A Wireless World: One Hundred Years since the Nobel Prize to Guglielmo Marconi
Edited by Karl Grandin, Piero Mazzinghi, Nils Olander and Giuseppe Pelosi
In 1909, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded jointly to Guglielmo Marconi and Karl Ferdinand Braun “in recognition of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy.” A century later, in 2009, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences organized an international symposium and subsequent exhibition to commemorate the Nobel Prize recognition of the two wireless pioneers. The events expanded the circle to acknowledge the contributions of Antonio Meucci. Meucci, an Italian who emigrated to the U.S., developed a way to carry voice via electric signals over wires—the first telephone—in 1856/1857. In the 1990s, those wires yielded to wireless, which transformed the “land line” telephone into the mobile phone, which virtually every human on the planet carries.
The 2009 commemoration in Sweden led to the book, “A Wireless World,” which documents some of the historic elements of the Nobel Prize presented at the conference and exhibition. The book has four sections, beginning with a compilation of documents from 1909, including a reproduction of the typescript of Marconi’s Nobel Prize lecture with his handwritten notes. The second section discusses Marconi’s background, education and the achievements leading to his nomination for the Nobel Prize. The third section provides context for the era, covering Marconi’s contemporaries in the field, such as Karl Ferdinand Braun, and the researchers who followed. The final section and perhaps the most interesting shows images and photos of the devices and equipment from that early wireless era.
Today, those of us who are so embedded in wireless can find ourselves insensitive to the mystery of the unknown and the awe of discovery when electromagnetic principles were gradually transformed into the products we rely upon today. “A Wireless World” provides an opportunity to revisit and reimagine those early days, even marveling at the fruits of that work.
Reviewed by Gary Lerude
ISBN Print Edition: 978-91-7190-178-1
ISBN PDF Edition: 978-91-7190-179-8
Hardcover: $169
Digital download: $126
To order this book, contact:
Firenze University Press
www.fupress.com