The Invention of Radio
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the invention of radio. In the early 1860s the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell derived four equations which together describe the behaviour of electricity and magnetism. They predicted the existence of a previously unknown phenomenon: electromagnetic waves. These waves were first observed in the early 1880s, and over the next two decades a succession of scientists and engineers built increasingly elaborate devices to produce and detect them. Eventually this gave birth to a new technology: radio. The Italian Guglielmo Marconi is commonly described as the father of radio - but many other figures were involved in its development, and it was not him but a Canadian, Reginald Fessenden, who first succeeded in transmitting speech over the airwaves.
Guests
- Simon Schaffer
24 episodes
Professor of the History of Science at the University of Cambridge -
Elizabeth Bruton No other episodes
Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Leeds -
John Liffen No other episodes
Curator of Communications at the Science Museum, London
Reading list
-
Syntony and Spark: The Origins of Radio
Hugh Aitken (Princeton University Press, 1992) Google Books → -
Pioneers of Electrical Communication
Rollo Appleyard (Macmillan, 1930) Google Books → -
A History of the Marconi Company 1874-1965
W. J. Baker (Routledge, 1970) Google Books → -
Communications: An International History of the Formative Years. Vol. 32, IEE History of Technology Series
Russell W. Burns (Institution of Electrical Engineers, 2004) Google Books → -
The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History since 1900
David Edgerton (Profile, 2008) Google Books → -
The Early History of Radio from Faraday to Marconi
G. R. M. Garratt (Institution of Engineering and Technology, 1993) Google Books → -
The Invisible Weapon: Telecommunications and International Politics, 1851-1945
Daniel R. Headrick (Oxford University Press, 1991) Google Books → -
Wireless: From Marconi's Black Box to the Audion
Sungook Hong (MIT Press, 2010) Google Books → -
The Early British Radio Industry
Rowland F. Pocock (Manchester University Press, 1988) Google Books →
Related episodes
-
Radiation
12 Nov, 2009 530 Physics -
Maxwell
2 Oct, 2003 530 Physics -
Michael Faraday
24 Dec, 2015 530 Physics -
Conductors and Semiconductors
23 Feb, 2012 530 Physics -
Thomas Edison
9 Dec, 2010 600 Technology -
Albert Einstein
14 Sep, 2023 500 Science -
Rutherford
19 Feb, 2004 530 Physics -
Paul Dirac
5 Mar, 2020 530 Physics -
The Photon
12 Feb, 2015 530 Physics -
Crystallography
29 Nov, 2012 540 Chemistry -
Relativity
6 Jun, 2013 530 Physics -
Electrickery
4 Nov, 2004 500 Science -
The Curies
26 Mar, 2015 540 Chemistry -
Carl Friedrich Gauss
30 Apr, 2020 510 Mathematics -
Cosmic Rays
16 May, 2013 530 Physics -
Superconductivity
26 Jan, 2023 530 Physics -
Nuclear Physics
10 Jan, 2002 530 Physics -
Magnetism
29 Sep, 2005 530 Physics -
The Microscope
28 Nov, 2013 500 Science -
The Industrial Revolution
23 Dec, 2010 940 History of Europe
Programme ID: b0368knw
Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0368knw
Auto-category: 621.384 (History and development of radio)