Griboyedov history of the massacre. Alexander Griboyedov

Russia and the West have different opinions on this matter

The wireless transmission of the first telegraph signals at the end of the 19th century marked the beginning of a process that, 20 years later, resulted in the appearance of radio and radio stations. If we turn to the background of what resulted in this invention of epoch-making significance, it will hardly be surprising that the right to be called its author is given to two scientists - the Italian Guglielmo Marconi and Aleksandr Stepanovich Popov. At the end of the 19th century, there was a belief that physics was a science about which everything was already known, and that there was no point in looking for something fundamentally new in it. Therefore, gifted school graduates were discouraged from studying physics. Since at that time nothing foreshadowed the revolution that was to be brought with it at the beginning of the new century quantum theory and the theory of relativity, researchers have focused their efforts on further development fundamental physics on an already existing basis.

Heinrich Hertz as a pioneer

This was a time when scientists were overwhelmed by the enthusiasm caused by James Maxwell's theory of electrodynamics, developed in 1864. Maxwell theoretically proved that there must be waves in space that travel at the speed of light, and he predicted many of their properties. Maxwell's theory soon became one of the foundations of physics. Professor from Karlsruhe Heinrich Hertz invented equipment to send and receive such waves, which confirmed the correctness of Maxwell's predictions regarding their properties.

It is clear that physicists working at the most famous universities in the world reacted with great interest to the results that Hertz published in 1886, and his experiments were an important topic of conversation among colleagues. It also goes without saying that fellow specialists physical institutes They repeated Hertz's experiments, after which they improved the equipment. And the idea that the waves produced in this way could be used as a message carrier was inevitable. The great economic importance which both the telegraph and the telephone had already acquired led to the conclusion, which lay almost on the surface, that the wireless transmission of messages could be of great benefit. The discovery, so to speak, was in the air.

The son of a village priest, Alexander Stepanovich Popov (1859-1906), initially intended to become a priest. But he soon developed other interests; he entered St. Petersburg University, where he graduated with honors in the department of mathematics. After this he intended to pursue an academic career. One day, he soon developed an interest in electrical engineering, in which more and more new discoveries were appearing. In this regard, he visited the Naval School in Kronstadt (located in the vicinity of St. Petersburg), where he became an instructor in the care of electrical equipment of warships.

In the school library, he found the works of Heinrich Hertz, which interested him greatly. He repeated Hertz's experiments and soon tried to transmit the waves thus obtained over long distances. In 1986, he demonstrated his experiments to the St. Petersburg Physical Society, transmitting signals using Morse code inside the university building. However, he did not continue research in this direction, but turned to research on X-rays recently discovered in Germany. However, in September 1896, he learned from the newspapers that Marconi had received a patent. In this regard, he was forced to return again to Hertzian waves. In cooperation with the Russian navy, he managed to transmit a signal 10 kilometers, and a year later - 50 kilometers.

Belated recognition of Popov's discovery

Popov received surprisingly little recognition for his pioneering work. Only half a century later, when the Soviet Union had a heightened sense of self-esteem thanks to its victory over Nazi Germany, did they begin to emphasize the fact that the real inventor of radio was Alexander Popov. That he conducted his main research in St. Petersburg. On May 7, 1945, a celebration took place at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow to mark the 50th anniversary of the invention of radio. It was attended by the most senior leaders of the party and army, as well as Popova’s daughter. A special postage stamp was issued with his portrait and the inscription: “Popov, inventor of radio.” It was decided to celebrate May 7th as “Radio Day” in the future. But this decision was soon forgotten again.

Almost at the same time, Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937) was working on the same problem in Italy. He studied physics at the Technical School in Livorno, where he learned about the results obtained by Heinrich Hertz. In 1984, he repeated Hertz's experiments in the laboratory. He soon realized the possibility of sending messages, and in the same year he managed to transmit a message over a distance of two kilometers. Since in Italy there was little interest in his research, and primarily from the military, he left for London in 1986, where he continued his work. Already in the same year he managed to transmit a message over a distance of 10 kilometers. He received patents for his various inventions and founded the Marconi Wireless and Telegraph Company.

Marconi makes the possible out of the impossible

In December 1901, that is, 100 years ago, he began his main experiment and succeeded in transmitting a signal across the Atlantic. At the same time, there was a transmitter in Cornville, at the westernmost point of England, and a receiving station in Newfoundland. The result of the experiment was perceived in all industrial countries as a sensation of the highest standard. Scientists, most notably Poincare, the lord of French physics, in particular, convincingly proved that waves can bend Earth only just under external influence, and therefore their propagation range cannot exceed several hundred kilometers. The fact that the Earth is surrounded by an ionosphere, which can reflect waves, was not yet known.

The Russian Popov, unlike Marconi, was unable to continue his developments. Since Popov’s invention did not receive commercial application, it ended up in a completely different economic plane. At the turn of the century, industry developed extremely dynamically in Western Europe. The supply of electrical energy acquired new dimensions, the network expanded railways, enterprising entrepreneurs everywhere hunted for inventions that could bring money, and there was plenty of capital to invest in risky projects. Since all this did not exist in Russia, Popov soon turned to other things.

Another question is why radio was noticed and appreciated commercially in Europe and not in the United States. Finding the answer is not easy. It is always difficult to determine why this or that was not done. One reason could be that technological renewal in the United States took place under the exclusive influence of the ideological wealth of Thomas Edison. He occupied a special position among the inventors of his time. He gave the world more important inventions than anyone else. Of course, Edison knew about the work of Heinrich Hertz. However, it seems that Edison did not consider as a priority those areas of physics that later became the foundation of electronics. Who is the true inventor of radio? Sources indicate that Popov demonstrated the wireless transmission of understandable signals in March 1986 and that Marconi did the same a few months earlier, albeit in the absence of the public and specialists. What conclusion can be drawn from this? In principle, the fact that someone else, without knowing it, at the same time in another place invented the same thing, does not detract from the significance of the creative achievement of the inventor. Therefore, Popov’s achievement deserves absolute recognition. The question of priority in terms of obtaining a patent for an invention does not arise, since Popov did not file any applications for its receipt. However, for subsequent generations, the decisive thing is who put the idea into practice, and this merit, without a doubt, belongs to Guglielmo Marconi, who was later awarded the Nobel Prize.

InoSMI materials contain assessments exclusively of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the InoSMI editorial staff.

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10:53 17.08.2010 | 4

Merkulov

THE TRUTH ABOUT G. MARCONI IS HIDING IN SWITZERLAND
Academicians, professors, associate professors, directors of research institutes, engineers, state laureates were active in praising Marconi (1874-1937) around the world and in Russia. awards, journalists and historical writers. They tried! In addition to publications in magazines and newspapers, their erudition and right-wing views on the authorship of the invention of radio were carried into encyclopedias and even into educational curricula. The farce and comedy of the situation lies, however, in the fact that the scientists who opened the ideological company did not see or get acquainted with the own works of the alien star. Reading the works of Russian “new” cosmopolitans shows that their actual knowledge about the idol consists of the phrase: “Oh, Marconi is the head!” - similar to the expression of provincial ones. pique vests� in the famous novel by I. Ilf and E. Petrov “The Golden Calf”.
In his youth, Marconi dreamed of becoming a sailor-captain. But he couldn’t cope with his studies at school. Started studying at home. Entrance exams I still failed at the Italian Naval Academy. The next year he failed to enter the civilian University of Bologna. That's where I finished my education.
Thanks to private physics classes with his neighbor, the famous Italian scientist A. Rigi (1850 - 1921), Marconi became interested in experiments on the wireless transmission of electrical signals. Due to his lack of education and lack of experience working with equipment, he was unlikely to be able to come up with anything in physics with his own head and do it with his hands. In his memoirs, Marconi recalls that in the summer of 1895, the first receiving and transmitting installation on his parents’ estate (like a toy) was assembled by three civil engineers from Bologna under the methodological guidance of A. Riga, using his father’s money. Subsequently, none of them confirmed the success of the young technology enthusiast in transmitting high-frequency electromagnetic oscillations. In his autobiographies, Marconi does not report his appeals to scientific and technical journals and the Italian Patent Office with proposals to publish the contents of his work, or to register primacy in their implementation.
IN English London Marconi went to escape conscription into the army. On March 31, 1896, he was introduced to an aristocrat of blue blood and the head of the British telegraph department, V. Preece (1834 - 1913). There is a version that Preece, after familiarizing himself with Marconi’s fantasies, sketches and components, asked the technical service of the British Navy to examine and test the brought instruments. There, under the leadership of Captain G. Jackson (1855-1929) from the Mine Officer School, a future famous admiral, equipment for significant demonstrations was installed. Marconi showed the public the first working transmitter in July 1896 with a range of 400 m. The receiver was a device copied from the laboratory models of the Frenchman E. Branly (1844 - 1940) and the Englishman O. Lodge (1851 - 1940).
Preece, Jackson and Marconi, being familiar with the configuration of the device of A.S. Popov (1859 - 1906), at first did not understand its significance. Only in the spring of 1897 did they “realize” that it was planned to receive meaningful telegraph messages by air using the scheme of a Russian engineer. They tested a receiving-transmitting system (RTS) based on Popov's device in May 1897 on the English Bristol Channel. Success in the tests turned Pris's head. On June 4, 1897 (Friday evening), Preece made a report at an extraordinary meeting of the British Royal Institute (analogous to the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences) convened by him, outlining the results achieved. The British magazine The Electrician published the text of the report and the PPP diagram on June 11, 1897.
G. Marconi subsequently proved himself to be a successful manager, organizer of experiments and mass production of radio equipment. However, his level of knowledge in physics remained low. Already in adulthood, he did not distinguish diffraction from refraction; at the age of 50 (1924), he argued that short waves travel around the world 100 times faster than long waves (www.radio.ru/archive/1924/01).
A relatively successful assessment of Marconi was given by the English engineer science fiction writer A. Clarke (1917 - 2008): “He was not in in every sense inventor. The idea was in the air. Even before it, test transmissions of messages over short distances took place. But it was Marconi who played a huge role in the spread of radio, as he was the first to realize its importance. He founded a commercial organization to introduce radio and made the first transatlantic transmission (1902), which many scientists considered impossible due to the curvature of the earth's surface.
11:05 17.08.2010 | 3

Merkulov
11:06 17.08.2010 | 3

Merkulov

WHAT RADIO DID MARCONI INVENT? (JUDGE FOR YOURSELF!)
The first patent of G. Marconi No. 12039 dated 07/02/1897 “Improvements in Transmitting Electrical Impulses and Signals and in Apparatus therefor” was hidden for more than 100 years .
A tangle of ideas vegetated like Elusive Joe. Many people heard about him and sighed. But no one really wanted to explore (“catch”) him. With all that, he is revered as the “highest intimate” in the circle of “generals” from the world and Russian history radio communication sciences. In laudatory publications and reports on Marconi's affairs, thousands of authors expressed admiration and endless affection for the title of the document. If these delights could be converted into energy without loss, it would be enough to power radio stations around the world. However, to the “ear” of a practicing engineer, the name “sounds” ordinary, moreover, without indicating the “transmission” technology - wired or wireless.
According to the text of the document (see on the Web), “improvements” are understood as the author’s exotic intentions to distribute electromagnetic waves not only through the air, but also through land and water; under “equipment for this” – devices that implement the idea, with their diagrams and descriptions. There are other outlandish “lyrical sketches”:
– “when transmissions (EMW) go through earth or water, I connect one end of the tube or contact (detector) to earth, and the other ends to preferably similar friend on each other, conductors isolated from the ground or plates in the air";
- “this (reception of electromagnetic waves) can be achieved by connecting the ends of the sensitive tube (detector) to two ground electrodes located at some distance from each other along the line of arrival of the oscillations. These connections cannot be sufficiently conductive, therefore they must contain a capacitor of suitable capacity with a plate area of 0.83 sq.m (with a dielectric in the form of paraffin paper)";
– “with modifications of the above devices it is possible to transmit signals not only through relatively small obstacles, such as brick walls, trees, etc., but also across or through masses of metal, or hills, or mountains, which may be located between the transmitting and receiving instruments.”
The descriptive part of patent No. 12039 is placed on many pages. The forum's capabilities do not allow us to fully observe the physical absurdities document of protection. For example, the need to install selection structural elements in the receiving part of the PPS in the absence of such in the transmitting part, and many others. The basic scheme of the PPS with reflective antennas for over-the-air communications given in the patent did not go into practice.
Marconi's pseudoscientific attempts to supplement science with new “discoveries” indicate serious gaps in his knowledge of physics and electrical engineering. At the time of filing the patent application (12039), the applicant for the invention of radio had not carried out experimental work. If he carried them out, he would quickly become convinced that high-frequency electrical vibrations do not pass through earth and water, but when propagating through the air they are reflected from metal masses (plates).
P.S.: After 2004, the text and illustrations of document 12039 by G. Marconi were published. However, no one in the world has yet managed to obtain a certified copy of the patent materials with the BBP seal.
11:10 17.08.2010 | 2

Merkulov

OBVIOUS - INCREDIBLE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA BY RADIO MARCONI IN 1901
By glorifying Marconi, foreign and Russian “scholars” raise doubts about their own qualifications. For example! On December 12, 1901, at 12.30 pm, Marconi climbed to the highest point of Signal Hill near St. John's on Newfoundland Island in Canada. Here he tried, through the earpiece of a simple detector receiver, to make out three telegraph points of the letter “S”, transmitted to him on a wave of 366 m from England (Poldew). I heard atmospheric discharges. But he told everyone that he heard the dots. In the absence of witnesses! In his memoirs he wrote that in the USA, A. Bell (1847-1922) and N. Tesla (1856-1943) expressed support for his experiment. In fact, Bell said, "I doubt Marconi did it. It's impossible." Tesla even considered Marconi to be a narrow-minded swindler and a charlatan, who also stole 17 patents from him; He also said that he himself conducts sessions of biological communication with Mars. In Europe, famous scientists also did not believe in the event, among them the Englishmen O. Lodge, W. Preece - former chief. British telegraph engineer and mentor (“father”) Marconi and others. They suggested that in Canada, rather, Marconi heard “dots” of thunderstorm lightning discharges.
The failure sobered Marconi, and he began to do what he should have done right away - listening to signals of electromagnetic oscillations as he slowly moved across the sea from the transmitter at Poldew. Two months later, in February 1902, while sailing from England to America on the ship Philadelphia, Marconi was already testing communications and learned that during the day EMWs do not travel even a third of the way between continents (3500 km), but at night they are transported over long distances . Marconi did not abandon his initial statement about transoceanic signal reception. He insisted on it in his Nobel report in 1909.
Later, scientists investigated that the phenomenon of long-range propagation of electromagnetic waves is explained by their reflections from the electrical layers of the ionosphere in dark time days. In 1941, a shepherd in famous film“The Pig Farmer and the Shepherd,” addressing the pig farmer, sang: “The radio waves will rush in at night!” According to the laws of physics, the event of December 12, 1901 could not have happened. Apart from Marconi's oral statements, there is no corroboration of the case. His promoters, the “fathers of radio,” are filled with adoration for the hero—in 2001, the 100th anniversary of the unique adventure of the 20th century was celebrated everywhere. in the history of science. After 18 months British BBC in Poldew opened " The New Marconi Center" is a museum in memory of the play of imagination (and the stock exchange) of G. Marconi.
This is how Marconi himself described the events of December 1901 in his memoirs: the first points of the letter “S” from a 25 kW transmitter from England arrived in Canada on December 12. at 12.30 (at 17.30 – UK time); he received signals “by ear” from a receiver with an insensitive mercury detector, not equipped with a printed paper tape; the next day at noon I heard the dots again, but with less consistency; 14 Dec. It was not possible to work because a strong wind blew away the inflatable balloon that was lifting the antenna wire; by the evening of December 15. he had a letter from the Anglo-American Telegraph Company (AATC), where the legal adviser said that Marconi would be prosecuted for violating the company's exclusive rights to transoceanic telegraph messages; on the same day, Marconi notified the press of his success in one-way transmission of a semantic signal from England to Canada. None of the curious engineers and journalists managed to hear the “hello” sent from England. Marconi did not agree to ignore the AATC ban. Let us recall that since biblical times it has been customary to consider any case factual if there are documents or testimony of at least three witnesses.
It is obvious that Marconi arrived in Canada not in order to receive a letter “S” from England, but in anticipation of receiving a more serious, rather congratulatory text, etc. However, communication did not work out. Like an experienced gambler in a bad game, he put on a “good face” and bluffed. He stated that he heard telegraph points. In English according to S. Morse code, one dot means the letter “E”, two dots - “I”, three dots - “S”. To make people more credible, he announced that he had heard sets of dots of the letter "S". It was difficult to refute this formally in 1901. Atmospheric interference in the form of many dots is quite often heard in the receiver's earphone.
Marconi did not return to repeat the experiment of 1901. By mid-1902 he increased the transmitter power. He achieved success in establishing wireless communications between Europe and America at the end of 1907 at a wavelength of 3660 m and in the dark. The technology was borrowed from the American engineer R. Fessenden, who in 1906 immediately implemented two-way communication between continents (at night) (www.ieee.ca/millennium/radio/differences.htm).
In the middle of the day (12.30) and now in Canada, even modern receivers with amplification cannot be tuned to receive broadcasts from powerful broadcasting centers in England. And vice versa. In Moscow during the day on medium wave you will also not be able to hear less distant stations from near and far abroad.
11:13 17.08.2010 | 2

Merkulov

A.S. POPOV WAS RECOGNIZED AS THE INVENTOR OF RADIO IN THE USA
The president of AT&T (American Wireless Telephone and Telegraph Co), Dr. G. Goering, wrote on August 30, 1901 in the newspaper “The North American” in an address to A.S. Popov: “ We, without a doubt, recognize your rights to be considered the real inventor of the first wireless device presented to the whole world, and Marconi with his claims is presented to the whole world as an imitator of the creative train of thought of the genius of Professor Popov." On December 30, 1901, in the same place, Goering told A.S. Popov: “We are trying to place you in the ranks of those people to whom you belong, and soon the whole country (USA) will work under your name as the discoverer of practical modern wireless telegraphy.”
During the Second World War in 1943, the magazine "Wireless World" in its August issue published an article "Pioneers of Radio Communications" (author - Field D.A.), where he wrote: "In the spring of 1890 A.S. .Popov introduced marine specialists to the work of Hertz and demonstrated to listeners through several experiments the possibility of transmitting signals using the “Hertz beam.” This happened before Huber, Crookes, Tesla, Righi and Marconi made similar proposals.” “It would be quite correct to say that Popov, without anyone’s help (except Hertz), discovered and published ways and means of using electromagnetic waves for communication.”
By the way, in April 1947, the Australian Journal of Science published an article “About the inventor of radio communications.” It noted: “We have examined the circumstances at our disposal that allow us to come to a correct judgment on the issue of Popov’s priority over Marconi. These facts inevitably lead to the conclusion that Marconi was not the inventor of radio communications.”
In the American (USA) version of the British magazine “Radio World”, published with funds from the Marconi Co company, in June 1947 there was a generalization: “There are no documents confirming that Marconi demonstrated telegraphy without wires earlier, than Popov."
During the years of exacerbation cold war USA vs. USSR military historians of the US Navy were asked the topic: “Who invented radio?” To study the issue, we used publicly published documents and information received from anonymous sources. In an official report released in 1963 and recently declassified (fecha.org/popov.htm), the Americans answered, “Radio was invented by the Russian scientist Alexander Stepanovich Popov.” A.S. Popov was the son of a priest, so historians considered the discovery of wireless communication to be the intervention of “God’s power,” and the first connected electrical device he created in 1895 as an ingenious invention. They called it an “Act of God” allowing A.S. Popov to “detect and register remote lightning strikes and receive telegraphic messages over the air in a similar way.” Hundreds of sailors and officers who suffered the accident of the warship General-Admiral Count Apraksin in the Baltic at the end of 1899 did not count on a quick return home and resigned themselves to the impending long captivity in the ice. The icebreaker "Ermak" that came out of the fog to help seemed to them a mirage; they later called the man who brought them salvation (A.S. Popov - Auth.) an angel. A.S. Popov did not count on making a profit from scientific affairs. According to Navy historians, “the self-proclaimed contender for the invention of wireless communications, the Italian G. Marconi, had no ideas in wireless telegraphy. He was only an enthusiastic entrepreneur of profitable sales of new equipment around the world.”
Impressed by the widespread interest in the topic of the invention of radio, in Hollywood (USA), an episode with a crossword puzzle was deliberately inserted into the beginning of the 2007 film “The Bucket List,” which has nothing to do with the history of radio communications. The scene explains that the five-letter crossword puzzle string “inventor of radio” matches the answer “Tesla”, but “Marconi” does not. The hero of the film (J. Nicholson) was wrong. The correct answer is “Popov”! The American electrical engineer N. Tesla in the USA has his famous patent No. 613809 for “Remote control of a motor boat or torpedo,” i.e. he formalized the wireless transmission of informative signals via electromagnetic waves (without presenting samples of equipment for examination) in 1898, more than three years later than the famous speech of A.S. Popov on May 7, 1895 at a meeting of the Russian Physico-Chemical Society in St. St. Petersburg (with a demonstration of technical devices in action).
13:21 10.09.2010 | 0

Merkulov

THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF G. MARCONI SHOULD BE CELEBRATED IN 1949.
In 1949, an invitation was received from Italy to the USSR for Soviet scientists to come there for the anniversary associated with the invention of radio. The Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences refused to participate in the celebrations on the occasion of Marconi’s 75th birthday. And one of the leading employees of the Institute of Philosophy innocently told on February 25, 1949 at an institute party meeting that “the Italian Academy of Sciences invited Marconi, the inventor of radio, to honor him, and everyone knows that radio was invented by our scientist Popov!” This outstanding employee was absolutely right! Because G. Marconi does not fit into the category of inventors, since he was poorly versed in physics (like a hedgehog in algebra, a girl said on one of the forums). But he was a successful entrepreneur in organizing experiments, manufacturing and distributing radio equipment. And also a prominent party leader.
G. Marconi began his political career in 1914, becoming a senator in Italy. Initially accepted the ideology of fascism. In 1922 he joined the Italian National Fascist Party and became the best friend of its leader and “father” of fascism B. Mussolini (1883 - 1945). Subsequently, G. Marconi became a member of the Grand Council (Politburo) of the party. In 1926 he changed his religion (from Protestant to Catholic). In 1930, he became elected President of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Italy, where he allegedly secretly prevented its recruitment by scientists Jewish origin. G. Marconi supported all the political repressions of B. Mussolini, in 1935 he was a supporter of the seizure of Ethiopia (while traveling around the world he defended the position of Italy).
G. Marconi died on July 20, 1937 at 03.45 at night from another attack of tonsillitis with heart complications (he smoked a lot). At 08.30 in the morning, B. Mussolini was the first official to show sadness on the occasion of his death. G. Marconi was placed in the coffin in the uniform of the President of the Academy of Sciences with the insignia of a Nazi member of the Grand Council. By order of B. Mussolini, G. Marconi was buried in a large mausoleum-bunker with fascist symbols in Sasso (17 km from Bologna), Italy, where he still rests surrounded by Nazi heroes of the Second World War (1939 - 1945 ) and associates of B. Mussolini.
During the war, G. Marconi's favorite yacht Elettra fought on the side of the fascist coalition forces. Paradoxically, the yacht Eletra was crashed by an English bomber in the Mediterranean Sea in 1944. The Italians did not intend to restore the yacht after the war. For the 103rd anniversary of the birth of G. Marconi (1977), the remains of the ship's hull were cut into pieces for museums and sales.
Of course, Russian academics could not afford to attend the celebrations in Italy in April 1949. It would have been more correct to send there figures similar to G. Marconi in organizational abilities, who also had no training in physics. For example, Beria L.P. (1899 - 1953) – curator of the “Atomic Project” in the USSR, Kaganovich L.M. (1893 - 1991) – organizer of the construction of the metro, Likhachev I.A. (1896 - 1956) - the initiator of the automobile industry, and many others. True, unlike G. Marconi, authoritative personalities of the Soviet era did not declare themselves “inventors” and “fathers” of the scientific and technical areas that they led.
To what extent is the recollection of the anniversary of G. Marconi in 1949 in the Russian media relevant to the discussion of the issue of priority in the invention of radio. The answer is none!
13:29 10.09.2010 | 1

Merkulov

A.S. POPOV DID NOT MET WITH G. MARCONI.
In some Russian media, the film "Alexander Popov" (1949) has been harshly criticized, especially the scene of the meeting between radio inventor A.S. Popov (1859 - 1906) and Italian entrepreneur G. Marconi (1874 - 1937) on board a warship. It is difficult to explain why the authors work of art I needed to include this episode in it. But overall the film turned out to be interesting and educational. Now excerpts from the film with subtitles in English. "scroll" on American YouTube (with a large number of views). The film was created in the year of A.S. Popov’s 90th birthday. In Europe and the USA they did not make a similar picture for the 75th anniversary of G. Marconi.
After decades, the authors of articles and television programs with aplomb and confidence initiate an analysis of the dialogues and behavior of the characters in the film in the specified scene. Let us note that A.S. Popov, in a conversation with G. Marconi, rightly tells him, pointing to the device he uses: “This device... exactly repeats what I described in detail back in 1895... You shamelessly appropriated someone else’s invention. .! Science is not a screen for trade deals! "
After failure to transmit a useful signal (the letter "S") across the Atlantic Ocean in December 1901, G. Marconi decided to first test the propagation of radio waves in the Atlantic (on the ship "Philadelphia" in February 1902), and then in Europe. In June 1902, he was allowed to install receiving and transmitting equipment on the cruiser "Carlo Alberto", which was cruising around Europe on the occasion of the coronation of the King of Italy. G. Marconi planned to receive signals from the modernized transmission center in Poldew (England). Due to the use of a new, but unreliable magnetic detector, long-range signal reception did not occur while the cruiser was in the Gulf of Finland and moored near the city of Kronstadt from July 12 to July 21. G. Marconi also failed to transmit semantic texts and greetings from the cruiser to Russian warships equipped with on-board equipment for receiving telegraph signals.
In two autobiographies (“The story of my life” and “Wireless telegraphy, 1895 - 1919”) G. Marconi reports that those who visited the ship to the Russian Emperor Nicholas II (1868 - 1918) with his retinue G. Marconi was able to demonstrate the transfer of dispatches only from one end of the cruiser to the other. The Emperor spoke with G. Marconi in English. The daughter of one of the admirals of the retinue asked why G. Marconi was in civilian clothes, while everyone around him was in military clothes and what was he doing here. G. Marconi does not report A.S. Popov’s visit to a warship. Trustworthy foreign biographers of G. Marconi do not write about this either. The domestic authors of the article write that the meeting between the radio inventor and the Italian businessman was invented by L. Solari: “A.S. Popov did not meet with G. Marconi and did not give him gifts” (see on the Web).
Potentially, A.S. Popov and G. Marconi had the opportunity to communicate in Berlin at the “First World Conference on Wireless Telegraphy” held in 1903, at which they both attended and sat in the same meeting room. However, they did not meet or talk in person there either. At this meeting of advanced scientists and engineers, the Secretary of State (Minister) of the Postal Administration of Kaiser Germany, R. Kretke, spoke and said: “In 1895, Popov invented the reception of telegraph signals using Hertz waves. We must thank him for the first radiographic apparatus!”

Illustration copyright RIA Novosti Image caption Alexander Popov and his transmitter (drawing by an unknown artist)

120 years ago, on March 24, 1896, Russian scientist Alexander Popov, at a closed meeting of the Russian Physicochemical Society in St. Petersburg, transmitted a radio telegram for the first time in the world. Using a transmitter and receiver of his own design, he transmitted the words Heinrich Hertz typed in Morse code.

The Italian Guglielmo Marconi, Serbian Nikola Tesla, German Heinrich Hertz and Briton Oliver Lodge compete with him for the title of inventor of radio.

A number of historians argue that Popov was prevented from convincingly justifying his primacy by the regime of secrecy to which he was bound while working for the navy.

Others believe that it is impossible in principle to unambiguously determine priority for one of the main inventions of mankind. Each of the scientists contributed. The debate that continues to this day indicates that the idea was in the air, and great minds think in parallel.

Like many Russian intellectuals of that era, Alexander Stepanovich Popov came from the clergy. His father was a priest, he himself graduated from the seminary, but preferred science, enrolling in the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of St. Petersburg University.
During the creation of the radio, Popov served in the Navy Department as a physics teacher at the Naval Technical School in Kronstadt and focused his developments on the needs of the fleet.
The first radio station in Russia was installed under his leadership in Sevastopol. During the maneuvers on September 7, 1899, communication was established from it with the warships "George the Victorious", "Three Saints" and "Captain Saken", located 14 km from the coast. The place where the station was located was called "Radio Hill".
In the same year, radio stations were installed in Kotka (Finland) and on the new icebreaker Ermak. In November 1899, thanks to the Ermaka radio station, people were rescued for the first time - a group of fishermen carried away on an ice floe near the island of Gotland.
Radio Day is celebrated in Russia on May 7 (April 25, old style). On this day in 1895, about a year before the first radio broadcast, Popov read in gym Petersburg University lecture “On the relationship of metal powders to electrical vibrations”, where he substantiated the possibility of radio communication. On May 7, 1995, UNESCO, at the initiative of Russia, celebrated the 100th anniversary of radio.
In 1887, Heinrich Hertz, a professor of physics at the Technical University in Karlsruhe, discovered electromagnetic waves propagating at the speed of light, conducted and described experiments on their transmission over a distance without wires using the generator and resonator he created. Hertz did not think about using the discovery, saying: “It is absolutely useless. We just have mysterious electromagnetic waves that we cannot see with our eyes, but they are there.”
Nikola Tesla, who by that time was working in the United States, invented a grounded mast antenna in 1893 while researching atmospheric electricity, and subsequently successfully experimented with transmitters and receivers of his own design.
On August 14, 1894, Oliver Lodge demonstrated at Oxford University the transmission of a radio signal from one building to another over a distance of 40 meters. For practical use, the equipment had to be improved, but Lodge did not do this, losing the palm to Popov and Marconi. Image caption Guglielmo Marconi (1929)
An engineer and inventor from Bologna, Guglielmo Marconi began designing radio transmitters and receivers in December 1894 and filed an application for the invention on June 2, 1896, that is, two months and eight days after Popov's first radio broadcast.
On September 2, in Salisbury near London, he publicly demonstrated his equipment, transmitting not just two words, but an entire text, and over a distance of 3 km, that is, 12 times further than Popov.
Being, according to him, bound by a regime of secrecy, Popov openly announced his work only on October 19/31, 1897, when the whole world already knew about Marconi’s achievements, and even then he recognized them as unfinished. “A device for telegraphy has been assembled here. We were not able to send a communication telegram, because all the details of the devices still need to be developed,” he said in a report at the St. Petersburg Electrotechnical Institute.
Popov's first public demonstration of the transmitter and receiver occurred on December 18, 1897. He filed a Russian patent only in 1901, but until his death in December 1905 he defended his priority over Marconi.
Marconi became a major entrepreneur, received the Nobel Prize (1909) and the title of Marquis of the Kingdom of Italy. Popov was elected an honorary member of the Russian Technical Society, received the rank of state councilor, the Order of St. Anne, II degree, and the Grand Gold Medal of the 1900 World Exhibition in Paris. In 1921, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR awarded his widow a pension.
Many authors prefer to talk about the “invention of radio by Popov and Marconi.” The name of the Italian scientist is better known in the world, but in Russia it’s the other way around. In the Great Soviet Encyclopedia of 1955, Marconi was not mentioned at all.

Radio chronology

In 1897, Marconi established The Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company in Britain and built the first stationary radio station on the Isle of Wight, and in 1898 he opened a radio factory in England, which employed 50 people.
In January 1898, the world first heard sensational news on the radio - about the serious illness of former British Prime Minister William Gladstone in his home in Wales (the telephone wire was cut off by a snow storm).
The first transatlantic radio communication occurred on January 14, 1906.
In April 1909, Californian inventor Charles Herrold patented a technology that made it possible to transmit not only Morse code signals, but also human voice and music, over the radio, and coined the term broadcasting.
The number of victims of the sinking of the Titanic on the night of April 14-15, 1912 would have been much higher if the ship's radio station had not transmitted an SOS signal and the coordinates of the disaster site. Soon, a law was passed in the United States obliging all seagoing vessels to maintain radio contact with the shore, and a year later the International Conference for the Safety of Life at Sea made this rule worldwide.
On November 8, 1917, the Bolsheviks published the text of the Peace Decree via radio (using Morse code).
On February 27, 1919, the first voice transmission in Russia by radio took place in Nizhny Novgorod.
On August 20, 1920, Edward Scripp received the first license to open a private commercial radio station in Detroit, which still operates today.
In 1924, the BBC began broadcasting time signals by radio.
In 1930, Motorola released the first car receiver. Illustration copyright ap Image caption Technology has come a long way since the times of Popov and Marconi.
In 1933, police patrol cars in Bayonne, New Jersey were equipped with two-way radios for the first time.
Participants in the polar expedition of Umberto Nobile (1929) and wintering on drifting ice under the leadership (1938) were saved thanks to radio amateurs.
In 1937, the first FM radio station launched in the United States.
BBC Russian Service March 24, 1946 - exactly 50 years after Alexander Popov’s first radio broadcast.
In 1954, the American company Regency launched the first commercial transistor radio.
The first Earth satellite, launched in the USSR on October 4, 1957, did not carry any equipment, except for two radio transmitters that transmitted a “beep-beep” signal in the range where radio amateurs could pick it up.
In the 20th century, authoritarian regimes were widely practiced from abroad. Currently this practice continues in China, North Korea, Iran and Cuba.
Currently, there are over 50 thousand government and commercial radio stations in the world and about three million radio amateurs communicating in the shortwave range, and the number of receivers cannot be counted. All modern information Technology, including mobile communications, wireless Internet and satellite navigation, are based on the inventions of the founders of radio.
In recent decades, radio has given way to the place of the main means mass media television and the Internet, but hundreds of millions of people around the world continue to listen to it regularly, especially while driving. In 1984, Queen recorded famous song"Radio Gaga" with the words "Radio, what's new? Someone still loves you" ("What's new, radio? Someone still loves you").
At the beginning of the 20th century, as the writer and historian Boris Akunin noted, faith in progress was limitless. However, the development of science and technology lagged behind social reforms, and could not solve all the problems of society and the individual. Disappointment resulted in a famous joke attributed to Ilya Ilf: “So they invented radio, but there is still no happiness!”

The birthday of radio is celebrated in our country on May 7th. On this day in 1895, Russian physicist Alexander Popov carried out the world's first radio communication session using a radio receiver he created. Only 120 years have passed - and we can no longer imagine our life without radio and its continuations: television, mobile communications, Internet, that is, types of communication based on the transmission of a physical (electrical or electromagnetic) signal. Let's try to briefly trace the evolution of technical thought: from the dream of mankind to its modern implementation.

Signal lights and kites

The need to transmit information over long distances arose among humanity at the dawn of primitive civilization. At first, fire smoke or reflected sunlight, signal lights or pigeon mail were used for this. People got by with these methods for thousands of years, until the invention of flag signaling (at the end of the 18th century) and the telegraph (in 1832). However, over time, the information transmitted became more and more complex, which led to the creation of new systems.

British pigeon mail

The word “radio” translated from the Latin radiare means “to emit, emit rays.” The basis of radio is electromagnetic waves. Today every schoolchild knows this, but humanity only realized their existence at the end of the 17th century - and even then vaguely. It took another two centuries for the English scientist Michael Faraday to finally confidently announce the discovery of electromagnetic waves in the late 1830s. Another 30 years later, another scientist from Great Britain, James Maxwell, completed the construction of the theory of the electromagnetic field, which found its application in physics.

Around the same time, American dentist Mahlon Loomis announced that he had discovered a method of wireless communication. The signal was transmitted using two kites, to which electrical wires were attached. One of them was a radio transmitter antenna, the second was a radio receiver antenna. When the circuit of one wire was opened from the ground, the galvanometer needle deviated in the circuit of the other wire. According to the inventor, the signal was transmitted over a distance of more than 22 km. In 1872, Loomis received the world's first patent for wireless communications. But, unfortunately, the document does not contain a detailed description of the devices used by the inventor. The drawings of his devices also have not survived.

In the years 1880-1890, almost simultaneously, a number of scientists conducted successful experiments on the use of electromagnetic waves, using improved elements. That is why today several countries claim the title of inventor of radio.

In Germany, Heinrich Hertz is considered the pioneer of methods for transmitting and receiving electromagnetic waves. He did this in 1888. By the way, the waves themselves long time were called “Hertzian Waves”.

Tesla amplifying transmitter

In the United States, they believe that the credit for the invention of radio belongs to Nikola Tesla, who patented a transmitter in 1893 and a receiver in 1895. By the way, in 1943 his priority over Marconi was recognized in court. This is due to the fact that Marconi and Popov’s apparatus allowed only a signaling function, using, among other things, Morse code. And Tesla's device could convert a radio signal into acoustic sound. All modern radio devices based on an oscillatory circuit have this design.

Guglielmo Marconi

And yet most countries consider the creator of the first successful system exchange of information using radio waves (radio telegraphy) by the Italian engineer Guglielmo Marconi. He achieved this in 1895. Russian physicist Alexander Popov was only one month behind him.

Radio in Russia

On May 7, 1895, Alexander Stepanovich spoke at a meeting of the Russian Physical-Chemical Society in St. Petersburg with a lecture “On the relationship of metal powders to electrical vibrations,” at which, reproducing Lodge’s experiments with electromagnetic signals, he demonstrated a device similar to general outline with the one previously used by Lodge. Popov made improvements to the design: in his radio receiver, the hammer that shook the coherer (Branly tube) worked not from a clock mechanism, but from a radio pulse.

Popov's first radio

Popov's contemporaries recognized that his design was a device that was later used for wireless telegraphy. Popov himself adapted a device for capturing atmospheric electromagnetic waves and called it a “lightning detector.”

Popov's device was distinguished by its sensitivity and reliability. In the first radio communications experiments, carried out in the physics room and then in the garden of the Mine Officer Class, the receiver detected the emission of radio signals sent by the transmitter at a distance of up to 60 m.

In April 1896, again at a meeting of the Russian Physicochemical Society, Popov, using a Hertz vibrator and a receiver of his own design, transmitted a radiogram over a distance of 250 m: “Heinrich Hertz.” Thus, we can assume that it was Popov who was the first to demonstrate the ability to transmit a radio signal that carried certain information.

The first radio stations in Russia were ordered by the Tsar from the French company Ducrette. Popov was a consultant during this work.

By 1917, radio had already become a mass media. And soon the Russian Telegraph Agency began sending information to subscribers for a set fee.

In 1918, the radio station “Vestnik ROSTA” appeared, and since 1921, the transmission of music and voice broadcasting became possible. On air Soviet Union appealing poems and satirical stories were heard, and in 1923 the first radio concert was given.

During the Great Patriotic War The programs “Letters from the Front”, “To the Front” and reports from the Soviet Information Bureau were broadcast, and on June 24, 1945, the Victory Parade on Red Square was broadcast.

In 1945, on May 7, the USSR widely celebrated the 50th anniversary of the invention of radio. In this regard, the government of the country decided to consider this date as the annual Radio Day.

No longer just radio

Today is Radio Day professional holiday not only those involved in transmitting information. Those who are involved in information security and create electronic warfare (EW) devices, navigation systems and other complex electronic equipment are also directly related to it. It is impossible to list everything; we will only talk about three of the newest developments.

In 2014, an information protection system was created for the Russian YotaPhone using ViPNet technology. Thanks to this device, the smartphone becomes inaccessible to hacking not only by ordinary attackers, but also by professional organizations and even, possibly, intelligence services of other countries.

Due to mass computerization and the widespread introduction of network technologies, developments in the field of cybersecurity are becoming extremely important. Today, information constituting state secrets, high-tech industrial facilities, global transport hubs and access terminals, electronic payment systems and intelligent automation devices are under the threat of cyberterrorism. KRET specialists are actively involved in developments in the field of cybersecurity. Recently, they sent the latest samples of domestic information security tools (ISIS) to the Russian Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications for examination. And in 2015 we intend to begin organizing a technological line for their creation.

And finally, a new set of shortwave communications for senior management levels Ground Forces"Antey" mass production which started in February 2015. It provides data transmission over a distance of up to 4 thousand km (field radio center) and up to 8 thousand km (stationary radio centers) even in difficult interference environments. “Antey” was created by specialists from the United Instrument-Making Corporation. There have been no similar developments in the domestic radio industry for about 30 years.

Humanity owes the invention of radio to the great Russian scientist Alexander Stepanovich Popov.

Biography of Popov A.S. - the great inventor of radio

A. S. Popov, the man who had the good fortune to open new era in the development of science and technology - the era of radio electronics, was born 100 years ago, on March 16, 1859, in the small Ural village of Turinskie Rudniki. He received his secondary education at the Perm Theological Seminary. After graduating from the seminary, A. S. Popov entered the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at St. Petersburg University and became interested in electrical engineering. After graduating from the university with a candidate’s degree, Alexander Stepanovich was left at the faculty to prepare “for the rank of professor.”

A year later, A.S. Popov was invited to teach at the Kronstadt Mine Officer Class. He worked there for 18 years, from 1883 to 1901.

In this advanced electrical engineering institution, Popov's pedagogical abilities and his brilliant talent as an experimental physicist reached their peak.

All yours free time Alexander Stepanovich gave to science - he followed new products, carried out experiments, and gave public lectures.

Alexander Popov and radio

May 7, 1895. Petersburg. Russian Physical and Chemical Society. A. S. Popov, already well known in the scientific community, gives a report “On the relationship of metal powders to electrical vibrations.”

The modest name is emphasized. A quiet voice, devoid of external affectation. Stingy gestures. And at the end there is only one phrase:

“In conclusion, I can express the hope that my device, with further improvement, can be applied to transmitting signals over a distance using fast electrical oscillations...”

Just one phrase. And, perhaps, none of those present realized its significance. I didn’t understand that this was birth new era, the forerunner of grandiose scientific achievements.

From the history of radio

For a long time, people have dreamed of a means that would allow them to maintain communication with each other at any distance.

Historians say that even during the time of the Roman emperor Julius Caesar, who lived BC, there was some kind of telegraph - the first milestone in radio history. Dispatches were transmitted using torches, according to a conventional alphabet. For example, waving a torch upward meant: “the enemy is approaching,” moving the torch to the right: “everything is calm,” etc. Signals were transmitted along a chain from one post to another.

What to do in bad weather, in fog? In this case, Caesar’s “telegraph,” like later optical telegraph systems, was powerless.

Years passed. Amazing works of art were created, palaces were erected, discoveries were made. Man inquisitively studied the world around him, learned the laws of nature. And the dream of a wonderful means of communication remained just a wonderful dream for many centuries.

But then scientists discovered electricity - and this is the second milestone in the history of radio. A thought immediately arose: could it be used as a kind of “postman”, delivering dispatches with lightning speed? It turned out that it is possible. They learned to transmit conventional electrical signals through wires, and then live human speech. By leaps and bounds, cities began to become increasingly densely covered with a network of telephone lines; Lines of telegraph poles stretched along the roads - the third milestone in the history of radio.

Still, the telegraph and telephone did not satisfy many human requirements. They served tolerably well in the cities, provided communication between settlements, and that's it. It was not possible to escape into a wide open space - the wires got in the way, these wire fetters that tied the new means of communication hand and foot. Sailors, explorers, aeronauts remained in the same position - they, as before, were cut off from the outside world, left to their own devices,

At the end of the nineteenth century, when electrical engineering had already achieved quite high level, scientists began to wonder more and more often: is it possible to free the telegraph and telephone from their shackles, to do without wires at all? Many prominent physicists of the time tried to solve this puzzle and gave up. Is wireless communication even possible?

Popov's invention of radio

In 1889, A. S. Popov attended the next meeting of the Russian Physico-Chemical Society during experiments with electromagnetic waves - fast electrical oscillations propagating in space at the speed of light (about 300,000 kilometers per second). The existence of such waves was theoretically predicted by the English scientist Maxwell, and the German physicist Hertz discovered them experimentally. However, these great scientists believed that electromagnetic waves had no practical significance.

The meeting room was darkened. At the department, in dim light kerosene lamp, two hard reflectors gleamed. Inside one of them, at a close distance from each other, two metal balls were visible, from which wires ran to a source of electricity. It was a vibrator - a device that “generates” electromagnetic waves. Inside the other reflector there were also two metal balls. They were connected by a wire arc. This device - a resonator - was intended to capture electromagnetic waves.

The experiment began in complete darkness. A tiny bluish spark flashed between the vibrator balls connected to the source of electricity. At the same moment, a response spark appeared between the resonator balls. She was so weak that those present had to take turns examining her through a magnifying glass.

The spark in the resonator was generated by electromagnetic waves. And Alexander Stepanovich Popov decided to use them for wireless communication.

Six years have passed. Six years of persistent search, persistent daily work. But the words “wireless communication” finally acquired a real meaning and turned from an ethereal dream into a complete technical idea.

That's why May 7, 1895 when this idea became the property of mankind, they believe birthday radio.

And after another year - March 24, 1896- A.S. Popov demonstrated the world's first wireless telegraph communication to scientists. A receiver was installed in the physics room of St. Petersburg University, and at a distance of 250 meters from it, in the building of the university chemical laboratory, there was a transmitter controlled by P. N. Rybkin, Popov’s assistant.

This is what one of the eyewitnesses of this historical event, Professor O. D. Khvolson, subsequently said:

“The transmission took place in such a way that the letters were transmitted in Morse code, and the signs were clearly audible. The chairman of the physical society, Professor F. F. Petrushevsky, stood at the blackboard, holding a piece of paper with a Morse code key and a piece of chalk in his hands. After each sign passed, he looked at the paper and then wrote the corresponding letter on the board. Gradually the words appeared on the board: “Heinrich Hertz.” It is difficult to describe the delight of the numerous people present and the ovation for A. S. Popov...”

Already in the next year, 1897, the range of wireless telegraphs exceeded 5 kilometers. The viability of the new means of communication has been proven. Great Russian Popov's invention of radio began its triumphal march around the world. But under the conditions of Tsarist Russia, A.S. Popov did not have sufficient support; There weren't enough funds, so we had to make handicrafts. And abroad, clever businessmen like Marconi were in a hurry to take advantage of the fruits of the great discovery. Factories were built, companies emerged, and business was put on a broad commercial footing.

Subsequently, the Russian physicist V.V. Lermantov wrote with bitterness: “We only inculcate what comes from abroad, even if it was invented in Russia - that’s why the name of A.S. Popov became known after the works of Marconi, and he received the honor of being considered not merely the first inventor of the wireless telegraph, but the first inventor of the Marconi telegraph.”

Yes, the tsarist government did not appreciate A.S. Popov and did not defend his priority. However, Russian scientists, the leading part of the Russian intelligentsia, paid tribute to the colossal scientific merit of the inventor of radio.

In 1901, Alexander Stepanovich became a professor at the Electrical Engineering Institute and was awarded the honorary title of electrical engineer. And on September 28, 1905, he was unanimously elected director of the institute.

In this post, A.S. Popov showed himself to be a progressive and freedom-loving person, a patriot of his fatherland.

The last days of A. S. Popov

...The resolution of 1905 died down. The time has come for a massive reaction. And in these dark days for Russia, Alexander Stepanovich raised his voice of protest against autocratic tyranny. In October 1905, he signs the council's decision, which states:

“According to the professors and teachers of the institute, freedom of assembly is an urgent need and an inalienable right of the entire population...

Any violent intervention by the authorities into the life of the institute cannot give peace, but will only worsen the situation. The calming of educational institutions can only be achieved through major political changes that can satisfy public opinion the whole country.

Such transformations, in the opinion of the undersigned, are: immediate and unconditional guarantees of freedom of assembly, freedom of speech and personal integrity, the immediate convening of the Constituent Assembly, the abolition of the death penalty...”

The subsequent days of Alexander Stepanovich were full of tragic experiences. They demanded explanations from him, they threatened him, but he did not retreat a single step. After one particularly stormy conversation with the mayor A.S. Popov felt ill and, after being ill for two days, died of a cerebral hemorrhage.

This happened on January 13, 1906 (December 31, 1905 old style) at 5 o'clock in the afternoon. And this last date in the biography of Popov, the great inventor of radio.

The great Russian scientist rests in the Volkov cemetery in Leningrad.

On January 24, 1906, opening an emergency meeting of the physics department of the Russian Physico-Chemical Society, of which A.S. Popov was elected chairman shortly before, his deputy said:

“Alexander Stepanovich Popov, who should now, from January, take the place of our chairman here, is a new victim of modern unbearable harsh conditions life in Russia."

...More than a century has passed. Annually May 7 we are celebrating Radio day. City streets are named after the great inventor; it has been assigned to many educational institutions. But, perhaps, the best monument to Alexander Stepanovich Popov is the tremendous development that his invention received. In fact, modern life unthinkable without radio invention by Popov.