Thomas Edison and Guglielmo Marconi

Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. Dubbed "The Wizard of Menlo Park" (now Edison, New Jersey) by a newspaper reporter, HP Presario B1900 Series Battery he was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of mass production and large-scale teamwork to the process of invention, and because of that, he is often credited with the creation of the first industrial research laboratory.[1] Edison is the fourth most prolific inventor in history, holding 1,093 US patents in his name, HP Presario B1900 Battery as well as many patents in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. He is credited with numerous inventions that contributed to mass communication and, in particular, telecommunications. These included a stock ticker, a mechanical vote recorder, a battery for an electric car, electrical power, recorded music and motion pictures. HP Presario B1901 Battery His advanced work in these fields was an outgrowth of his early career as a telegraph operator. Edison originated the concept and implementation of electric-power generation and distribution to homes, businesses, and factories – a crucial development in the modern industrialized world. HP Presario B1902 Battery His first power station was on Manhattan Island, New York. Early life Thomas Edison was born in Milan, Ohio, and grew up in Port Huron, Michigan. He was the seventh and last child of Samuel Ogden Edison, Jr. (1804–96, born in Marshalltown, Nova Scotia, Canada) and Nancy Matthews Elliott (1810–1871, born in Chenango County, New York). HP Presario B1903 Battery [2][citation needed] His father had to escape from Canada because he took part in the unsuccessful Mackenzie Rebellion of 1837.[citation needed] Edison reported being of Dutch ancestry.[3] In school, the young Edison's mind often wandered, and his teacher, the Reverend Engle, was overheard calling him "addled". HP Presario B1904 BatteryThis ended Edison's three months of official schooling. Edison recalled later, "My mother was the making of me. She was so true, so sure of me; and I felt I had something to live for, someone I must not disappoint." His mother taught him at home.[4] Much of his education came from reading R.G. Parker's School of Natural Philosophy and The Cooper UnionHP Presario B1905 Battery. Edison developed hearing problems at an early age. The cause of his deafness has been attributed to a bout of scarlet fever during childhood and recurring untreated middle-ear infections. Around the middle of his career, Edison attributed the hearing impairment to being struck on the ears by a train conductor when his chemical laboratory in a boxcar caught fire and he was thrown off the train in Smiths Creek, HP Presario B1906 BatteryMichigan, along with his apparatus and chemicals. In his later years, he modified the story to say the injury occurred when the conductor, in helping him onto a moving train, lifted him by the ears.[5][6] Edison's family moved to Port Huron, Michigan after the railroad bypassed Milan in 1854 and business declined; HP Presario B1907 Battery [7] his life there was bittersweet. He sold candy and newspapers on trains running from Port Huron to Detroit, and he sold vegetables to supplement his income. He also studied qualitative analysis, and conducted chemical experiments on the train until an accident prohibited further work of the kind. HP Presario B1908 Battery [8] He obtained the exclusive right to sell newspapers on the road, and, with the aid of four assistants, he set in type and printed the Grand Trunk Herald, which he sold with his other papers.[8] This began Edison's long streak of entrepreneurial ventures, as he discovered his talents as a businessman. HP Presario B1909 Battery These talents eventually led him to found 14 companies, including General Electric, which is still one of the largest publicly traded companies in the world.[9][10] Telegrapher Edison became a telegraph operator after he saved three-year-old Jimmie MacKenzie from being struck by a runaway train. Jimmie's father, HP Presario B1910 Batterystation agent J.U. MacKenzie of Mount Clemens, Michigan, was so grateful that he trained Edison as a telegraph operator. Edison's first telegraphy job away from Port Huron was at Stratford Junction, Ontario, on the Grand Trunk Railway.[11] In 1866, at the age of 19, Edison moved to Louisville, HP Presario B1911 BatteryKentucky, where, as an employee of Western Union, he worked the Associated Press bureau news wire. Edison requested the night shift, which allowed him plenty of time to spend at his two favorite pastimes—reading and experimenting. Eventually, the latter pre-occupation cost him his job. One night in 1867, he was working with a lead–acid battery when he spilled sulfuric acid onto the floor. HP Presario B1912 Battery It ran between the floorboards and onto his boss's desk below. The next morning Edison was fired.[12] One of his mentors during those early years was a fellow telegrapher and inventor named Franklin Leonard Pope, who allowed the impoverished youth to live and work in the basement of his Elizabeth, New Jersey home. Some of Edison's earliest inventions were related to telegraphy, including a stock ticker.  hp-513775-001-battery His first patent was for the electric vote recorder, (U.S. Patent 90,646),[13] which was granted on June 1, 1869.[14] Marriages and children On December 25, 1871, Edison married 16-year-old Mary Stilwell (1855-1884), whom he had met two months earlier; she was an employee at one of his shops.  hp-pavilion-dv9500-batteryThey had three children: Marion Estelle Edison (1873–1965), nicknamed "Dot"[15] Thomas Alva Edison, Jr. (1876–1935), nicknamed "Dash"[16] William Leslie Edison (1878–1937) Inventor, graduate of the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale, 1900.[17] Mary Edison died at age 29 on August 9, 1884, hp-513775-001-batteryof unknown causes: possibly from a brain tumor[18] or a morphine overdose. Doctors frequently prescribed morphine to women in those years to treat a variety of causes, and researchers believe that some of her symptoms sounded as if they were associated with morphine poisoning.[19] Mina Edison in 1906 On February 24, 1886, HP G62-100 Battery at the age of thirty-nine, Edison married the 20-year-old Mina Miller (1866-1947) in Akron, Ohio.[20] She was the daughter of the inventor Lewis Miller, co-founder of the Chautauqua Institution and a benefactor of Methodist charities. They also had three children together: Madeleine Edison (1888–1979), who married John Eyre Sloane. HP G62-100EB Battery [21][22] Charles Edison (1890–1969), who took over the company upon his father's death and who later was elected Governor of New Jersey.[23] He also took charge of his father's experimental laboratories in West Orange. Theodore Edison (1898–1992), HP G62-100EE Battery (MIT Physics 1923), credited with more than 80 patents. Mina outlived Thomas Edison, dying on August 24, 1947.[24][25] Beginning his career Photograph of Edison with his phonograph (2nd model), HP G62-100EJ Battery taken in Mathew Brady's Washington, DC studio in April 1878. Mary Had a Little Lamb Thomas Edison reciting "Mary Had a Little Lamb" Problems listening to this file? See media helpHP G62-100SL Battery. Thomas Edison began his career as an inventor in Newark, New Jersey, with the automatic repeater and his other improved telegraphic devices, but the invention that first gained him notice was the phonograph in 1877. This accomplishment was so unexpected by the public at large as to appear almost magical. HP G62-101TU Battery Edison became known as "The Wizard of Menlo Park," New Jersey. His first phonograph recorded on tinfoil around a grooved cylinder, but had poor sound quality and the recordings could be played only a few times. In the 1880s, a redesigned model using wax-coated cardboard cylinders was produced by Alexander Graham Bell, HP G62-101XX Battery Chichester Bell, and Charles Tainter. This was one reason that Thomas Edison continued work on his own "Perfected Phonograph." Menlo Park (1876–1881) Edison's Menlo Park Laboratory, removed to Greenfield Village at Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, HP G62-103XX Battery Michigan. (Note the organ against the back wall) Edison's major innovation was the first industrial research lab, which was built in Menlo Park, New Jersey. It was built with the funds from the sale of Edison's quadruplex telegraph. After his demonstration of the telegraph, Edison was not sure that his original plan to sell it for $4,000 to $5,000 was right, so he asked Western Union to make a bid. He was surprised to hear them offer $10,000, HP G62-104SA Battery [citation needed] ($202,000 USD 2010) which he gratefully accepted. The quadruplex telegraph was Edison's first big financial success, and Menlo Park became the first institution set up with the specific purpose of producing constant technological innovation and improvement. HP G62-105SA Battery Edison was legally attributed with most of the inventions produced there, though many employees carried out research and development under his direction. His staff was generally told to carry out his directions in conducting research, and he drove them hard to produce results. William Joseph Hammer, HP G62-106SA Battery a consulting electrical engineer, began his duties as a laboratory assistant to Edison in December 1879. He assisted in experiments on the telephone, phonograph, electric railway, iron ore separator, electric lighting, and other developing inventions. However, Hammer worked primarily on the incandescent electric lamp and was put in charge of tests and records on that device. In 1880, he was appointed chief engineer of the Edison Lamp Works. HP G62-107SA BatteryIn his first year, the plant under General Manager Francis Robbins Upton turned out 50,000 lamps. According to Edison, Hammer was "a pioneer of incandescent electric lighting". Thomas Edison's first successful light bulb model, used in public demonstration at Menlo Park, December 1879 Nearly all of Edison's patents were utility patents, HP G62-110ED Battery which were protected for a 17-year period and included inventions or processes that are electrical, mechanical, or chemical in nature. About a dozen were design patents, which protect an ornamental design for up to a 14-year period. As in most patents, the inventions he described were improvements over prior art. The phonograph patent, HP G62-110EE Batteryin contrast, was unprecedented as describing the first device to record and reproduce sounds.[26] Edison did not invent the first electric light bulb, but instead invented the first commercially practical incandescent light.[citation needed] Many earlier inventors had previously devised incandescent lamps, including Henry Woodward and Mathew Evans. HP G62-110EO BatteryOthers who developed early and commercially impractical incandescent electric lamps included Humphry Davy, James Bowman Lindsay, Moses G. Farmer,[27] William E. Sawyer, Joseph Swan and Heinrich Göbel. Some of these early bulbs had such flaws as an extremely short life, high expense to produce, and high electric current drawn, HP G62-110EY Battery making them difficult to apply on a large scale commercially.[28] In 1878, Edison applied the term filament to the element of glowing wire carrying the current, although the English inventor Joseph Swan had used the term prior to this. Swan developed an incandescent light with a long lasting filament at about the same time as Edison, HP G62-110SA Battery as Swan's earlier bulbs lacked the high resistance needed to be an effective part of an electrical utility. Edison and his co-workers set about the task of creating longer-lasting bulbs. In Britain, Joseph Swan had been able to obtain a patent on the incandescent lamp; though Edison had already been making successful lamps for some time, his patent application was incompletely prepared and failed. HP G62-110SO Battery [28] Unable to raise the required capital in Britain because of this, Edison was forced to enter into a joint venture with Swan (known as Ediswan). Swan acknowledged that Edison had anticipated him, saying "Edison is entitled to more than I ... he has seen further into this subject, vastly than I, HP G62-110SS Battery and foreseen and provided for details that I did not comprehend until I saw his system".[29] By 1879, Edison had produced a new concept: a high resistance lamp in a very high vacuum, which would burn for hundreds of hours. While the earlier inventors had produced electric lighting in laboratory conditions, HP G62-110SW Battery dating back to a demonstration of a glowing wire by Alessandro Volta in 1800, Edison concentrated on commercial application, and was able to sell the concept to homes and businesses by mass-producing relatively long-lasting light bulbs and creating a complete system for the generation and distribution of electricityHP G62-111EE Battery. In just over a decade, Edison's Menlo Park laboratory had expanded to occupy two city blocks. Edison said he wanted the lab to have "a stock of almost every conceivable material". A newspaper article printed in 1887 reveals the seriousness of his claim, stating the lab contained "eight thousand kinds of chemicalsHP G62-112EE Battery, every kind of screw made, every size of needle, every kind of cord or wire, hair of humans, horses, hogs, cows, rabbits, goats, minx, camels ... silk in every texture, cocoons, various kinds of hoofs, shark's teeth, deer horns, tortoise shell ... cork, resin, varnish and oil, ostrich feathers, a peacock's tail, jet, amber, rubber, all ores ..." and the list goes on. HP G62-112SO Battery [30] Over his desk, Edison displayed a placard with Sir Joshua Reynolds' famous quotation: "There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking."[31] This slogan was reputedly posted at several other locations throughout the facilityHP G62-113SO Battery. With Menlo Park, Edison had created the first industrial laboratory concerned with creating knowledge and then controlling its application. Carbon telephone transmitter In 1877–78, HP G62-115SE Battery Edison invented and developed the carbon microphone used in all telephones along with the Bell receiver until the 1980s. After protracted patent litigation, in 1892 a federal court ruled that Edison and not Emile Berliner was the inventor of the carbon microphone. The carbon microphone was also used in radio broadcasting and public address work through the 1920sHP G62-115SO Battery. Electric light Main article: History of the light bulb Edison in 1878 Building on the contributions of other developers over the previous three quarters of a century, HP G62-117SO Battery Edison made improvements to the idea of incandescent light, and entered the public consciousness as "the inventor" of the lightbulb, and a prime mover in developing the necessary infrastructure for electric power. After many experiments with platinum and other metal filaments, Edison returned to a carbon filament. HP G62-118EO Battery The first successful test was on October 22, 1879;[32] it lasted 13.5 hours.[33] Edison continued to improve this design and by November 4, 1879, filed for U.S. patent 223,898 (granted on January 27, 1880) for an electric lamp using "a carbon filament or strip coiled and connected to platina contact wires"HP G62-120EC Battery.[34] Although the patent described several ways of creating the carbon filament including "cotton and linen thread, wood splints, papers coiled in various ways",[34] it was not until several months after the patent was granted that Edison and his team discovered a carbonized bamboo filament that could last over 1,200 hours. HP G62-120EE Battery The idea of using this particular raw material originated from Edison's recalling his examination of a few threads from a bamboo fishing pole while relaxing on the shore of Battle Lake in the present-day state of Wyoming, where he and other members of a scientific team had traveled so that they could clearly observe a total eclipse of the sun on July 29, 1878, from the Continental DivideHP G62-120EG Battery.[35] U.S. Patent#223898: Electric-Lamp. Issued January 27, 1880. In 1878, Edison formed the Edison Electric Light Company in New York City with several financiers, including J. P. Morgan and the members of the Vanderbilt family. Edison made the first public demonstration of his incandescent light bulb on December 31, 1879, HP G62-120EH Battery in Menlo Park. It was during this time that he said: "We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles."[36] Lewis Latimer joined the Edison Electric Light Company in 1884. Latimer had received a patent in January 1881 for the "Process of Manufacturing Carbons", an improved method for the production of carbon filaments for lightbulbs. HP G62-120EK Battery Latimer worked as an engineer, a draftsman and an expert witness in patent litigation on electric lights.[37] George Westinghouse's company bought Philip Diehl's competing induction lamp patent rights (1882) for $25,000, HP G62-120EL Battery forcing the holders of the Edison patent to charge a more reasonable rate for the use of the Edison patent rights and lowering the price of the electric lamp.[38] On October 8, 1883, the US patent office ruled that Edison's patent was based on the work of William Sawyer and was therefore invalid. HP G62-120EP BatteryLitigation continued for nearly six years, until October 6, 1889, when a judge ruled that Edison's electric-light improvement claim for "a filament of carbon of high resistance" was valid. To avoid a possible court battle with Joseph Swan, whose British patent had been awarded a year before Edison's, HP G62-120EQ Battery he and Swan formed a joint company called Ediswan to manufacture and market the invention in Britain. Mahen Theatre in Brno (in what is now the Czech Republic) was the first public building in the world to use Edison's electric lamps, with the installation supervised by Edison's assistant in the invention of the lamp, Francis Jehl. HP G62-120ER Battery [39] In September 2010, a sculpture of three giant light bulbs was erected in Brno, in front of the theatre.[40] Electric power distribution Edison patented a system for electricity distribution in 1880, which was essential to capitalize on the invention of the electric lamp. On December 17, 1880, Edison founded the Edison Illuminating Company. HP G62-120ES Battery The company established the first investor-owned electric utility in 1882 on Pearl Street Station, New York City. It was on September 4, 1882, that Edison switched on his Pearl Street generating station's electrical power distribution system, which provided 110 volts direct current (DC) to 59 customers in lower Manhattan. HP G62-120ET Battery [41] Earlier in the year, in January 1882, he had switched on the first steam-generating power station at Holborn Viaduct in London. The DC supply system provided electricity supplies to street lamps and several private dwellings within a short distance of the station. On January 19, 1883, HP G62-120EY Battery the first standardized incandescent electric lighting system employing overhead wires began service in Roselle, New Jersey. War of currents Main article: War of Currents Extravagant displays of electric lights quickly became a feature of public events, as in this picture from the 1897 Tennessee Centennial Exposition. HP G62-120SE Battery Edison's true success, like that of his friend Henry Ford, was in his ability to maximize profits through establishment of mass-production systems and intellectual property rights. George Westinghouse and Edison became adversaries because of Edison's promotion of direct current (DC) for electric power distribution instead of the more easily transmitted alternating current (AC) system invented by Nikola Tesla and promoted by Westinghouse. HP G62-120SL BatteryUnlike DC, AC could be stepped up to very high voltages with transformers, sent over thinner and cheaper wires, and stepped down again at the destination for distribution to users. In 1887, there were 121 Edison power stations in the United States delivering DC electricity to customers. HP G62-120SS BatteryWhen the limitations of DC were discussed by the public, Edison launched a propaganda campaign to convince people that AC was far too dangerous to use. The problem with DC was that the power plants could economically deliver DC electricity only to customers within about one and a half miles (about 2.4 km) from the generating station, so that it was suitable only for central business districts. HP G62-120SW Battery When George Westinghouse suggested using high-voltage AC instead, as it could carry electricity hundreds of miles with marginal loss of power, Edison waged a "War of Currents" to prevent AC from being adopted. The war against AC led him to become involved in the development and promotion of the electric chair (using AC) as an attempt to portray AC to have greater lethal potential than DC. HP G62-121EE Battery Edison went on to carry out a brief but intense campaign to ban the use of AC or to limit the allowable voltage for safety purposes. As part of this campaign, Edison's employees publicly electrocuted animals to demonstrate the dangers of AC;[42][43] alternating electric currents are slightly more dangerous in that frequencies near 60 Hz have a markedly greater potential for inducing fatal "cardiac fibrillation" than do direct currents. HP G62-125EK Battery [44] On one of the more notable occasions, in 1903, Edison's workers electrocuted Topsy the elephant at Luna Park, near Coney Island, after she had killed several men and her owners wanted her put to death.[45] His company filmed the electrocution. AC replaced DC in most instances of generation and power distribution, enormously extending the range and improving the efficiency of power distribution. HP G62-125EL Battery Though widespread use of DC ultimately lost favor for distribution, it exists today primarily in long-distance high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission systems. Low-voltage DC distribution continued to be used in high-density downtown areas for many years but was eventually replaced by AC low-voltage network distribution in many of themHP G62-125EV Battery.[46] DC had the advantage that large battery banks could maintain continuous power through brief interruptions of the electric supply from generators and the transmission system. Utilities such as Commonwealth Edison in Chicago had rotary converters or motor-generator sets, HP G62-125SL Batterywhich could change DC to AC and AC to various frequencies in the early to mid-20th century. Utilities supplied rectifiers to convert the low voltage AC to DC for such DC loads as elevators, fans and pumps. There were still 1,600 DC customers in downtown New York City as of 2005, and service was finally discontinued only on November 14, 2007.[46] Most subway systems are still powered by direct current. HP G62-130 Battery Fluoroscopy Edison is credited with designing and producing the first commercially available fluoroscope, a machine that uses X-rays to take radiographs. Until Edison discovered that calcium tungstate fluoroscopy screens produced brighter images than the barium platinocyanide screens originally used by Wilhelm Röntgen, HP G62-130EG Batterythe technology was capable of producing only very faint images. The fundamental design of Edison's fluoroscope is still in use today, although Edison himself abandoned the project after nearly losing his own eyesight and seriously injuring his assistant, HP G62-130EK Battery Clarence Dally. Dally had made himself an enthusiastic human guinea pig for the fluoroscopy project and in the process been exposed to a poisonous dose of radiation. He later died of injuries related to the exposure. In 1903, a shaken Edison said "Don't talk to me about X-rays, I am afraid of them."[47] Work relationsHP G62-130ET Battery Photograph of Thomas Edison by Victor Daireaux, Paris, circa 1880s Frank J. Sprague, a competent mathematician and former naval officer, was recruited by Edward H. Johnson and joined the Edison organization in 1883. One of Sprague's contributions to the Edison Laboratory at Menlo Park was to expand Edison's mathematical methods. HP G62-130EV Battery Despite the common belief that Edison did not use mathematics, analysis of his notebooks reveal that he was an astute user of mathematical analysis conducted by his assistants such as Francis Robbins Upton, for example, determining the critical parameters of his electric lighting system including lamp resistance by an analysis of Ohm's Law, HP G62-130SD Battery Joule's Law and economics.[48] Another of Edison's assistants was Nikola Tesla. Tesla claimed that Edison had promised him $50,000 if he succeeded in making improvements to his DC generation plants. Several months later, when Tesla had finished the work and asked to be paid, he said that Edison replied, "When you become a full-fledged American you will appreciate an American joke. HP G62-130SL Battery"[49] Tesla immediately resigned. With Tesla's salary of $18 per week, the payment would have amounted to over 53 years' pay and the amount was equal to the initial capital of the company. Another account states that Tesla resigned when he was refused a raise to $25 per week. HP G62-134CA Battery [50] Although Tesla accepted an Edison Medal later in life, this and other negative events concerning Edison remained with him. The day after Edison died, the New York Times contained extensive coverage of Edison's life, with the only negative opinion coming from Tesla who was quoted as sayingHP G62-135EV Battery: He had no hobby, cared for no sort of amusement of any kind and lived in utter disregard of the most elementary rules of hygiene. [...] His method was inefficient in the extreme, for an immense ground had to be covered to get anything at all unless blind chance intervened and, at first, HP G62-140EL Battery I was almost a sorry witness of his doings, knowing that just a little theory and calculation would have saved him 90% of the labor. But he had a veritable contempt for book learning and mathematical knowledge, trusting himself entirely to his inventor's instinct and practical American sense.[51] —Nikola TeslaHP G62-140EQ Battery One of Edison's famous quotations about his attempts to make the light globe suggest that perhaps Tesla was right about Edison's methods of working: "If I find 10,000 ways something won't work, I haven't failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward." HP G62-140ES Battery [52] When Edison was a very old man and close to death, he said, in looking back, that the biggest mistake he had made was in not respecting Tesla or his work.[53] There were 28 men recognized as Edison Pioneers. Media inventionsHP G62-140ET Battery The key to Edison's fortunes was telegraphy. With knowledge gained from years of working as a telegraph operator, he learned the basics of electricity. This allowed him to make his early fortune with the stock ticker, the first electricity-based broadcast system. Edison patented the sound recording and reproducing phonograph in 1878. Edison was also granted a patent for the motion picture camera or "Kinetograph".HP G62-140SF Battery He did the electromechanical design, while his employee W.K.L. Dickson, a photographer, worked on the photographic and optical development. Much of the credit for the invention belongs to Dickson.[32] In 1891, Thomas Edison built a Kinetoscope, or peep-hole viewer. This device was installed in penny arcades, where people could watch short, simple films. HP G62-140SS Battery The kinetograph and kinetoscope were both first publicly exhibited May 20, 1891.[54] On August 9, 1892, Edison received a patent for a two-way telegraph. In April 1896, Thomas Armat's Vitascope, manufactured by the Edison factory and marketed in Edison's name, was used to project motion pictures in public screenings in New York City. HP G62-140US Battery Later he exhibited motion pictures with voice soundtrack on cylinder recordings, mechanically synchronized with the film. The June 1894 Leonard–Cushing bout. Each of the six one-minute rounds recorded by the Kinetoscope was made available to exhibitors for $22.50.[55] Customers who watched the final round saw Leonard score a knockdown. HP G62-143CL Battery Officially the kinetoscope entered Europe when the rich American Businessman Irving T. Bush (1869–1948) bought from the Continental Commerce Company of Frank Z. Maguire and Joseph D. Baucus a dozen machines. Bush placed from October 17, 1894, the first kinetoscopes in London. At the same time the French company Kinétoscope Edison Michel et Alexis Werner bought these machines for the market in France. In the last three months of 1894, HP G62-144DX BatteryThe Continental Commerce Company sold hundreds of kinetoscopes in Europe (i.e. the Netherlands and Italy). In Germany and in Austria-Hungary the kinetoscope was introduced by the Deutsche-österreichische-Edison-Kinetoscop Gesellschaft, founded by the Ludwig Stollwerck[56] of the Schokoladen-Süsswarenfabrik Stollwerck & Co of Cologne. HP G62-145NR Battery The first kinetoscopes arrived in Belgium at the Fairs in early 1895. The Edison's Kinétoscope Français, a Belgian company, was founded in Brussels on January 15, 1895, with the rights to sell the kinetoscopes in Monaco, France and the French colonies. The main investors in this company were Belgian industrialistsHP G62-147NR Battery.[57] On May 14, 1895, the Edison's Kinétoscope Belge was founded in Brussels. The businessman Ladislas-Victor Lewitzki, living in London but active in Belgium and France, took the initiative in starting this business. He had contacts with Leon Gaumont and the American Mutoscope and Biograph Co. HP G62-149WM Battery In 1898 he also became a shareholder of the Biograph and Mutoscope Company for France.[57] In 1901, he visited the Sudbury area in Ontario, Canada, as a mining prospector, and is credited with the original discovery of the Falconbridge ore body. His attempts to mine the ore body were not successful, however, HP G62-150EE Batteryand he abandoned his mining claim in 1903.[58] A street in Falconbridge, as well as the Edison Building, which served as the head office of Falconbridge Mines, are named for him. In 1902, agents of Thomas Edison bribed a theater owner in London for a copy of A Trip to the Moon by Georges Méliès. HP G62-150EF Battery Edison then made hundreds of copies and showed them in New York City. Méliès received no compensation. He was counting on taking the film to the US and recapture its huge cost by showing it throughout the country when he realized it had already been shown there by Edison. This effectively bankrupted MélièsHP G62-150EQ Battery.[59] Other exhibitors similarly routinely copied and exhibited each others' films.[60] To better protect the copyrights on his films, Edison deposited prints of them on long strips of photographic paper with the U.S. copyright office. Many of these paper prints survived longer and in better condition than the actual films of that era. HP G62-150ET Battery [61] Edison's favorite movie was The Birth of a Nation. He thought that talkies had "spoiled everything" for him. "There isn't any good acting on the screen. They concentrate on the voice now and have forgotten how to act. I can sense it more than you because I am deaf."[62] His favorite stars were Mary Pickford and Clara Bow. HP G62-150EV Battery [63] In 1908, Edison started the Motion Picture Patents Company, which was a conglomerate of nine major film studios (commonly known as the Edison Trust). Thomas Edison was the first honorary fellow of the Acoustical Society of America, which was founded in 1929. West Orange and Fort Myers (1886–1931) HP G62-150SE Battery Thomas A. Edison Industries Exhibit, Primary Battery section, 1915 Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and Harvey Firestone, respectively. Ft. Myers, Florida, February 11, 1929 Edison moved from Menlo Park after the death of Mary Stilwell and purchased a home known as "Glenmont" in 1886 as a wedding gift for Mina in Llewellyn Park in West Orange, New Jersey. HP G62-150SF BatteryIn 1885, Thomas Edison bought property in Fort Myers, Florida, and built what was later called Seminole Lodge as a winter retreat. Edison and his wife Mina spent many winters in Fort Myers where they recreated and Edison tried to find a domestic source of natural rubber. Henry Ford, the automobile magnate, HP G62-150SL Battery later lived a few hundred feet away from Edison at his winter retreat in Fort Myers, Florida. Edison even contributed technology to the automobile. They were friends until Edison's death. In 1928, Edison joined the Fort Myers Civitan Club. He believed strongly in the organization, HP G62-153CA Battery writing that "The Civitan Club is doing things—big things—for the community, state, and nation, and I certainly consider it an honor to be numbered in its ranks."[64] He was an active member in the club until his death, sometimes bringing Henry Ford to the club's meetings. The final yearsHP G62-154CA Battery Edison was active in business right up to the end. Just months before his death in 1931, the Lackawanna Railroad implemented electric trains in suburban service from Hoboken to Gladstone, Montclair and Dover in New Jersey. Transmission was by means of an overhead catenary system, HP G62-165SL Batterywith the entire project under Edison's guidance. To the surprise of many, he was at the throttle of the very first MU (Multiple-Unit) train to depart Lackawanna Terminal in Hoboken, driving the train all the way to Dover.[65] As another tribute to his lasting legacy, HP G62-166SB Batterythe same fleet of cars Edison deployed on the Lackawanna in 1931 served commuters until their retirement in 1984, when some of them were purchased by the Berkshire Scenic Railway Museum in Lenox, Massachusetts. A special plaque commemorating the joint achievement of both the railway and Edison can be seen today in the waiting room of Lackawanna Terminal in Hoboken, presently operated by New Jersey Transit. HP G62-200XX Battery [65] Edison was said to have been influenced by a popular fad diet in his last few years; "the only liquid he consumed was a pint of milk every three hours".[32] He is reported to have believed this diet would restore his health. However, this tale is doubtful. In 1930, the year before Edison died, Mina said in an interview about him, "correct eating is one of his greatest hobbies. HP G62-201XX Battery" She also said that during one of his periodic "great scientific adventures", Edison would be up at 7:00, have breakfast at 8:00, and be rarely home for lunch or dinner, implying that he continued to have all three.[62] Edison became the owner of his Milan, Ohio, birthplace in 1906. On his last visit, in 1923, he was shocked to find his old home still lit by lamps and candles. Thomas Edison died of complications of diabetes on October 18, 1931, HP G62-219WM Batteryin his home, "Glenmont" in Llewellyn Park in West Orange, New Jersey, which he had purchased in 1886 as a wedding gift for Mina. He is buried behind the home.[66][67] Edison's last breath is reportedly contained in a test tube at the Henry Ford Museum. Ford reportedly convinced Charles Edison to seal a test tube of air in the inventor's room shortly after his death, as a memento. A plaster death mask was also made. HP G62-251XX Battery [68] Mina died in 1947. Views on politics, religion and metaphysics Historian Paul Israel has characterized Edison as a "freethinker".[32] Edison was heavily influenced by Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason.[32] Edison defended Paine's "scientific deism", saying, HP G62-400 Battery"He has been called an atheist, but atheist he was not. Paine believed in a supreme intelligence, as representing the idea which other men often express by the name of deity."[32] In an October 2, 1910, interview in the New York Times Magazine, Edison stated: Nature is what we know. HP G62-450SA BatteryWe do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me — the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love — He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us — nature did it all — not the gods of the religions. HP G62-451SA Battery [69] Edison was called an atheist for those remarks, and although he did not allow himself to be drawn into the controversy publicly, he clarified himself in a private letter: "You have misunderstood the whole article, because you jumped to the conclusion that it denies the existence of God. There is no such denial, what you call God I call Nature, the Supreme intelligence that rules matter. HP G62-452SA Battery All the article states is that it is doubtful in my opinion if our intelligence or soul or whatever one may call it lives hereafter as an entity or disperses back again from whence it came, scattered amongst the cells of which we are made."[32] Nonviolence was key to Edison's moral views, and when asked to serve as a naval consultant for World War I, HP G62-454TU Battery he specified he would work only on defensive weapons and later noted, "I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill." Edison's philosophy of nonviolence extended to animals as well, about which he stated: "Nonviolence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages." HP G62-456TU Battery [70] However, he is also notorious for having electrocuted a number of dogs in 1888, both by direct and alternating current, in an attempt to argue that the former (which he had a vested business interest in promoting) was safer than the latter (favored by his rival George Westinghouse) HP G62-460TX Battery.[71] Edison's success in promoting direct current as less lethal also led to alternating current being used in the electric chair adopted by New York in 1889 as a supposedly humane execution method. Because Westinghouse was angered by the decision, he funded Eighth Amendment-based appeals for inmates set to die in the electric chair, ultimately resulting in Edison providing the generators which powered early electrocutions and testifying successfully on behalf of the state that electrocution was a painless method of execution. HP G62-467TX Battery [72] Tributes Places and people named for Edison Several places have been named after Edison, most notably the town of Edison, New Jersey. Thomas Edison State College, a nationally known college for adult learners, is in Trenton, New Jersey. HP G62-468TX Battery Two community colleges are named for him: Edison State College in Fort Myers, Florida, and Edison Community College in Piqua, Ohio.[73] There are numerous high schools named after Edison; see Edison High School. In 1883, the City Hotel in Sunbury, Pennsylvania was the first building to be lit with Edison's three-wire system. HP G62-550EE Battery The hotel was renamed The Hotel Edison upon Edison's return to the City on 1922. [74] Edison was on hand to turn on the lights at the Hotel Edison in New York City when it opened in 1931. Three bridges around the United States have been named in his honor (see Edison Bridge) HP G62-a00 Battery. In space, his name is commemorated in asteroid 742 Edisona. The Russian composer Edison Denisov, whose father was a radio-physicist, was named after the inventor. Museums and memorialsHP G62-a00EF Battery Statue of young Thomas Edison by the railroad tracks in Port Huron, Michigan. In West Orange, New Jersey, the 13.5 acre (5.5 ha) Glenmont estate is maintained and operated by the National Park Service as the Edison National Historic Site.[75] The Thomas Alva Edison Memorial Tower and Museum is in the town of Edison, New Jersey.[76] In Beaumont, TexasHP G62-a01SA Battery, there is an Edison Museum, though Edison never visited there.[citation needed] The Port Huron Museum, in Port Huron, Michigan, restored the original depot that Thomas Edison worked out of as a young newsbutcher. The depot has been named the Thomas Edison Depot Museum. HP G62-a02SA Battery [77] The town has many Edison historical landmarks, including the graves of Edison's parents, and a monument along the St. Clair River. Edison's influence can be seen throughout this city of 32,000. In Detroit, the Edison Memorial Fountain in Grand Circus Park was created to honor his achievements. The limestone fountain was dedicated October 21, 1929, HP G62-a03SA Battery the fiftieth anniversary of the creation of the lightbulb.[78] On the same night, The Edison Institute was dedicated in nearby Dearborn. In early 2010, Edison was proposed by the Ohio Historical Society as a finalist in a statewide vote for inclusion in Statuary Hall at the United States Capitol. Companies bearing Edison's nameHP G62-a04EA Battery In 1915 Edison General Electric, merged with Thomson-Houston Electric Company to form General Electric Commonwealth Edison, HP G62-a04SA Battery now part of Exelon Consolidated Edison Edison International Southern California Edison Edison Mission Energy Edison Capital Detroit Edison, HP G62-a10EV Batterya unit of DTE Energy Edison Sault Electric Company, a unit of Wisconsin Energy Corporation FirstEnergy Metropolitan Edison Ohio Edison Toledo Edison Edison S.p.A., HP G62-a10SA Batterya unit of Italenergia Boston Edison, a unit of NSTAR, formerly known as the Edison Electric Illuminating Company WEEI radio station in Boston, established by the Edison Electric Illuminating Company (hence the call letters) Trade association the Edison Electric Institute, HP G62-a11SA Batterya lobbying and research group for investor-owned utilities in the United States Edison Ore-Milling Company Edison Portland Cement Company Awards named in honor of EdisonHP G62-a11SE Battery The Edison Medal was created on February 11, 1904, by a group of Edison's friends and associates. Four years later the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE), later IEEE, entered into an agreement with the group to present the medal as its highest award. The first medal was presented in 1909 to Elihu Thomson and, in a twist of fate, HP G62-a12SA Battery was awarded to Nikola Tesla in 1917. It is the oldest award in the area of electrical and electronics engineering, and is presented annually "for a career of meritorious achievement in electrical science, electrical engineering or the electrical arts." In the Netherlands, the major music awards are named the Edison Award after him. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers concedes the Thomas A. HP G62-a12SE Battery Edison Patent Award to individual patents since 2000.[79] Honors and awards given to Edison The President of the Third French Republic, Jules Grévy, on the recommendation of his Minister of Foreign Affairs Jules Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire and with the presentations of the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs Louis Cochery, HP G62-a13EE Battery designated Edison with the distinction of an 'Officer of the Legion of Honour' (Légion d'honneur) by decree on November 10, 1881;[80] He also named a Chevalier in 1879, and a Commander in 1889.[81] In 1887, Edison won the Matteucci Medal. In 1890, HP G62-a13SA Batteryhe was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The Philadelphia City Council named Edison the recipient of the John Scott Medal in 1889.[81] In 1899, Edison was awarded the Edward Longstreth Medal of The Franklin Institute.[82] He was named an Honorable Consulting Engineer at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition World's fair in 1904. HP G62-a13SE Battery [81] In 1908, Edison received the American Association of Engineering Societies John Fritz Medal.[81] Edison was awarded Franklin Medal of The Franklin Institute in 1915 for discoveries contributing to the foundation of industries and the well-being of the human race. HP G62-a14SA Battery The United States Navy department awarded him the Distinguished Service Medal in 1920.[81] The American Institute of Electrical Engineers created the Edison Medal in 1923 and he was its first recipient.[81] In 1927, HP G62-a15EO Batteryhe was granted membership in the National Academy of Sciences.[81] On May 29, 1928, Edison received the Congressional Gold Medal.[81] In 1983, the United States Congress, pursuant to Senate Joint Resolution 140 (Public Law 97—198), designated February 11, Edison's birthday, as National Inventor's Day. Edison was ranked thirty-fifth on Michael H. Hart's 1978 book The 100, a list of the most influential figures in history. HP G62-a15SA BatteryLife magazine (USA), in a special double issue in 1997, placed Edison first in the list of the "100 Most Important People in the Last 1000 Years", noting that the light bulb he promoted "lit up the world". In the 2005 television series The Greatest American, he was voted by viewers as the fifteenth-greatest. HP G62-a16SA Battery In 2008, Edison was inducted in the New Jersey Hall of Fame. In 2010, Edison was honored with a Technical Grammy Award. In 2011, Edison was inducted into the Entrepreneur Walk of Fame, and named a Great Floridian by the Florida Governor and Cabinet. HP G62-a17EA Battery [83] On November 6, 1915, The New York Times announced that both Edison and Tesla were to jointly receive the 1915 Nobel Prize but it did not occur.[84] The details of what happened are not known but Tesla who had once worked for Edison quit when he was promised a large bonus for solving a problem and then after being successful was told the promise was a jokeHP G62-a17SA Battery.[85] Telsa once said that if Edison had to find a needle in a haystack he would take apart the haystack one straw at a time.[86] The Prize was awarded to Sir William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg "for their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays". Other items named after EdisonHP G62-a18SA Battery The United States Navy named the USS Edison (DD-439), a Gleaves class destroyer, in his honor in 1940. The ship was decommissioned a few months after the end of World War II. In 1962, the Navy commissioned USS Thomas A. Edison (SSBN-610), a fleet ballistic missile nuclear-powered submarine. HP G62-a19EA Battery Decommissioned on December 1, 1983, Thomas A. Edison was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on April 30, 1986. She went through the Navy's Nuclear Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program at Bremerton, Washington, beginning on October 1, 1996. When she finished the program on December 1, 1997, HP G62-a19SA Battery she ceased to exist as a complete ship and was listed as scrapped. In popular culture Main article: Thomas Edison in popular culture Thomas Edison has appeared in popular culture as a character in novels, films, comics and video games. HP G62-a20SA Battery His prolific inventing helped make him an icon and he has made appearances in popular culture during his lifetime down to the present day. His history with Nikola Tesla has also provided dramatic tension and is a theme returned to numerous times. On February 11, 2011, HP G62-a21EA Battery on Thomas Edison's 164th birthday, Google's homepage featured an animated Google Doodle commemorating his many inventions. When the cursor was hovered over the doodle, a series of mechanisms seemed to move, causing a lightbulb to glow.[87] Novel mentionsHP G62-a21SA Battery In Dos Passos' The 42nd Parallel, Thomas Edison is introduced as "The Electrical Wizard", a very handy and intellectual person. In his lifetime he held many different jobs and created many patents and inventions.[88] Guglielmo MarconiHP G62-a22SA Battery Guglielmo Marconi (Italian pronunciation: [ɡuʎˈʎɛːlmo marˈkoːni]; 25 April 1874 – 20 July 1937) was an Italian inventor, known as the father of long distance radio transmission[1] and for his development of Marconi's law and a radio telegraph system. Marconi is often credited as the inventor of radio, HP G62-a22SE Battery and indeed he shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand Braun "in recognition of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy".[2][3][4] Much of Marconi's work in radio transmission was built upon previous experimentation[5] and the commercial exploitation of ideas by others such as Hertz, Maxwell, Faraday, Popov, Lodge, Fessenden, Stone, Bose, HP G62-a23SA Battery and Tesla. As an entrepreneur, businessman, and founder of the The Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company in 1897, Marconi succeeded in making a commercial success of radio by innovating and building on the work of previous experimenters and physicists.[6][7] In 1924, he was ennobled as Marchese Marconi. HP G62-a24SA Battery Biography Early years Marconi was born in Bologna on April 25, 1874, the second son of Giuseppe Marconi, an Italian landowner, and his Irish wife, Annie Jameson, daughter of Andrew Jameson of Daphne Castle in the County WexfordHP G62-a25EA Battery, Ireland and granddaughter of John Jameson, founder of whiskey distillers Jameson & Sons. Marconi was educated privately in Bologna in the lab of Augusto Righi, in Florence at the Istituto Cavallero and, later, in Livorno. As a child Marconi did not do well in school.[8] Baptized as a Catholic, he was also a member of the Anglican Church, HP G62-a25SA Battery being married into it; however, he still received a Catholic annulment. Radio work During his early years, Marconi had an interest in science and electricity. One of the scientific developments during this era came from Heinrich Hertz, who, beginning in 1888, demonstrated that one could produce and detect electromagnetic radiation—now generally known as radio waves, HP G62-a26SA Battery at the time more commonly called "Hertzian waves" or "aetheric waves". Hertz's death in 1894 brought published reviews of his earlier discoveries, and a renewed interest on the part of Marconi. He was permitted to briefly study the subject under Augusto Righi, a University of Bologna physicist and neighbour of Marconi who had done research on Hertz's workHP G62-a27SA Battery. Early experimental devices Marconi began to conduct experiments, building much of his own equipment in the attic of his home at the Villa Griffone in Pontecchio, Italy, with the help of his butler Mignani. His goal was to use radio waves to create a practical system of "wireless telegraphy"—i.e. HP G62-a28SA Battery the transmission of telegraph messages without connecting wires as used by the electric telegraph. This was not a new idea—numerous investigators had been exploring wireless telegraph technologies for over 50 years, but none had proven technically and commercially successful. Marconi's system had the following components:[9] A relatively simple oscillator, HP G62-a29EA Batteryor spark-producing radio transmitter. A wire or capacity area placed at a height above the ground; A coherer receiver, which was a modification of Edouard Branly's original device, with refinements to increase sensitivity and reliability; A telegraph key to operate the transmitter to send short and long pulses, HP G62-a29SA Battery corresponding to the dots-and-dashes of Morse code; and A telegraph register, activated by the coherer, which recorded the received Morse code dots and dashes onto a roll of paper tape. Similar configurations using spark-gap transmitters plus coherer-receivers had been tried by others, but many were unable to achieve transmission ranges of more than a few hundred metres. Marconi, HP G62-a30SA Battery just twenty years old, began his first experiments working on his own with the help of his butler Mignani. In the summer of 1894, he built a storm alarm made up of a battery, a coherer, and an electric bell, which went off if there was lightning. Soon after he was able to make a bell ring on the other side of the room by pushing a telegraphic button on a bench. HP G62-a38EE Battery [10] One night in December, Guglielmo woke his mother up and invited her into his secret workshop and showed her the experiment he had created. The next day he also showed his father, who, when he was certain there were no wires, gave his son all of the money he had in his wallet so Guglielmo could buy more materials. In the summer of 1895 he moved his experimentation outdoorsHP G62-a40SA Battery. After increasing the length of the transmitter and receiver antennas, and arranging them vertically, and positioning the antenna so that it touched the ground, the range increased significantly.[11] Soon he was able to transmit signals over a hill, a distance of approximately 2.4 kilometres (1.5 mi).[12] By this point he concluded that with additional funding and research, HP G62-a43SA Batterya device could become capable of spanning greater distances and would prove valuable both commercially and militarily. Marconi wrote to the ministry of Post and Telegraphs, which at the time was under the direction of the honorable Pietro Lacava, explaining his wireless telegraph machine and asking for funding. He never received a response to his letter which was eventually dismissed by the minister who wrote "to the Longara" on the document, HP G62-a44EE Battery referring to the insane asylum on via della Lungara in Rome.[13] In 1896, Marconi spoke with his family friend Carlo Gardini, the United States consulate in Bologna, about leaving Italy to go to England. Gardini wrote a letter to the Ambassador of Italy in London, Annibale Ferrero, explaining who Marconi was and about this extraordinary discoveries. In his response, HP G62-a44SA Battery ambassador Ferrero advised them not to reveal the results until after they had obtained the copyrights. He also encouraged him to come to England where he believed it would be easier to find the necessary funds to convert the findings from Marconi's experiment into a practical use. Finding little interest in his work in Italy, HP G62-a45SA Battery in early 1896 at the age of 21, Marconi traveled to London, accompanied by his mother, to seek support for his work; Marconi spoke fluent English in addition to Italian. While there, he gained the interest and support of William Preece, the Chief Electrical Engineer of the British Post Office. The apparatus that Marconi possessed at that time was similar to that of one in 1882 by A. E. Dolbear, of Tufts College, HP G62-a50SG Battery which used a spark coil generator and a carbon granular rectifier for reception.[14] A plaque[15] on the outside of BT Centre commemorates Marconi's first public transmission of wireless signals from that site.[16] A series of demonstrations for the British government followed—by March 1897, HP G62-a53SG Battery Marconi had transmitted Morse code signals over a distance of about 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) across the Salisbury Plain. On 13 May 1897, Marconi sent the first ever wireless communication over open sea. It transversed the Bristol Channel from Lavernock Point (South Wales) to Flat Holm Island, a distance of 6 kilometres (3.7 mi). The message read "Are you ready".HP G62-a60SA Battery [17] The receiving equipment was almost immediately relocated to Brean Down Fort on the Somerset coast, stretching the range to 16 kilometres (9.9 mi). Impressed by these and other demonstrations, Preece introduced Marconi's ongoing work to the general public at two important London lectures: "Telegraphy without Wires", at the Toynbee Hall on 11 December 1896; HP G62-b00SA Battery and "Signaling through Space without Wires", given to the Royal Institution on 4 June 1897. Numerous additional demonstrations followed, and Marconi began to receive international attention. In July 1897, he carried out a series of tests at La Spezia in his home country, for the Italian government. HP G62-b09SA Battery A test for Lloyds between Ballycastle and Rathlin Island, Ireland, was conducted on 6 July 1898. The English channel was crossed on 27 March 1899, from Wimereux, France to South Foreland Lighthouse, England, and in the autumn of 1899, the first demonstrations in the United States took place, HP G62-b10SA Battery with the reporting of the America's Cup international yacht races at New York. Marconi sailed to the United States at the invitation of the New York Herald newspaper to cover the America's Cup races off Sandy Hook, NJ. The transmission was done aboard the SS Ponce, a passenger ship of the Porto Rico Line. HP G62-b11SA Battery [18] Marconi left for England on 8 November 1899 on the American Line's SS St. Paul, and he and his assistants installed wireless equipment aboard during the voyage. On 15 November the St. Paul became the first ocean liner to report her imminent arrival by wireless when Marconi's Needles station contacted her sixty-six nautical miles off the English coastHP G62-b12SA Battery. Transatlantic transmissions Marconi watching associates raise kite antenna at St. John's, Newfoundland, December 1901 “       See if you can hear anything, Mr. Kemp![19]   ” Around the turn of the 19th to 20th century, Marconi began investigating the means to signal completely across the Atlantic, in order to compete with the transatlantic telegraph cables. Marconi established a wireless transmitting station at Marconi House, HP G62-b13EA BatteryRosslare Strand, Co. Wexford in 1901 to act as a link between Poldhu in Cornwall and Clifden in Co. Galway. He soon made the announcement that on 12 December 1901, using a 152.4-metre (500 ft) kite-supported antenna for reception, the message was received at Signal Hill in St John's, Newfoundland (now part of Canada) signals transmitted by the company's new high-power station at Poldhu, HP G62-b13SA Battery Cornwall. The distance between the two points was about 3,500 kilometres (2,200 mi). Heralded as a great scientific advance, there was—and continues to be—some skepticism about this claim, partly because the signals had been heard faintly and sporadically. There was no independent confirmation of the reported reception, and the transmissions, HP G62-b14SA Batteryconsisting of the Morse code letter S sent repeatedly, were difficult to distinguish from atmospheric noise. (A detailed technical review of Marconi's early transatlantic work appears in John S. Belrose's work of 1995.)[20] The Poldhu transmitter was a two-stage circuit.[21][22] The first stage operated at lower voltage and provided the energy for the second stage to spark at a higher voltage. HP G62-b15SA Battery Nikola Tesla, a rival in transatlantic transmission, stated after being told of Marconi's reported transmission that "Marconi [... was] using seventeen of my patents."[23][24] Marconi operating apparatus similar to that used by him to transmit first wireless signal across Atlantic, HP G62-b16EA Battery1901. Feeling challenged by skeptics, Marconi prepared a better organized and documented test. In February 1902, the SS Philadelphia sailed west from Great Britain with Marconi aboard, carefully recording signals sent daily from the Poldhu station. The test results produced coherer-tape reception up to 2,496 kilometres (1,551 mi), HP G62-b16SA Battery and audio reception up to 3,378 kilometres (2,099 mi). The maximum distances were achieved at night, and these tests were the first to show that for mediumwave and longwave transmissions, radio signals travel much farther at night than in the day. During the daytime, signals had only been received up to about 1,125 kilometres (699 mi), HP G62-b17EO Batteryless than half of the distance claimed earlier at Newfoundland, where the transmissions had also taken place during the day. Because of this, Marconi had not fully confirmed the Newfoundland claims, although he did prove that radio signals could be sent for hundreds of kilometres, despite some scientists' belief they were essentially limited to line-of-sight distances. HP G62-b17SA Battery On 17 December 1902, a transmission from the Marconi station in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada, became the first radio message to cross the Atlantic from North America. In 1901, Marconi built a station near South Wellfleet, Massachusetts that on January 18, 1903 sent a message of greetings from Theodore Roosevelt, the President of the United States, HP G62-b18SA Battery to King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, marking the first transatlantic radio transmission originating in the United States. This station also was one of the first to receive the distress signals coming from the RMS Titanic. However, consistent transatlantic signalling was difficult to establish. HP G62-b19SA Battery Marconi began to build high-powered stations on both sides of the Atlantic to communicate with ships at sea, in competition with other inventors. In 1904 a commercial service was established to transmit nightly news summaries to subscribing ships, which could incorporate them into their on-board newspapers. HP G62-b20SA Battery A regular transatlantic radio-telegraph service was finally begun on 17 October 1907[25] between Clifden Ireland and Glace Bay, but even after this the company struggled for many years to provide reliable communication. Titanic The two radio operators aboard the Titanic—Jack Phillips and Harold Bride—were not employed by the White Star Line, HP G62-B20so Battery but by the Marconi International Marine Communication Company. Following the sinking of the ocean liner, survivors were rescued by the RMS Carpathia of the Cunard Line.[26] Also employed by the Marconi Company was David Sarnoff, the only person to receive the names of survivors immediately after the disaster via wireless technology. HP G62-b21SA Battery Wireless communications were reportedly maintained for 72 hours between the Carpathia and Sarnoff,[27] but Sarnoff's involvement has been questioned by some modern historians. When the Carpathia docked in New York, Marconi went aboard with a reporter from The New York Times to talk with Bride, the surviving operator. HP G62-b22SA Battery [26] On 18 June 1912, Marconi gave evidence to the Court of Inquiry into the loss of the Titanic regarding the marine telegraphy's functions and the procedures for emergencies at sea.  hp-464059-252-battery [28] Britain's postmaster-general summed up, referring to the Titanic disaster, "Those who have been saved, have been saved through one man, Mr. Marconi...and his marvelous invention." Continuing work “       Have I done the world good, or have I added a menace?[29]         ” Over the years, hp-pavilion-dm4-1165dx-battery the Marconi companies gained a reputation for being technically conservative, in particular by continuing to use inefficient spark-transmitter technology, which could only be used for radiotelegraph operations, long after it was apparent that the future of radio communication lay with continuous-wave transmissions, which were more efficient and could be used for audio transmissions. hp-probook-4710s-battery Somewhat belatedly, the company did begin significant work with continuous-wave equipment beginning in 1915, after the introduction of the oscillating vacuum tube (valve). In 1920, employing a vacuum tube transmitter, the Chelmsford Marconi factory was the location for the first entertainment radio broadcasts in the United Kingdom—one of these featured Dame Nellie Melba. hp-business-notebook-6730s-ct-battery In 1922 regular entertainment broadcasts commenced from the Marconi Research Centre at Writtle. Later years In 1914 Marconi was made a Senator in the Italian Senate and appointed Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order in the UK. During World War I, Italy joined the Allied side of the conflict,  hp-business-notebook-6720s-battery  and Marconi was placed in charge of the Italian military's radio service. He attained the rank of lieutenant in the Italian Army and of commander in the Italian Navy. In 1924, he was made a marquess by King Victor Emmanuel III. Marconi joined the Italian Fascist party in 1923. In 1930, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini appointed him President of the Royal Academy of Italy, which made Marconi a member of the Fascist Grand Council hp-business-notebook-6735s-battery. Marconi died in Rome in 1937 at age 63 following a series of heart attacks, and Italy held a state funeral for him. As a tribute, all radio stations throughout the world observed two minutes of silence. His remains are housed in the Villa Griffone at Sasso Marconi, Emilia-Romagna, which assumed that name in his honour in 1938hp-probook-4720s-battery. Personal life American electrical engineer Alfred Norton Goldsmith and Marconi on 26 June 1922. Marconi had a brother, Alfonso, and a stepbrother, Luigi. On 16 March 1905, Marconi married the Hon. Beatrice O'Brien (1882–1976), a daughter of Edward Donough O'Brien, 14th Baron Inchiquinhp-513775-001-battery. They had three daughters, Degna (1908–1998), Gioia (1916–1996), and Lucia (born and died 1906), and a son, Giulio, 2nd Marchese Marconi (1910–1971). The Marconis divorced in 1924, and, at Marconi's request, the marriage was annulled on 27 April 1927, so he could remarry.[30] Beatrice Marconi married her second husband, Liborio Marignoli, Marchese di Montecorona, on 3 March 1924 and had a daughter, Flaminia.  hp-envy-15-1100-battery  [31] On 12 June 1927 (religious 15 June), Marconi married Maria Cristina Bezzi-Scali (1900—1994), only daughter of Francesco, Count Bezzi-Scali. Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini was Marconi's best man at the wedding.[32][33] They had one daughter, Maria Elettra Elena Anna (born 1930), who married Prince Carlo Giovannelli (born 1942) in 1966; they later divorced. For unexplained reasons, hp-g42-250la-battery Marconi left his entire fortune to his second wife and their only child, and nothing to the children of his first marriage.[34] Later in life, Marconi was an active Italian Fascist[35] and an apologist for their ideology and actions such as the attack by Italian forces in Ethiopia. Marconi wanted to personally introduce in 1931 the first radio broadcast of a Pope, hp-bq350aa-battery Pius XI, announcing at the microphone: "With the help of God, who places so many mysterious forces of nature at man's disposal, I have been able to prepare this instrument which will give to the faithful of the entire world the joy of listening to the voice of the Holy Father".[36]  hp-pavilion-dv9500-battery