https://doi.org/10.1140/epjh/s13129-021-00021-w
Regular Article
Guglielmo Marconi, Augusto Righi and the invention of wireless telegraphy
1
Department of Philosophy and Educational Sciences, University of Turin, Via Gaudenzio Ferrari 9, 10124, Turin, Italy
2
Department of Physics, University of Genova, Via Dodecaneso 33, 16146, Genova, Italy
3
INFN Section of Turin, Via Pietro Giuria 1, 10125, Turin, Italy
4
INFN Section of Genova, Via Dodecaneso 33, 16146, Genova, Italy
5
Centro Fermi, Museo Storico della Fisica e Centro Studi e Ricerche “Enrico Fermi”, Piazza del Viminale 1, 00184, Rome, Italy
Received:
28
January
2021
Accepted:
30
June
2021
Published online:
28
July
2021
One of the major accomplishments of the late nineteenth-century applied physics was, as it is well known, the development of wireless telegraphy by Guglielmo Marconi, future Nobel laureate. In this paper, we will explore what scientific debt, if any, Marconi had toward another Italian physicist, internationally well known for his research on electromagnetic waves: Augusto Righi. This question will be pursued through a close analysis of Marconi’s first patent, of Righi’s scientific correspondence and of the specialized and popular press of the time. At the end of this analysis, which includes a brief survey of Marconi and Righi’s activity as senators of the Kingdom of Italy, we will better appreciate what Marconi took from contemporary scientists, what specific contributions he is responsible for and, ultimately, what Marconi and Righi thought of each other.
Rays of light will not pierce through a wall, nor, as we know only too well, through a London fog. But the electrical vibrations of a yard or more in wave-length [...] will easily pierce such mediums, which to them will be transparent. Here, then, is revealed the bewildering possibility of telegraphy without wires, posts, cables, or any of our present costly appliances. Granted a few reasonable postulates, the whole thing comes well within the realms of possible fulfilment.
William Crookes, “Some possibilities of electricity”, The Fortnightly Review 302 (February 1, 1892), 173–181; 174.
© The Author(s) 2021
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