Today in science history March 27th
by Greg on Mar.27, 2009, under Science Life History
twitter, facebook, text messaging, gmail, chat, im, all owe their existence to these major leaps in human communication:
In 1884, the first long-distance telephone call was made, between Boston and New York City. Branch managers of the American Bell Telephone Company in Boston called their counterparts in New York City. Although they reported the call was perfectly clear, maintaining clarity on long-distance phone calls proved problematic until the early 1900s, when Michael Pupin devised a method to transmit telephone signals over long distances. The Bell Telephone Company bought his long-distance telephone patent in 1901.
and on the same day, 15 years later:
In 1899, Marconi transmitted using his “wireless telegraph” across the English Channel from Boulogne, France, to Dover, England. The test was requested by the French Government, which was considering purchasing rights to the invention in France. Representatives of the French Government observed operations at both stations. In the same fashion as previous trial transmissions at Marconi’s Alum Bay and Poole stations, both transmitter and receiver used a well-insulated copper wire, hung from a 150-ft high mast. Messages were exchanged over the 32 miles, and trials continued for several days, at a speed of up to fifteen words a minute. The success of Marconi’s experiments made possible communications without expensive undersea cables.
Marconi shared the Nobel in Physics in 1909 for his work with radio telegraph and transmitting messages by way of electromagnetic waves. He was also apparently an apologist for the Italian Fascist movement. So, you get the good with the bad. Geniuses put on their ideologies one pant leg at a time too. Check out these pictures of Marconi devices.
Science, keep connecting us closer!
:long distance, marconi, phone, radio telegraph
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Nasa's Image of the Day
Little Galaxy With a Tail
This infrared portrait of the Small Magellanic Cloud, taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, reveals stars and dust in this galaxy as never seen before. T The image shows the main body of the Small Magellanic Cloud, which is comprised of the "bar" and "wing" on the left and the "tail" extending to the right. The bar contains both old stars (in blue) and young stars lighting up their natal dust (green/red). The wing mainly contains young stars. The tail contains only gas, dust and newly formed stars. Spitzer data has confirmed that the tail region was recently torn off the main body of the galaxy. Two of the tail clusters, which are still embedded in their birth clouds, can be seen as red dots. The data in this image are being used by astronomers to study the lifecycle of dust in the entire galaxy: from the formation in stellar atmospheres, to the reservoir containing the present day interstellar medium, and the dust consumed in forming new stars. The dust being formed in old, evolved stars (blue stars with a red tinge) is measured using mid-infrared wavelengths. The present day interstellar dust is weighed by measuring the intensity and color of emission at longer infrared wavelengths. The rate at which the raw material is being consumed is determined by studying ionized gas regions and the younger stars (yellow/red extended regions). The Small Magellanic Cloud, and its companion galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud, are the two galaxies where this type of study is possible. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI
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