. In January 1901, he established wireless contact between some points on the coast of England, separated from each other at a distance of 186 miles. At the end of the same year, while in St. John on the island of New Foundland, M. received a signal transmitted across the Atlantic Ocean from Cornwall (Great Britain). The signal covered a distance of 2100 miles. In 1902, Mr.. M. transmitted the first wireless signal across the Atlantic from west to east. In 1905 he took out a patent for directional signaling. In 1907, Mr.. M. opened the first transatlantic wireless service, and in 1912 received a patent for an improved time-controlled spark system for generating transmitted waves.

M. and Brown were awarded together Nobel Prize in Physics in 1909 "in recognition of their merits in the development of wireless telegraphy". Noting the theoretical studies of Michael Faraday, Heinrich Hertz and other predecessors of M., Hans Hildebrandt of the Royal Swedish Academy noted that “the main thing (besides the indomitable energy with which M. went to his own goal) was achieved when M., thanks to natural abilities managed to bring the whole system into a compact, usable design.”

During the First World War, M. performed a number of military missions and eventually became commander of the Italian Navy. He also directed the telegraphy program for the needs of the Italian armed forces. In 1919 he was appointed Italy's plenipotentiary at the Paris Peace Conference. On behalf of Italy M. signed agreements with Austria and Bulgaria.

Best of the day

Turning his steam yacht "Elettra" into a home, laboratory and study, M. in 1921, Mr.. began intensive research on shortwave telegraphy. By 1927, M.'s company deployed international network commercial shortwave telegraph connections. In 1931, Mr.. M. investigated the transmission of microwaves and the following year established the first radiotelephone microwave connection. In 1934, he demonstrates the possibility of using microwave telegraphy for the needs of navigation on the high seas.

In 1905, M. married Beatrice O'Brien, a native of Ireland. They had three children. Three years after the divorce that followed in 1924, M. entered into a second marriage with Countess Bezzi-Scali, from whom he had daughter M. died on July 20, 1937 in Rome.

Among other awards M. was awarded the Franklin Medal of the Franklin Institute and the Albert Medal of the Royal Society of Arts in London. In Italy, he received the hereditary title of Marquis, was a senator and was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of the Crown of Italy.

G. Marconi
vova 26.11.2006 02:39:59

In the book published and sold in Moscow in 2005, it seems to be called "110 years of radio" / approximately, p. 200, full name. I don’t remember the author /, it is written: before the submission of a preliminary application in March 1896, all information about the work and involvement of G. Marconi in radio, if known, is only from memoirs and from the words of G. Marconi himself, there are no other documents. How does the author of this material know everything stated by him?

by Notes of the Wild Mistress

Marconi is known to many primarily for being the first to be able to broadcast by wireless telegraph, laying the foundation for the current communication system. But, probably, few people are aware that even before that, he claimed that he was able to intercept radio messages sent from Mars, and even tried to create a device capable of recording voices from the afterlife, the other world.

No one will remember the time when NASA released information that fossilized traces of possible life were found on Mars. And that the forerunners of today's radio communications, Guglielmo Marconi and Nikola Tesla, recorded signals at the dawn of the last century with their own equipment, which they considered to be intelligent signals from Mars. Or that Marconi published an article in the newspaper, where he spoke about the messages he received, broadcast by a stellar civilization and received by his installation ...

The secret fortress of Guglielmo Marconi

I must say, even now, individual experts do not stop declaring that the death of Guglielmo Marconi, which happened in 1937, was only a well-staged performance, organized in order to keep the last period of his life a secret. And Marconi lived allegedly in voluntary imprisonment in an unknown city, located far from the whole world somewhere in the thickets of Venezuela.

This is the secret fortress where Marconi teamed up with a team of researchers to invent flying saucers powered by anti-gravity engines. The motors themselves operated on the basis of a high potential of static electricity. Actually Guglielmo Marconi last years of his life was developing a secret super-technological civilization, built on the latest endless source of energy, being at a distance of many hundreds of kilometers from the reach of large oil companies, and creating all kinds of alternative technologies, previously ruined in the bud for the sake of the interests of entrepreneurs.

Marconi once said: “Sooner or later we will get in touch with extraterrestrial intelligence, and since most of the star systems must be older than ours, then the creatures living there will certainly have much more serious technical information. This information is extremely important to us."

Marconi's attention to extraterrestrial civilizations peaked during his sea trip from Southampton to New York. On the way, he set off on May 23 and reached the shores of America on June 16, 1922. Guglielmo moved on his laboratory yacht Elektra, acquired after the First World War from the Italian Navy. Here, Marconi spent a lot of time testing the installation for broadcasting and receiving interplanetary signals. Whether his efforts were crowned with success is unknown, since, having reached America, Marconi did not want to share his achievements with the public.

Towards other dimensions

A little later, Marconi became interested in trying to communicate with other dimensions. The researcher firmly decided to assemble a device that can easily receive voices from other times and get in touch with the afterlife. Marconi never forgot the words of Nikola Tesla: "We have no right to assert that individual life forms of other worlds do not exist here, right next to us ... and that we are not able to record traces of their existence."

In 1930 on board the Elektra, together with the famous physicist Francesco Landini, Marconi set about the problems of anti-gravity and the transmission of electricity through the air. These undertakings were not something completely new and unusual, since such studies were once organized by Nikola Tesla himself. It was Tesla who sent waves across the earth that turned out to be able to light a light bulb for as long as reverse side the globe.

In the summer of 1936, Guglielmo Marconi arranged for Hitler to show an apparatus built on the wave principle, and which should be used to create defensive weapons. At that time, similar installations were often talked about, calling them "death rays." Marconi showed the work of his invention on the highway north of Milan, and Mussolini asked his wife to drive along this road at exactly 15:00.

Before Marconi had time to use the device, electronic devices stopped working in cars along the entire road (including in the car of Mussolini's wife). The drivers were shocked, inspecting the engines, checking for fuel. After a while, the cars were able to move on. The most striking thing about this episode is that it is fully described in the autobiography of Mussolini himself. There is an opinion that the plot of the film of the middle of the last century "The Day the Earth Stood Still" was invented precisely thanks to the events that took place two decades ago with light hand consummate researcher.

Mussolini was very interested in showing Marconi his immobilizing rays, but there were rumors that Pope Pius XII insisted on stopping work on such devices, and also demanded the complete destruction of all information about them.

The Strange Death of Guglielmo Marconi

Against the background of previous failures and disappointments associated with the idea of ​​​​organizing monopoly control of terrestrial telecommunications, Guglielmo Marconi was very unhappy with this turn of events. As a result, just a year later, in the summer of 1937, Marconi died under rather strange circumstances.

Could it be that Mussolini had a hand in Marconi's death so that he would not advance further in scientific research: after all, the problem was not only in the need to fulfill the order of the pope, but also the potential probability of hitting the infernal installation and the order of the enemy? Or did Marconi himself play his own death in order to get out of the control of the pope, and then safely sail away in the direction of South America? So many different hypotheses have been invented that one could make a whole book out of them.

If you believe the assumptions, the mass of European explorers (their number approximately reached 100 people) joined Marconi in South America to organize work on the construction of a city inside the crater of a long-cooled volcano in the forests of Venezuela. Among them was François Leve, who is considered the author of such books as The Secret of the Cathedrals and The Philosophy of the Dwelling, and who, as J. Bergier tells in The Return of the Magicians, immediately after the end of the First World War, told him some details of the recent discovery nuclear energy and warned about possible consequences development of atomic weapons.

A couple of years later, Francois disappeared without a trace. Apparently, he went to a mysterious city, the creation of which took enormous funds at the disposal of individual members of the project (Fulcanelli, who allegedly was able to get philosopher's Stone- a bottomless source of high-quality gold), where he again took up work.

In search of a secret city

The writer and scientist R. Sharu in the book "The Secret of the Andes" reports that, despite the lack of evidence of the reality of the secret city, the story about it is incredibly popular.

But the journalist Mario Roges Ebendaro, who carefully analyzed the bits of information related to the construction of this truly fantastic city, finally decided for himself that it really exists. The journalist gained such confidence in this fact in the course of a conversation with a professor of physics from California, N. Gunovese. The professor said that he himself had lived in a secret city for a long time and even became the author of a not very popular book, My Journey to Mars.

In the book, the professor reported that the city is located deep underground and that there are much more funds for scientific research in it than anywhere else (at the time of writing the book, of course). Since 1946 the city began to extract electricity directly from the earth's crust based on the developments of Guglielmo Marconi and Nikola Tesla. And since 1952. the researchers from the secret city “were able to roam the oceans and continents on a vessel with an infinite source of energy, and which, at the same time, was able to move at a speed of a million km / h. The ship was not afraid of high pressure and the most serious problem in managing it was that it was difficult to stop it in time.”

So where exactly is the city located? According to Professor Gunovese, at an altitude of 4 km in the mountainous jungle, reliably protected by abundant vegetation, far from highways. In favor of this story is the poor study of the eastern slopes of the Andes mountains, where there are a lot of high peaks from Venezuela to Bolivia.

The professor declared with fervor that Marconi even had the opportunity to go to the planets neighboring the Earth. It is possible that it is precisely the very UFOs that eyewitnesses in the night sky contemplate from time to time today are being developed at the factories of the secret city by the followers of the great Guglielmo Marconi ...