Signor Marconi's magic box
Subtitle: the most remarkable invention of the 19th century & the amateur inventor whose genius sparked a revolution
By: Gavin Weightman.
Edition: 1st Da Capo Press ed.
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Published: 2003
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Number of pages: 312
Subjects: Marconi, Guglielmo, marchese, 1874-1937; Electric engineers -- Italy -- Biography; Telegraph, Wireless -- Marconi system -- History; Radio -- History
Genres: Biography.
Description: The world at the turn of the 20th century was in the throes of "Marconi-mania" - brought on by an incredible invention that no one could quite explain, and by a dapper and eccentric figure (who would one day win the newly minted Nobel Prize) at the centre of it all. At a time when the telephone, telegraph and electricity made the whole world wonder just what science would think of next, the startling answer had come in 1896 in the form of two mysterious wooden boxes containing a device one Guglielmo Marconi had rigged up to transmit messages "through the ether". It was the birth of the radio, and no scientist in Europe or America, not even Marconi himself, could at first explain how it worked. It just did. And no one knew how far these radio waves could travel, until 1903, when a message from President Theodore Roosevelt to the king of England flashed from Cape Cod to Cornwall clear across the Atlantic. This volume is a rich portrait of the man and his era - and a captivating tale of science and scientists, business and businessmen. There are stories of British blowhards, American con artists - and Marconi himself: a character par excellence, who eventually winds up a virtual prisoner of his worldwide fame and fortune.
Notes: Includes index.