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Posted in Communications, Famous Inventors, Historical articles, History, Inventions, Science on Friday, 7 March 2014
This edited article about Marconi first appeared in Look and Learn issue number 583 published on 17 March 1973.
Flying kites is usually a summer-time hobby for young people.
But these kite flyers were men, and they were doing it in December. On that bleak headland at St. John’s, Newfoundland, the gale shrieked and the wind, sweeping down like a solid wall, had already carried away one of the kites.
Yet another one went up in its place, and the wire that held the kite trailed off into a lower room in a deserted building. There on the table was a collection of electrical apparatus and an earphone.
One of the men picked up the headphone and listened, hoping to hear the letter S in Morse Code. Three dots – blip, blip, blip.
Nothing. Not a sound. Hours went by, during which the imagination could have played tricks. Even when it came at last the listener could not be sure. He passed the earphone to his companion who listened and nodded. This was it.
Why was this an historic moment? Because the man who first heard the signal was a young Italian named Guglielmo Marconi. The date was December 12th, 1901, and the signal they heard had come through the air from Poldhu, in Cornwall, roughly 3,000 miles away.
The story of wireless – and particularly that of Marconi – cannot be told without first sweeping aside the word “inventor.”
It is a misleading word, suggesting a brilliant flash of inspiration which, at one bound, gives us a great boon. It hardly ever happens. Most of the great inventions came to fruition through the workings of many minds with one man finally gathering the threads together.
In wireless, Marconi was that man.
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Posted in Famous Inventors, Historical articles, History, Industry, Inventions, Weapons on Thursday, 6 February 2014
This edited article about Henry Bessemer first appeared in Look and Learn issue number 546 published on 1 July 1972.
Henry Bessemer, inventor of the Bessemer process
Henry Bessemer’s fertile mind was always busy with inventions. Born in Hertfordshire in 1813 he was the son of a successful inventor and it was in a type-foundry on the family estate that young Henry gained his first experience in engineering.
The family settled in London, when he was 17, and Bessemer began to produce many new ideas. Among these were a speedier method of type-setting; a cheaper way of making lead pencils; a forerunner of the modern franking machine; and a perforating machine to put the date on stamps so that they could not be re-used. However, he had not a very good head for business and he made little or no money from these ideas, although he received a knighthood for the inventions of the perforating machine 46 years after the Stamp Office had begun using it.
Not until he devised a process for making the “gold powder”, used for lettering book covers, to retail at a lower price than that imported from Germany did he achieve commercial success. Bessemer’s powder was made from brass as was that from Germany. Brass cost sixpence a pound and the German product made from it sold at £5.12s. while Bessemer sold his at £4 a pound.
The money he made from this enterprise enabled him to develop his other ideas. He was awarded a gold medal by Prince Albert for the highly-efficient sugar cane press he invented and