4 ms·
Important - yes, but would you consider it simple? AFAIU it relied on Maxwell's equations that I would not characterize as simple.
by mynegation 7y ago
Important - yes, but would you consider it simple? AFAIU it relied on Maxwell's equations that I would not characterize as simple.
- kwhitefoot 7y agoYou don't need to know anything about Maxwell's equations to build a functioning radio. There are plenty of do it yourself books from the 1920s and 30s that explain in great detail how to do it including how to make rectifiers for battery charging, winding coils to get the right inductance, calculating the length of wire needed for the aerial and so on, together with the simple formulae that are needed.
- stan_rogers 7y agoThere's reasonably good evidence to suggest that the first radio was invented before there was widespread acceptance of these so-called "waves" that Maxwell's ridiculous maths seemed to predict - before either Hertz or Lodge had managed to prove that they were anything other than artifacts of Maxwell's electromagnetic model. A certain David Hughes demonstrated transmission over a distance, but it was just written off as induction. And one could even presume that radio would have been inevitable, even without a preexisting theory of it, based entirely on barometers lighting up in thunderstorms; it only needed Volta's pile or a simple generator - some source of current on demand - and some experimentation with electricity before the phenomenon was noted and then deliberately employed.