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Not to diminish Tesla's genius, but doesn't this read more like he predicted the hand-held radio instead of the mobile phone? "The song of a great singer [...]
by julian37 16y ago
Not to diminish Tesla's genius, but doesn't this read more like he predicted the hand-held radio instead of the mobile phone?
"The song of a great singer [...] may thus be delivered to an audience all over the world" sounds like radio to me. And the part about the businessman dictating in New York is followed by the qualifier "from his desk"--I'm not sold.
While technically radio transmission was invented earlier, according to Wikipedia the first radio station only went online in 1920 so there was still plenty of room for this kind of prediction in 1909.
- eftpotrm 16y ago"It will soon be possible, for instance, for a business man in New York to dictate instructions and have the appear instantly in type in London or elsewhere. He will be able to cal up from his desk and talk with any telephone subscriber in the world. It will only be necessary to carry an inexpensive instrument not bigger than a watch, which will enable its bearer to hear anywhere on sea or land for distances of thousands of miles." The passage you quoted predicted broadcast radio, but the passage before that sounds more like a telephone to me. As with many others it underestimated the difficulty of transcribing voice into print, but otherwise....
- BerislavLopac 16y agoAnd all of those together comprises Internet, basically... ;)