WEBVTT - Who invented the radio? 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.960 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:08.880 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:17.920 tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone, 0:00:18.000 --> 0:00:20.639 Welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Polette and 0:00:20.680 --> 0:00:22.760 I'm an editor at how stuff works dot com. Sitting 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:25.960 across me, as usual, is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. I 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:31.560 remember all my life raining down as cold as ice. Oh, 0:00:31.640 --> 0:00:37.920 Mandy uh and am radio Classic. Yeah, we're gonna talk 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:41.239 today about who invented the radio? And you would think 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:43.440 that this would have a very easy answer and that 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:45.080 we could give it and then you could be on 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:50.000 your Mary Little way. Not so fast. Yes, As a 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:52.560 matter of fact, I was. I was reading a book 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:56.040 not too long ago that made me think about topics 0:00:56.080 --> 0:00:58.720 like this. But and Jonathan and I've talked about this 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:02.400 with regard to TV, because there were two people who 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:07.240 were working on how to create an electrical television like 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:10.959 rather than than a mechanical because mechanical TVs have been 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:12.920 around for a while, but no one had come up 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:19.240 with uh, an easily manufactured electric version. Right. But in 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:22.839 that case, we were really talking about primarily two people, 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:25.400 and we're sort of talking about two people here, give 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:27.800 or take another twelve or fifteen. Right, Yeah, there's two 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:31.120 people that ultimately the question tends to boil down to. 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:34.720 But that's even that is too simplistic a a look 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:38.400 at radio. So to really get a get a handle 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:41.120 on how complex this topic is, you actually have to 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:46.640 go back more than five decades before radio came into being, 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:50.640 that's true. And and again, like a lot of scientific discovery, 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:56.080 each new iteration is an improvement on another technology or 0:01:56.200 --> 0:01:59.400 uses a technology that has recently been discovered in a 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:02.040 new way. So we're really this is another one of 0:02:02.040 --> 0:02:07.000 those standing on the shoulders of giants situation, very very apt. Yeah, 0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:10.600 this this is all taking place, well, the earliest parts 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:12.960 are taking place in the early nineteenth century, but most 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:15.480 of it's taking place within a two decade period at 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:17.639 the end of the nineteenth century. Some of it's spilling 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:20.520 over into the early twentieth century. And you're talking about 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:26.799 an era in which you have an enormous intellectual revolution. Right, 0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:31.840 You've got people who are wicked smart. Right, these are 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:35.040 guys and gals as well. I mean, we're in an 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:39.239 age where there were science was reigning supreme Science scientists 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:42.600 were the rock stars of this era. They really kind 0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:46.240 of were. Yeah, I mean, you had scientists who could 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:51.000 command the attention of thousands at at a speech. It 0:02:51.080 --> 0:02:53.320 was really hard to imagine now because you know, you 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:55.880 don't really think of like the guy from the LHC 0:02:56.080 --> 0:02:58.880 getting up and people doing the wave. But back then, 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:02.560 the guys were the people who were shaping the earth. 0:03:02.760 --> 0:03:05.360 So it's really a fascinating time, and there were so 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:07.919 many developments and so many people were working on this 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:11.359 sort of technology at the same time. There's no surprise 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:14.320 that there's controversy because you've got a lot of people 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:18.440 all trying to figure out how to have a useful 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:22.280 application of a newly discovered law or or or feature 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:26.239 of the universe. Right, So clearly you're gonna have some overlap. 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:32.280 So let's start from before we're even talking about radio, 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:36.680 all right, So we're gonna talk about in eighteen thirty seven, 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:41.400 there's a guy named Samuel Morse, and Samuel Morris, of course, 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:45.800 is famous for inventing the telegraph as well as Morse Code, 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:52.200 which was the series of bleeps and buzzes that that 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:57.480 would allow you to transmit information to communicate over wires 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:01.600 over a long distance. Right. That the telegraph really changed 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:05.440 the way the world communicated um significantly. Right. It's one 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:08.720 of those those technologies that we like to say makes 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:13.600 the world smaller, because it significantly reduced the amount of 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:17.119 time that that news traveled the world. We heard about 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:19.840 things far more quickly than we used to in the past. 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:23.640 People were able to communicate with one another across great distances, 0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:26.720 of which you had to have a cable in order 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:29.400 to make that happen. Yeah, and that was the that 0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:32.560 was the big barrier, right. I mean, the cable was 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:36.440 definitely a lot more efficient than say the pony express 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:39.200 or carrying a message across the ocean on a on 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:42.120 a ship, but you still had to have a cable. 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:45.760 You had to have a physical connection between two stations 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:50.040 in order to transmit information, and unfortunately that would mean 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:54.640 that certain remote areas could not easily get a station. Uh. 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:58.160 It also meant that you had a physical object that 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:03.800 could withstand only so much punishment before it failed. So 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:06.640 you had a cable that could be broken or there 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:11.160 could be some sort of interference there. That that meant 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:14.039 that it was While it was a huge leap in 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:17.800 communication from what came previously. There had to be a 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:25.120 better way. Once it became apparent to companies that the 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:28.400 telegraph could make them lots and lots of money, people 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:32.760 wanted to find better ways to use the telegraph and 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:36.760 better telegraph technology, right because you gotta remember that first 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:40.559 telegraph wire, all it could do is transmit these these 0:05:40.600 --> 0:05:43.360 sounds like you couldn't there was no way to convert 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:48.640 human voice into uh electricity and transmitted across a wire. 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:50.920 Yet no one had figured that part out back in 0:05:51.720 --> 0:05:55.200 seven And also you could only transmit information one way 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:58.640 at a time. You couldn't have two way communications simultaneously. 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:02.000 That and and that's one of the things that a 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:06.120 lot of inventors were out to to do in the 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:10.680 in the nineteenth century. They were earnestly looking for ways 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:13.760 to improve to to make uh, make it possible to 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:18.400 send telegraph messages in two ways, to improve the quality 0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:22.520 of the technology, um without necessarily just laying a pair 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:24.919 of cables and having one b one way and the 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:27.039 other being the other way. And you can do that, 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:30.240 but you've just doubled your costs exactly. The creating the 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:34.719 infrastructure for this system is is costly, as we all 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:38.040 know for talking about things like, uh, you know, replacing 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:43.840 twisted wire telephone lines with fiber optics, or even replacing 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:48.400 two G cellular technology with three G or four G technology. 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:52.520 That's right, even then, you're talking about major changes to infrastructure. 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:55.560 It's not as simple as oh, well, we just need 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:58.520 to throw in a software patch and everything will be cool. 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:01.240 It's not as simple as that. And some of you 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:05.360 may remember um us talking in the past about the 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:08.560 Internet cables that run across the ocean. Every once in 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:11.200 a while, something will clip one of them and will 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:16.600 knock out communication temporarily as traffic gets rerouted through the 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:21.240 other lines. But you know, it's having those giant wires 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:24.840 um running across the ocean is sort of impractical. It's 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:29.160 not only costly, it's it's impractical. So I mean, it works, 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:32.400 but you know, you have to worry about maintenance and 0:07:32.400 --> 0:07:35.320 and the possibility that something will cut one of the 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:39.320 cables or that it will just age and snap. So um. 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:43.200 So people were looking into this, but investors were willing 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:46.360 to back that because they saw the possibility that they 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:49.720 might make lots and lots of money if they're uh, 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:52.280 if the inventors were able to capitalize on that. But 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:59.240 some of them inadvertently started discovering other technologies and a 0:07:59.240 --> 0:08:03.200 lot of those advancements came out. It turned out to 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:06.760 be laying the groundwork for radio. Yeah, And some of 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:11.560 some scientists were working independently of the whole communications UH 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:15.600 aspect entirely, and they were just interested in learning more 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:18.440 about the way our universe works. One of those guys 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:24.200 was a mathematician named James Clerk Maxwell, and thirty thirty 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:26.680 years after the invent invention of the telegraph, so in 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:31.280 eighteen sixty seven, he started to think about light in 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:33.880 a way that no one else had thought of up 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:35.800 to that point. And he was thinking of light as 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:41.800 an electro magnetic phenomenon. Okay, so he's looking at light 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:45.200 and electric waves and magnetic waves, and he he thinks 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:51.000 these things are connected. These are not discrete UH phenomena. 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:55.360 These are all somehow part of a spectrum of phenomena. 0:08:55.520 --> 0:09:00.160 So this was revolutionary. Now, unfortunately Maxwell was unable to 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:04.160 prove his theory during his lifetime. Now we know today 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:06.560 that this is true, that that the light that we 0:09:06.600 --> 0:09:09.600 see that's part of the electromagnetic spectrum. We only can 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:13.880 we can only perceive a very narrow band of that 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:17.439 electromagnetic spectrum with our eyes. Now, other parts of the 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:21.920 electromagnetic spectrum can affect us sometimes in really nasty ways, 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:26.000 but but we can only see a pretty narrow band 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:28.800 of it. So Maxwell was really ahead of his time, 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:32.960 and his his theories were part of what laid the 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:37.720 scientific groundwork for radio. So you had the technological groundwork 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:39.920 and you had the scientific groundwork, and these things are 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:43.200 converging at a really rapid rate. And we see that 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:47.640 come to a head in the eighties. Really. Yeah. Um, 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:55.640 somebody you might have heard of, um, Heinrich Hurts. Um. 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:59.600 He was the first person to measure act to actually 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:05.679 measure the speed of radio waves. Um. And he basically 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:08.280 he at the time he was a professor at a 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:12.240 German high school. Um. And what he was doing he 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:16.960 used a couple of parabolic mirrors and a spark gap. Um. 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:19.800 You may have seen spark gap in those old timey 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:22.520 monster movies. The two pieces of metal that are are 0:10:22.600 --> 0:10:25.560 sort of together at one end and they diverge slightly 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:30.079 and there the spark travels up from the short distance 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:32.400 the long distance and it looks kind of spooky. Yeah, 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:36.400 it's it's it's a it's stock for your average crazy 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:42.720 scientists laboratory. So so they have three doesn't surprise me, 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:46.920 so don't put your hand in there. So uh so 0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:53.520 Mr Hurts basically proved what, uh, what Maxwell was suggesting. 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:58.600 He was able to transmit a spark um from one 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:02.800 antenna with a spark gap in a ring um to another. 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:07.800 And uh, basically this was kind of fascinating because at 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:10.040 the time there was nothing, I mean, there was no 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:11.720 obvious connection. So you would look at it and go, 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:14.439 wait a minute, that spark has traveled. Right. You had 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:17.400 you had one thing generating a spark right, and then 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:19.480 you had an antenna on the other side of the 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:23.800 room that could pick up uh. You know, you got 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:27.520 a difference in voltage there, and the there was no 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:31.559 visible means of transmission. How did the energy from this 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:34.160 one thing on one side of the room transmit to 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:38.360 the other side, right? They Not only did he show 0:11:38.440 --> 0:11:41.160 that that Maxwell's right, uh, and he was able to 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:45.600 measure the speed um of the of the waves and 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:48.320 and show that the waves traveled in straight lines and 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:51.440 they could be reflected and and the reflection is important 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:57.280 because we use the Earth's atmosphere to reflect radio signals. Now, um, 0:11:57.520 --> 0:12:00.680 but you know at the time this was absolutely groundbreak exactly. 0:12:00.679 --> 0:12:03.560 And he discovered that that speed that Chris was talking about, 0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:06.920 in case you're curious, was a hundred eighty six thousands, uh, 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:10.880 hundred six thousand miles per second. If that sounds familiar 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:13.200 to you, it may be because that is the speed 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:16.520 of light. And that's kind of where we're talking about 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:22.240 how Hurts helped prove Maxwell's theories because here was this 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:25.760 other form of energy that was not visible light, but 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:28.720 it traveled at the same speed as visible light travel. 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:32.720 So that suggests that the two are in some way related. 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:38.000 That that's true. Um. The thing is, though we're not 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:42.520 talking long distance with these translations. We're talking about within 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:46.520 a room. But people began to experiment with this, one 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:51.640 of whom was Oliver Lodge, a British scientist. UM. He 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:56.480 was able to get reception at about seventy yards with 0:12:56.760 --> 0:13:00.439 his most sensitive equipment. UM. Others were able to get 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:04.440 them get radio waves a little farther, a little shorter. Uh. 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:09.160 Some people were absolutely stunned that radio waves could travel 0:13:09.200 --> 0:13:11.480 through buildings. Just was another one of those things that 0:13:12.000 --> 0:13:13.880 we sort of take for granted today because we're used 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:17.040 to it. But uh, you couldn't see it. So it 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:20.200 was sort of, uh, sort of weird. And this was 0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:25.520 counterintuitive to that whole electromagnetic theory, right because light we know, 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:28.600 if you have an opaque structure that's gonna block light, 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:31.360 you don't see light shining through the walls. If you did, 0:13:31.400 --> 0:13:34.360 you'd go crazy. Uh you never sleep. Well, it depends 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:36.640 on how poorous the walls are. I guess it does 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:38.959 you know. I've lived in some places let me tell 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:42.680 you anyway, But in a solid opaque structure, it's gonna 0:13:42.679 --> 0:13:45.360 block light. So the theory would be, well, if if 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:49.160 light and this other form of electro mantic magnetic energy 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:52.400 are are related, then clearly this opaque thing is gonna 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:55.720 block that too. Not so much. Nope, And it was 0:13:55.880 --> 0:14:00.839 very confusing early on. It's true, Um, and I was 0:14:00.880 --> 0:14:03.199 trying to figure out who who we should talk about? Well, 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:04.959 there there are a lot of There are a lot 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:07.719 of players in here. There's there's pop Off, who he 0:14:08.120 --> 0:14:12.600 had laboratory demonstrations of radio that he that he did 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:17.319 back in so large his work was in right, So 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:20.840 just a year later you've got pop Off doing experiments 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:23.720 and in the in the lab and in eight and 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:28.920 he's also um working with various uh methods to transmit 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:30.840 radio waves. And you have to again, you've gotta have 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:33.360 a transmitter and a receiver, and those are your basic 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:36.560 elements of a radio, and early radios were either one 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:39.200 or the other. It was a while before people could 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:42.440 develop a radio that could both transmit and receive, like 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:47.000 to allow for two way communication. He has a transceiver. 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:49.600 Those early experiments were really just figuring out the whole 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:55.560 the mode of transmission and reception. And in fact, earliest 0:14:55.680 --> 0:14:59.520 radio signals were not tuned to a specific frequency like 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:02.000 they are to day, like today you tune into a 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:05.880 radio station, those earliest ones were kind of more like 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:09.240 a shotgun approach. Uh. You know that you would get 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:12.320 a range of frequencies. So uh, there wasn't a big 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:15.240 problem early early on because you had so few people 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:19.000 working on this. There wasn't a lot of contamination and interference. 0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:22.680 But if we were to be using those same methods today, 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:25.920 you wouldn't be able to tune into more than a 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:28.360 couple of stations because they'd be taking up a really 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:32.240 broad range of the spectrum. So the earlies days of radio. 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:34.520 It was free for all. You could broadcast on whatever 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:37.520 part of the freak the spectrum you wanted. Because there 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:39.280 were so few people out there, there was nothing to 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:45.800 compete with. Okay, so um, yeah, and it's uh they're 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:47.840 One of the people that that I read about, sort 0:15:47.840 --> 0:15:50.280 of as a red herring, was a guy named William 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:53.960 Crooks who uh some say some believe for a while 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:58.000 that he may have had a hand in creating uh 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:03.840 wireless telegraphy basically using radio as a telegraph um because 0:16:03.880 --> 0:16:07.280 in February he published an article in the Fortnightly Review. 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:12.160 And in that article he used the word telegraphy. He said, sentony. 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:15.480 That's a fancy word, and I would say probably an 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:19.920 obsolete word for the ability to tune. He said, yeah, definitely, 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:23.280 because I haven't heard it before I started doing any 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:25.360 research on this. Senteny. Oh that's kind of cool word. 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:29.320 But yeah, he said, oh, yes, there will be uh 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:31.880 you'll be able to use this wireless telegraph and you'll 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:34.160 be able to tune it to a specific frequency and 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:38.520 get uh get messages. But the problem was he um, 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:42.520 he had a lot of uh scientifically incorrect information in 0:16:42.560 --> 0:16:45.200 that article. Now, some people said, oh, well, look, he's 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:47.400 inspired a lot of people to do this, but there 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:51.320 aren't a lot of people who credit him with inspiring 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:57.600 them to work on radio technology. And most of most 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:00.720 it seems like the article sort of came to years 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:05.119 later after radio was becoming a thing. Um. Some actually 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:07.760 suggested that maybe he was trying to take credit for 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:11.159 it after the fact, So he was Rhett Conning. But 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:14.119 it seems like I would guess that there are people, 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:18.520 there are people who are like like crooks, crooks who 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:21.680 had an idea that's the kind of an ironic name. Um, 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:24.919 who at least had a grip to some degree on 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:27.159 what you could do with the technology. They had a 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:30.119 piece of it, but not the whole picture. Yeah. Another 0:17:30.160 --> 0:17:34.040 guy who appeared to have the whole picture, but was 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:39.920 a little too reluctant to share his technology. This guy, 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:43.359 this guy could have been the inventor of radio. People 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:45.639 give him credit for there, this guy because he was 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:50.639 able to demonstrate radio very early on. Comparatively speaking, So 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:55.120 in eight two you have an inventor by the name 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:59.359 of Nathan Nathan stubble Field right from Murray, Kentucky. He 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:03.160 was a farmer and inventor so clearly, if you're farming, 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:05.879 you're gonna think I want to invent me a radio. 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:10.160 I am, I am amazed. I mean to me, it's 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:13.840 just it's really it shows that ingenuity is is a 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:17.840 phenomenal thing and it it can strike anywhere. Right. So 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:21.080 you have stubble Field, who was legitimately a really smart 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:24.040 and clever guy. Uh. And so in eighteen ninety two 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:28.560 he publicly demonstrates a wireless communication system and not only 0:18:28.640 --> 0:18:33.320 does it broadcast radio signals, he could actually broadcast voice 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:37.280 and music. Now, keep in mind, the earliest radio public 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:41.239 demonstrations were all tones. It wasn't It wasn't like you 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:44.919 could do a symphony over the radio. It was you 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:49.520 could you could transmit Morse code over the radio. So 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:52.399 here you have stubble Field in eighteen ninety two demonstrating this, 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:56.080 and uh he was able to do it again in 0:18:56.320 --> 0:19:00.240 eight which this one was actually document eight two is 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:04.920 is undocumented, so you know it could be up for debate. 0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:10.120 But the St. Louis Dispatch documented and demonstration he did 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:13.439 where he transmitted radio waves at a distance of around 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:16.520 five hundred yards. Uh. This this was a big problem 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:20.280 with a lot of the early radio broadcasters. They didn't 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:23.040 have a lot of range to their broadcasts. Right, five 0:19:23.440 --> 0:19:27.119 yards is not that far right, So you you'd have 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:29.399 your DJ coming on and say, I have a short 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:33.679 distance dedicated this guy over here dedicates it to that 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:36.520 gal over there. You could see each other. Why don't 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:41.480 your wave? Um so the but he he demonstrates it, 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:45.080 and he could have potentially been the father of the radio. 0:19:45.200 --> 0:19:50.200 But here's the problem. Stubble Field, it was a little paranoid. 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:53.120 He was worried that people were going to steal his invention, 0:19:53.720 --> 0:19:56.439 so worried that he would hide it away in a 0:19:56.520 --> 0:20:00.320 shack and lock it up. And then he out an 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:05.880 offer to sell his invention, and uh it was five 0:20:06.000 --> 0:20:09.680 hundred thousand dollars for his invention. Um this was around 0:20:10.320 --> 0:20:13.960 uh oh, in the late eighteen hundreds, early nineteen hundreds. 0:20:13.960 --> 0:20:18.480 Five thousand dollars. That's a lot of clams. It's a 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:21.439 lot of clams today. And it was even more clams. 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:26.000 It was like an entire beta clams back back then. 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:30.159 And so stubble Field turned it down. And what's interesting 0:20:30.200 --> 0:20:33.280 to me is we actually see this mirrored in the 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:36.480 way some companies behave today. I was talking to Chris 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:41.040 about this earlier. There's another company that recently was offered 0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:45.520 about six billion dollars to be an acquisition of of 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:49.560 another larger company, um but they turned it down. This 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:53.040 company turned down that six billion dollar offer and valued 0:20:53.119 --> 0:20:57.440 itself at twenty five billion dollars. But as a result 0:20:57.640 --> 0:21:00.840 of waiting around too long, one could argue the value 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:04.200 of the company has dropped significantly since then. And Chris, 0:21:04.240 --> 0:21:07.280 what's the name of that company? Group On? Group On? 0:21:07.840 --> 0:21:11.359 So here Groupon took the internet by storm. Everyone was 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:14.119 really impressed by group On. Everyone thought that this was 0:21:14.200 --> 0:21:16.879 really where where things were moving. Well, that's kind of 0:21:16.880 --> 0:21:20.080 the problem because things were moving in that direction, but 0:21:20.119 --> 0:21:23.840 there was no way to protect groupons business model, and 0:21:23.880 --> 0:21:27.800 so lots of other companies sprang up that uh mimic 0:21:28.200 --> 0:21:31.159 groupons business models, some of which you might even argue 0:21:31.359 --> 0:21:36.840 improve on Groupon's business model. Well, because Groupon was kind 0:21:36.840 --> 0:21:40.080 of holding back. Now its position is a little more 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:43.240 tenuous because you have all these competitors that could steal 0:21:44.000 --> 0:21:47.959 the limelight away from group On. The same thing happened 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:51.080 more than a hundred years ago, was stubble Field. This 0:21:51.119 --> 0:21:55.239 is a story that goes back decades and decades you know, 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:57.199 you think we'd learn our lesson by now. You know, 0:21:57.320 --> 0:22:01.000 you strike while the iron is hot. People. So stubble Field, 0:22:01.320 --> 0:22:03.920 because he sat on his invention and because he did 0:22:03.960 --> 0:22:09.560 not act upon it. Uh, he was scooped by other inventors. 0:22:09.640 --> 0:22:12.600 And there's a pair of people who we need to 0:22:12.600 --> 0:22:15.320 talk about, one of whom was ultimately scooped by the 0:22:15.359 --> 0:22:18.119 other one, and the other one used the technology of 0:22:18.119 --> 0:22:23.240 the first. Isn't that fun? Yeah? Um? Yeah? And and 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:28.160 as a as a tragic uh conclusion to stubble field story, 0:22:28.560 --> 0:22:33.720 he died a pauper of starvation. Wow. So he turned 0:22:33.760 --> 0:22:37.200 the money down. And I guess his farm didn't survive either, 0:22:37.440 --> 0:22:42.280 apparently because I mean starvation and a farmer. Wow. But 0:22:42.359 --> 0:22:44.879 it was Kentucky, so maybe he was just growing you know, 0:22:45.400 --> 0:22:50.879 bourbon girls on trees. Right. I don't know. I don't drink, 0:22:50.920 --> 0:22:53.040 so I have no knowledge of that. So we move 0:22:53.080 --> 0:22:56.159 on and talk about those two fellows. So here are 0:22:56.160 --> 0:22:59.879 the two people that most discussions about who invented the radio. 0:23:00.480 --> 0:23:03.600 Ultimately it boils down to these two guys, even though we've, 0:23:03.640 --> 0:23:06.080 as we've argued, there are a lot of other people 0:23:06.119 --> 0:23:08.560 you have to consider in this equation, and that is 0:23:09.000 --> 0:23:13.280 Nicola Tesla. And I'm just gonna say g Marconi because 0:23:13.280 --> 0:23:17.400 I can't stay pronounce his first name. It's Italian, and 0:23:17.440 --> 0:23:22.879 I am not. So Marconi is often given the credit 0:23:23.000 --> 0:23:27.560 for inventing the radio. In fact, he has the official credit, 0:23:27.680 --> 0:23:30.440 at least by the in the eyes of the United 0:23:30.440 --> 0:23:34.320 States government, for inventing the radio. Other other people give 0:23:34.560 --> 0:23:38.760 credit to other people. But you know that that's the 0:23:38.760 --> 0:23:42.320 way it goes with these things. Um So Marconi was 0:23:42.480 --> 0:23:47.760 legitimately working on radio. It's not like Marconi was just 0:23:47.840 --> 0:23:50.080 some guy who swept in and stole everything. He was 0:23:50.200 --> 0:23:54.000 actually working hard on trying to find a way to 0:23:54.160 --> 0:23:58.400 make long distance radio transmission a reality. He was having 0:23:58.400 --> 0:24:02.080 some trouble though. A lot of his UH his transmissions 0:24:02.480 --> 0:24:06.160 were going to a maximum distance of about one point 0:24:06.240 --> 0:24:10.240 five kilometers, and that's just not far enough for for 0:24:10.520 --> 0:24:15.160 real broadcast power. So, in fact, I think I read 0:24:15.200 --> 0:24:20.000 somewhere where one one UH critic said that his his 0:24:20.200 --> 0:24:23.800 broadcast wouldn't reach across a pond, which makes me wonder 0:24:23.840 --> 0:24:26.679 if that's where we got that. You know, when you 0:24:26.680 --> 0:24:30.840 go across the pond, But I honestly don't know. I 0:24:30.880 --> 0:24:32.520 don't know, but it does make me wonder if that's 0:24:32.520 --> 0:24:36.600 where we got that phrase, because ultimately Marconi was able 0:24:36.720 --> 0:24:42.800 to send a signal from Europe to America. Yeah, that's 0:24:42.800 --> 0:24:45.800 a that would be a question for a way with words. Yeah, yeah, 0:24:46.280 --> 0:24:48.600 is this is a phrase across the pond date back 0:24:48.640 --> 0:24:52.600 to Marconi's invention or you know, credited invention of the radio. 0:24:53.600 --> 0:24:57.720 But Marconi used a lot of technology developed by someone else, 0:24:57.760 --> 0:25:02.280 developed by Nicola Tesla, so much so that Nicola Tesla 0:25:03.520 --> 0:25:07.840 probably not entirely jokingly said that Marconi was using he 0:25:07.880 --> 0:25:12.080