On 12 December 1901, Italian physicist and radio pioneer GUGLIELMO MARCONI succeeded in making the the first transatlantic radio transmission in history, disproving detractors who told him that the curvature of the earth would limit transmission to 200 miles or less. The message–simply the Morse-code signal for the letter “S”–traveled more than 2,000 miles from Poldhu in Cornwall, England, to Signal Hill outside of St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada. The transatlantic transmission won MARCONI worldwide fame. Ironically, detractors of the project were correct when they declared that radio waves would not follow the curvature of the earth, as MARCONI believed. In fact, MARCONI’s transatlantic radio signal had been headed into space when it was reflected off the ionosphere and bounced back down toward Canada. Much remained to be learned about the laws of the radio wave and the role of the atmosphere in radio transmissions, and MARCONI would continue to play a leading role in radio discoveries and innovations during the next three decades.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Dec 2014 11:29:56 +0000
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