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Signor Marconi's Magic Box
This biography of Marconi, published by Da Capo Press in 2003, is just one in a group of science-related historical accounts that I've been working my way through of late, but stands out from the others in sheer deja vu. Before getting into that, though, let us focus first on the author's deftly accomplished goal of fitting the story of Marconi's life and the development of wireless telegraphy (along with a more than adequate treatment of the historical context) into a book of approximately 300 pages (including two small sections of well-annotated photographs).
For those not familiar with Marconi beyond his popular title as the inventor of the radio, one of the first surprises is that much of the story takes place in England and not Italy, due in no small part to the fact that Marconi's mother was Irish. Marconi was born in Bologna, Italy in 1874. He was raised there, and it was in Bologna that he laid the foundation for his future successes in the wireless business. While the existence of "Hertzian" waves was known before Marconi's work, and even though their use as a medium of communication was certainly being considered by others at the time, Marconi can be credited with key innovations that led to the first practical system of wireless telegraphy. In 1896 he traveled to England to popularize his wireless system, with the help of his mother's family connections. Thus it was England where Marconi launched his first wireless enterprise, and England remained his base of operations for the bulk of his career.
For those not familiar with the history of radio, another surprise may be how just many obstacles initially stood in the way of wireless communication. The BBC World News broadcast didn't start the day after Marconi said, "Aha!" Many of the problems stemmed from a general ignorance of the actual physics involved in radio transmission. For example, early wireless sets worked better during the night than the day (like your radio's AM tuner), and early long-distance transmitters required large amounts of power. The advantages of "short waves," much less the theoretical underpinnings, were not recognized until rather late in the story, relative to Marconi. Marconi himself had little understanding of why his "magic boxes" worked. He focused rather on mechanical innovations that increased the convenience and reliability, and therefore the commercial possibilities, of his previous successes. In this respect, Marconi was much more of a craftsman and businessman than a scientist.
By 1900 there were two companies bearing Marconi's name (the Marconi Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company, and the Marconi International Marine Company), though like the true startups they were, neither were making any money. Soon Marconi was almost completely focused on making trans-Atlantic wireless telegraphy a reality. It was near this point in the narrative that I started to see reflections of "modern" legal, political, and cultural themes.
For the curious, let's dispense with these first: Marconi was an "early adopter" of the then-recent advances in automobile technology (he was seriously injured in an automobile accident later in his life). So the book makes mention of the fact that, because of the rapid rise in the popularity of motoring, as early as 1904 the police in England were setting up "speed traps." So the next time you are yelling at the cop who just pulled you over, take a moment to consider your small but vital role in over 100 years of tradition. Also of interest, the book discusses the roots of the "broadcast" concept, some of which involved the telephone system. This leads to the mention of consumer complaints, dating back to the early 1900s, about unsolicited sales calls. I won't ask you to consider, the next time your dinner is interrupted, your small but vital role in that tradition. It's just too depressing.
In December of 1901, Marconi received in Newfoundland the first trans-Atlantic wireless telegraph signal, transmitted from one of his stations in England. At that time, the business of trans-Atlantic communications (i.e. telegraph messages) was monopolized by the small set of companies that owned undersea cables. One cable company even had a legally-defined monopoly on telegraphy in Newfoundland, a fact they quickly pointed out to Marconi, forcing him to take his business to Canada. [ed. note: Newfoundland didn't join Canada until 1949.]
As news of Marconi's accomplishment spread, cable-company stocks began to "wobble." It was assumed by many that once long-distance wireless telegraphy became widespread, the lower cost-per-message for wireless would put the cable companies out of business. Of course, that never really happened. (It's worth noting here that the revolution of radio broadcast came later. Just as no one looking at the ARPANET could see Slashdot, no one looking at the first wireless efforts could see Wolfman Jack, Howard Stern, or Rush Limbaugh.) Soon however, despite the lack of much actual commercial wireless success, "wireless mania" was spreading through parts of the world, especially in the United States. Fraudulent businesses were created, patents (legitimate and otherwise) were being granted, competing standards were leading to international political frictions, patent-infringement suits were being brought, competitors were being bought out, and amateurs were gleefully "hacking" the system. It wasn't long before government regulations were being imposed and bureaucracy was slowing down the adoption of new technologies. Hopefully you can see why all this started to feel more than just vaguely familiar. I do not want to leave anyone with the impression that Signor Marconi's Magic Box is just a depressing litany of the recurring problems of civilization. It's hardly that. Actually the fact that I was able to identify on a modern level with much of the history made an already interesting book even more interesting.
Signor Marconi's Magic Box is pretty much everything you could want in a historical biography, perhaps more. The author touches on enough aspects of the development of wireless telegraphy to keep the story fresh, including most if not all of the personalities involved, and he seems to give credit where it's due. He provides enough detail of Marconi's life to give us a good sense of the man, but not so much as to weigh down the narrative. Likewise, he provides enough technical detail to give us a sense of the technology, but not so much as to detract from the human aspects of the tale. If you are not hooked yet, please allow me brief mention of some other aspects of the story, including: forbidden love, intrigue, war, murder, shipwrecks, practical jokes, heroic deeds, another war, and international espionage. If I had to sum it all up in one sentence it would be this: Any book that contains the phrase "two-ton transformer blew up" can't be all bad.
You can purchase Signor Marconi's Magic Box: The Most Remarkable Invention of the 19th Century & the Amateur Inventor Whose Genius Sparked a Revolution from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
I wonder if the author points out the fact that Marconi blatently 'borrowed' technology for his radio, stealing the title of inventor of the radio from Nikola Tesla?
While Mr. Weightman is a little skimpy on biographical depth (I never quite felt I understood what made Marconi tick), he is great on interesting details...for example, he explains how wireless was used to help capture the infamous murderer Dr. Crippen, and he also tells how Orthodox Russian priests once almost destroyed Marconi equipment because they wanted to anoint it with holy water! The book is meant for the lay reader, and the scientific detail is kept to a minimum. Very enjoyable.
You know what else I just thought of...
Not only did Tesla get royally screwed out of his biggest inventions, the original creator of a digital computer, Konrad Zues, hardly ever gets credit either. Windows and Apple...
The lesson is not to try to hard yourself. But to watch others closely for good ideas you can steal.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
On NWI (Canada) I saw an interview with Marconi's daughter. She was also the Princess of Italy but that's beside the point.
Anyway, she told of how when she was a little girl her dad would take her and and family friends out on the family yacht and would amaze them with his electrical gadgetry, namely a device that he would throw a line over the side and troll it behind the boat for a few hours. When he would reel it in there would be spider webs of gold thread trailing off of it.
She was only 6 or 7 at the time and didn't understand what he was doing but she said it had something to do with radio frequencies that attracted the gold particles in the sea water to the antenna, they would bind and create the spider webs.
That was one cool ass interview. She had LOTS of neat stories about the things her father did back in the day..
I realized after writing this that you may be referring to the fact that you need an internal jump to execute "if A then B". I don't know if the Z3 implemented an internal jump in an IF statement or not. It was certainly doable, since, as I mentioned, Zuse used a jump in the floating point arithmetic. I won't guess whether that's what he did or not, since that would just be noise.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
An even more appropriate companion to this book would be Susan Douglas' Inventing American Broadcasting. It has a fascinating chapter on amateur radio operators that reads like a pre-history of computer hackers. She describes how these operators -- young, adolescent, middle-class boys obsessed with a technology for technology's sake -- provided a critical mass for broadcast radio (which had a chicken-and-egg problem -- without an established base of users no-one wanted to develop broadcast stations). The parallels with the early personal computer industry are striking. Although she does not make the point explicitly, Douglas implies that hacker culture is not as unique (at least as modern) as we sometimes make she. She explains it as part of a larger set of structural and cultural changes that occurred at the beginning of the 20th century. A good read.
The entry for Marconi reads, in full, Italian Electrician.
This always seemed to me to be the most astonishingly unhelpful description imaginable.
Protoplasm. Quiet Protoplasm. I like quiet protoplasm.
That alone would seem to be no small achievement. Marconi's mechanical spark gap generators were rugged and reliable and were still in use long after the introduction of the vacuum tube.