From diode to triode
From Fleming to De Forest and From diode to triode. John Ambrose Fleming (1849–1945) was born in Lancaster, a town in the north-west of England. In 1885, he became Britain’s first Professor of Electrical Engineering, at the newly created department in…
Thomson: From monocle to mirror
How a renowned physicist speeded up telegraphy “There can be little doubt that the man chiefly responsible for changing submarine cable-laying from an esoteric art to an exact science was William Thomson.Arthur C. Clarke William Thomson was born in Belfast in…
Gutta percha
Gutta percha = Wonder material of the mid-19th century What tropical tree connects telegraphy and golf? The answer to the question is: gutta percha. The name comes from the Malay language and refers to several species of tree from the…
Nikola Tesla: Harnessing the storm
150 years ago this July, a scientist was born in the Balkans at the stroke of midnight during a thunderstorm. He ended his career working on a “death ray.” Who was he? In answer to the question above, it was…
Making a difference
When was the computer invented? Among possible answers to this question, the credit for designing the earliest precursor to modern machines goes to 19th-century British mathematician and engineer Charles Babbage (1791–1871). Born the son of a wealthy banker, Babbage spent his…
Pictures via a pendulum
Remotely printed paper messages still have many uses, and have done for more than 150 years. The invention of the fax machine Sending images through telephone lines to be reconstructed at the receiver’s end as a facsimile of the original…
Precursors of programming
Inputting information into machines in binary form (on or off) is not new. Bells, automata and silk Inputting information into machines in binary form (on or off) is not new. In the late 14th century, in what is now Belgium…
Typewriter: Remote writing
When the typewriter was first patented? Speeding up telegraphy through typing In the question above we asked when the typewriter was first patented. It happened much earlier than you might think. In 1714, an Englishman, Henry Mill, was granted a…
Sending out an SOS
How a famous disaster spurred agreement on international rules was born. The year 2006 marks the centenary of the International Radiotelegraph Conference held in Berlin in 1906, where 29 countries signed a convention on wireless communication for ships at sea.…
Telegraphy and television
If things had happened differently, we might now be watching the screens of “electrical telescopes” in our living rooms. Two fields of achievement for one pioneer If things had happened differently, we might now be watching the screens of “electrical…
