A History of the Science and Technology of Radio
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Presented By
Presented by the Lyceum Society
The Lyceum Society is comprised of the Academy's retired and semiretired members, but any Academy member is welcome. Talks cover various scientific fields.
All Lyceum meetings (except December and June) are Brown Bag lunches.
Brown Bag: 11:30 am; Discussion: 1pm to 3 pm.
Speaker: Joel Kirman, M.ChE, Lyceum Secretary
We now know we are bathed in an ocean of radiation, both visible and invisible: Visible light, plus invisible ultra violet and infra red light, AM and FM radio waves and many other frequencies. But all we can see is visible light.
Then based on earlier findings (by Oersted, Faraday, Weber and others), James Clerk Maxwell predicted a far broader range of radiation than visible light. Heinrich Hertz proved Maxwell's prediction. Guglielmo Marconi used this arcane knowledge to launch a communication industry, bringing about the never-ending expansion of Information Transfer that has come to characterize the human race.
The presentation is historically oriented and will cover the fascinating individuals in this story, what they did, and the scientific/technological import of their discoveries.