marconi and the maxwellians: the origins of wireless...

Marconi and the Maxwellians: The Origins of Wireless Telegraphy RevisitedAuthor(s): Sungook HongSource: Technology and Culture, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Oct., 1994), pp. 717-749Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press and the Society for the History of TechnologyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3106504 .Accessed: 20/02/2015 20:40

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Marconi and the Maxwellians: The Origins of Wireless Telegraphy Revisited SUNGOOK HONG

The point is which of the two was the first to send a wireless telegram? Was it Lodge in 1894 or Marconi in 1896? [SILVANUS P. THOMPSON, London Times, July 15, 1902]

We live in a world where technological priority disputes and patent litigation are so commonplace that only a spectacular case, such as Kodak versus Polaroid over the instant camera, attracts our attention. In the past two hundred years, such disputes have become increasingly frequent. Notable examples include those over the invention of spin- ning machines (John Hargreaves vs. Richard Arkwright), steelmaking (Henry Bessemer vs. William Kelly), the incandescent lamp (Thomas Edison vs. Joseph Swan), the telephone (Alexander Graham Bell vs. Elisha Gray), the airplane (the Wright brothers vs. Samuel Langley), and amplifiers and the heterodyne principle in radio (Lee De Forest vs. Edwin Howard Armstrong).

Historians of technology, however, have generally paid little attention to the conflicting priority claims themselves, except when priority and patent disputes can be used as a window through which the characteristics of the evolution of technology are analyzed.' There are two well-grounded reasons for this neglect. First, unlike scientific discover-

DR. HONG received his Ph.D. from Seoul National University with the dissertation "Forging the Scientist-Engineer: A Professional Career of John Ambrose Fleming" and is working on the science-technology relationship in power and early radio engineering. He thanksJed Buchwald, Bert Hall, Bruce Hunt,Janis Langins, and the Technology and Culture referees for their valuable comments. He is indebted to Professor Thad Trenn of the University of Toronto and Roy Rodwell of the Marconi Company Archives for their help with the archives quoted here, and he thanks Youngran Jo, Shinkyu Yang, Jane Jenkins, Andre Leblanc, and Ben Olshin for their assistance, as well as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Fellowship in Electrical History for facilitating the research.

'See, e.g., the important research of David E. Hounshell, "Elisha Gray and the Telephone: On the Disadvantage of Being an Expert," Technology and Culture 16 (1975): 133-61; Robert C. Post, "Stray Sparks from the Induction Coil: The Volta Prize and the Page Patent," Proceedings of the Institute ofElectrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 64 (1976): 1279-86; James E. Brittain, "The Introduction of the Loading Coil: George A. Campbell

? 1994 by the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved. 0040-165X/94/3504-0004$01.00

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718 Sungook Hong

ies, priority disputes in technology often develop into patent litigation, which ultimately involves judicial decisions or interferences by the Patent Office. These court decisions act like a forced judgment on the question of priority. "Closure" of the controversy (to use the social constructivist's term) is not brought about by negotiation among the engineers involved, but rather by external, compulsory forces. These court judgments, which historians cannot overrule and which funda- mentally determine future histories, sometimes differ from those based on detailed historical analysis. Historians therefore treat historical assessments of inventions as a sphere separate from legal decisions about patents and avoid entering into the latter realm.' Second, and more important, historians of technology have usually considered invention as a long-term, social process, which includes not only the creative activity of an inventor but also historically accumulated traditions in which the work of many people is merged." The priority dispute is itself interpreted as evidence for regarding the invention as something socially conditioned. The question, for example, of who first invented wireless telegraphy is hardly meaningful from such a perspective, because "wireless telegraphy" itself did not burst into being as a result of a single genius's efforts, but was gradually shaped as several different technological traditions converged.

Recent historical studies on the origin of radio reflect such a shift of emphases in the interpretation of technological inventions. In a highly influential monograph, Syntony and Spark: The Origins of Radio, Hugh G. J. Aitken argues that wireless telegraphy cannot be said to have been

and Michael I. Pupin," Technology and Culture 11 (1970): 36-57. Hounshell contrasts the amateurish style of invention (Alexander Graham Bell) with the professional style (Elisha Gray), arguing for the former's advantage, whereas Brittain compares the organized scientific research of Campbell with an independent inventor, Pupin. Post examines how the "notorious Page patent" on the induction coil was constructed in the name of "scientific chauvinism" and exploited by the corporate interest.

'Compare Brittain (n. 1 above) with Joseph Gray Jackson, "Patent Interference

Proceedings and Priority of Invention," Technology and Culture 11 (1970): 598-600. See also Thomas Hughes's analysis of Lucien Gaulard andJohn D. Gibbs's (who were defeated

by S. Z. de Ferranti in litigation) pioneering works on alternating current transformers; in Thomas P. Hughes, Networks ofPower: Electrification in Western Society, 1880-1930 (Baltimore, 1983), pp. 86-96.

3Lynn White, jr., "The Act of Invention: Causes, Contexts, Continuities, and Conse-

quences," Technology and Culture 3 (1962): 486-500; Maurice Daumas, introduction to A

History of Technology and Invention (New York, 1979), 3:1-15; Hugh G.J. Aitken, The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900-1932 (Princeton, N.J., 1985), pp. 14 ff.; George Basalla, The Evolution of Technology (Cambridge, 1988); John Law, "Theory and Narrative in the History of Technology: Response," Technology and Culture 32 (1991): 377-84.



The Origins of Wireless Telegraphy Revisited 719

invented by Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937). He argues instead that William Crookes had conceived of Hertzian wave telegraphy in 1892 and that Oliver Lodge (1851-1940) demonstrated this before the British Association at its annual meeting in Oxford in 1894, one or two years before Marconi. In a critical passage, Aitken remarks, "Did Lodge in 1894 suggest in public that his equipment could be used for signalling? Did his lecture refer to the application of Hertzian waves to telegraphy? Did he demonstrate transmission and reception of Morse Code? The answer would seem to be affirmative in each case. In this sense Lodge must be recognized as the inventor of radio telegraphy."' This interpretation is quite novel and revisionist, since, before Aitken, Marconi had usually been regarded as the first to invent wireless telegraphy.5

In this article, I shall take up the priority dispute between Marconi and Lodge over the invention of wireless telegraphy. My analysis will show that any claim for Lodge's priority is incorrect. But my main purpose is not to argue instead for Marconi's priority. It is rather to deconstruct the Lodge versus Marconi debate to reveal how two totally different discourses (as noted in this article's epigraph from Silvanus Thompson) first came into being and how these were then reinforced by the different interests involved. After beginning with Aitken's evidence, I then turn to what was later claimed as Lodge's demonstration

4Hugh G.J. Aitken, Syntony and Spark: The Origins of Radio (New York, 1976; 2d ed. Princeton, N.J., 1985), p. 123. One reviewer of the second edition of Syntony and Spark noticed this point; see A. N. Stranges in American Historical Review 91 (1986): 1166-67.

5For claims supportive of Marconi's priority, see Charles Sfisskind, "Popov and the Beginning of Radiotelegraphy," Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers 50 (1962): 2036-47, "The Early History of Electronics. III. Prehistory of Radiotelegraphy," IEE Spectrum 6 (April 1969): 69-74, and "The Early History of Electronics. IV. First Radioteleg- raphy Experiments," IEEE Spectrum 6 (August 1969): 66-70. Aitken's claim for Lodge's priority was not unprecedented. W. P. Jolly, who has written biographies of both Lodge and Marconi, admitted Lodge's wireless telegraphy at the British Association meeting in 1894. Compare W. P. Jolly, Marconi (London, 1972), pp. 41-42, with his Sir Oliver Lodge (London, 1974), p. 97. AfterAitken, however, Lodge's priority was widely accepted. A recent biography of Lodge emphasizes Lodge's "radio transmission" in 1894, based on Aitken's account and Lodge's own; see Peter Rowlands, Oliver Lodge and the Liverpool Physical Society (Liverpool, 1990), pp. 115-23. Rowland F. Pocock, The Early British Radio Industry (Manchester, 1988), though admitting Marconi's originality, mentions Lodge's radio transmission in the Oxford lecture in 1894, on p. 82. G. A. Isted, a former assistant to Marconi, has lately written that Lodge's demonstration at the British Association in Oxford "is the earliest recorded instance of the transmission and reception of a signal by Hertzian waves and it is clearly of great historical importance." See G. A. Isted, "Guglielmo Marconi and the History of Radio: Part I," GeneralElectric Company Review 7, no. 1 (1991): 45-56 (esp. on 46). Aitken's argument is also picked up by Basalla (n. 3 above), p. 99. I should mention here that my criticism of Aitken is restricted to the origin of wireless telegraphy with reference to Lodge and Marconi. My work is much indebted to Aitken's valuable analysis on the interaction of scientific, technological, and economic factors in the early stage of wireless telegraphy.



720 Sungook Hong of wireless telegraphy in 1894. It will be shown that this had nothing to do with telegraphy, nor with alphabetic signals, nor with dots and dashes. I then turn to the impact of Marconi and his British patent on the British Maxwellian physicists--in particular Lodge, Thompson (1851-1916), George F. FitzGerald (1851-1901), and John Ambrose Fleming (1849-1945).6 The transformation from Hertzian laboratory apparatus into commercial wireless telegraphy was in fact accomplished by Marconi, an Italian "practician." A certain disharmony between theory and practice became apparent. Moreover, Marconi's patent appeared so strong that it threatened to monopolize Hertzian waves and the British national interest. Under these circumstances, the image of Lodge as the inventor of wireless telegraphy was deliberately constructed by his friends and by Lodge himself.

This study clarifies not only the origin of wireless telegraphy with special reference to Marconi and Lodge but also the interaction between theory and practice in early radio history. It shows that two different discourses on the theory and practice in early wireless telegraphy--discourses which either emphasized the influence of science on technology or denied any relationship between them--were constructed by different groups of participants.' My study also illustrates the way in which the historical "facts" are at times constructed, as well as the way in which these facts are analyzed by carefully cross-checking the sources. My ultimate hope is that this article will contribute to rehabilitating the priority dispute as an object of historical research.8

FIemings Marconi Memorial Lecture in 1937

Aitken has critically examined various sources concerning the Lodge versus Marconi priority issue. Besides Lodge's own recollections, Aitken bases his conclusions on two other sources. The first is a short article in

'For the lives and works of the British Maxwellian physicists, see Jed Z. Buchwald, Fmm Maxwell to Microphysics (Chicago, 1985); and Bruce J. Hunt, The Maxwellians (Ithaca, N. Y., 1991).

7For the relation between science and technology in early wireless telegraphy, see the

analysis of Hugh G.J. Aitken, "Science, Technology and Economics: The Invention of Radio as a Case Study," in The Dynamics of Science and Technology, ed. W. Krohn, Edwin T.

Layton, Jr., and Peter Weingart (Dordrecht, 1978), pp. 89-111. I have examined the

theory and practice issue in my forthcoming paper "From Hertz to Marconi's Telegraphy: The Laboratory and the Field in Early Wireless Experiments, 1888-1896."

8Patent records and patent interferences as sources for historical research have been

pointed out by N. Reingold, "U.S. Patent Office Records as Sources for the History of Invention and Technological Property," Technology and Culture 1 (1959/60): 156-67; and

Seymour L. Chapin, "Patent Interferences and the History of Technology: A High-flying Example," Technology and Culture 12 (1971): 414-46. See also Hounshell (n. 1 above); Post (n. 1 above); and Brittain (n. 1 above).




the Electrician of 1897, which stated that "both at Oxford [in August 1894] and at the Royal Institution [in June 1894], Dr. Lodge described and exhibited publicly in operation a combination of sending and receiving apparatus constituting a system of telegraphy substantially the same as that now claimed in the patent we have referred to [Marconi's patent no. 12,039 of 1896]."' Aitken's second source is Fleming's Marconi memorial lecture in 1937. Fleming said that Marconi was "not the first person to transmit alphabetic signals by electromagnetic waves." He instead admitted Lodge's priority:

[Lodge] was able to transmit a dot or a dash signal and by suitable combinations to send any letter of the alphabet on the Morse code and consequently intelligible messages. He had also on his table a Morse inker (so he tells me), and could have used it with a sensitive relay to print down the signals, but as he wished the audience to see the actual signals he preferred to use the mirror galvanometer. It is, therefore, unquestionable that on the occasion of his Oxford lecture in September [sic], 1894, Lodge exhibited electric wave telegraphy over a short distance."'

Since the testimony was given by Fleming it seems truly conclusive. Before Marconi's arrival in England in 1896, Fleming and Lodge had been close friends, having studied together in their youth at Edward Frankland's laboratory in South Kensington. Their relationship deterio- rated rapidly, however, after Fleming became scientific advisor of the Marconi Company (at that time Wireless Telegraph and Signal Com- pany) in 1899. In all the years afterward, right up until 1937, Fleming had never admitted Lodge's priority, reiterating that "here [at the Oxford meeting] again no mention of the application of these waves to telegraphy was made."" Only after Marconi's death, it seems, did Fleming decide to tell the truth. Aitken comments that "Fleming's memory also was capable of improvement with the passage of time, or perhaps as commercial and scientific rivalries receded into the past.""

9"Dr. Oliver Lodge's Apparatus for Wireless Telegraphy," Electrician 39 (1897): 686-87. Also quoted in Aitken, Syntony and Spark (n. 4 above), p. 122.

'John Ambrose Fleming, "Guglielmo Marconi and the Development of Radio- Communication," Journal of the Society of Arts 86 (1937): 42-63 (quoted on 46); cited in Aitken, Syntony and Spark, p. 123. Aitken also recognized (on p. 174, n. 70) that the phrase of "it is, therefore, unquestionable" is changed to read "it is, therefore, questionable" in Degna Marconi, My Father Marconi, 2d ed. (Ottawa, 1982), p. 21. Fleming slipped the date. The British Association annual meeting was held at Oxford in August 1894, and Lodge's experiments were done on August 14.

"John Ambrose Fleming, The Principles ofElectric Wave Telegraphy (London, 1906), p. 424; Aitken, Syntony and Spark, p. 120.

2"Fleming, "Guglielmo Marconi" (n. 10 above), p. 42; Aitken, Syntony and Spark, p. 122.



722 Sungook Hong But one thing should be made clear. Fleming was not present at the

Oxford British Association meeting in August 1894, the most crucial event in the discussion. Fleming's source was not his own memory, but Lodge's remark. That is clearly revealed by three letters between Fleming and Lodge in 1937. Before his lecture in November 1937, Fleming wrote to Lodge:

I have been asked by the Council of the Royal Society of Arts to give next November 10th a Memorial Lecture on the "Work of Mar- coni." ... One of the facts I am anxious to learn about is whether in your lecture to the British Association at Oxford Meeting in 1894 you used a telegraphic relay in series with your coherer to print on Morse Inker tape dot and dash signals? In his little book on "Wireless" Dr. Eccles gives on page 54 a diagram of the apparatus he says you employed at Oxford in 1894 [see fig. 1].... I was present in June 1894 at your famous lecture at the Royal Institution on "The Work of Hertz" and remember well your experiments with your coherer. But to the best of my recollection there was no direct reference to "telegraphy" in that lecture. I was not present at the B.A. meeting at Oxford, but ... it is very important to know from you whether at Oxford in 1894 you exhibited a Hertz oscillator connected with coherer and used a telegraphic relay in connection with it and morse inker and showed the transmission and printing of dots and dash signals over any short distance.13

Lodge replied that at Oxford he had actually used telegraphic instruments and transmitted alphabetic signals, that is, dots and dashes:

You are perfectly right that in 1894 at the Royal Institution I did not refer to telegraphy. But, stimulated by Muirhead, who had close connection with telegraphy and cables, I did at Oxford demonstrate actual telegraphy. I had a Morse instrument there, but it was not convenient for the large audience in the Museum theatre, and therefore I used as receiver a Thomson marine signalling device supplied by Muirhead's firm for that purpose, though I had a Morse instrument on the table which I could have used instead. But the deflections of the spot of light were plainly visible to the audience, and gave quick and prolonged response corresponding to the dots and dashes according to the manipulation of the key at the distant end.'4

"John Ambrose Fleming to Oliver Lodge, August 24, 1937, Lodge Collection, University College London (hereafter UCL) (emphasis in original). W.H. Eccles's book is titled Wireless (London, 1933).

"4Lodge to Fleming, August 26, 1937 (copy), Lodge Collection, UCL.




BATTERY BATTERY

COHERER RELAY

TREMBLER

Oi FIG. 1.-W. H. Eccles's diagram of Oliver Lodge's receiver in 1894. (W H. Eccles, Wireless

[London, 1933], p. 54.)

Fleming's reply to Lodge, which foretold the content of his lecture, shows that he entirely accepted Lodge's claims: "What you tell me about your Oxford lecture in 1894 is very valuable and important. It is quite clear that in 1894 you could send and receive alphabetic signals in Morse Code by Electric Waves and did send them 180 feet or so. Marconi's idea that he was the first to do that is invalid..... Marconi was always determined to claim everything for himself. His conduct to me about the first transatlantic transmission was very ungenerous.... However, these things get known in time and justice is done."'5

As we can see in this last letter, Fleming had been hurt by Marconi's attitude toward his employees. His resignation as scientific advisor to the Marconi Company in 1931 and Marconi's death in 1937 might have influenced Fleming to be more sympathetic to Lodge. He might have felt as if "things get known in time and justice is done." But this could not have improved his memory of something he had never experienced. It was only Lodge who informed Fleming about the Oxford meeting. Therefore, Fleming's lecture in 1937 cannot be regarded as conclusive.

For later analysis, I divide Lodge's claim into two parts. First, Lodge actually sent telegraphic signals, that is, dots and dashes, during the Oxford meeting of the British Association in August 1894. Second, Lodge had a Morse instrument there, but, owing to the size of the

'5Fleming to Lodge, August 29, 1937, Lodge Collection, UCL (emphasis in original).



724 Sungook Hong

audience, he used a mirror galvanometer to show the signals. Leaving aside Aitken's first evidence (a short article in the Electrician) until a later section of this article on Marconi's patent, I shall examine Lodge's Royal Institution and British Association lectures in 1894. We will see that both assertions are incorrect.

LodgeS Experiments with Hertzian Waves

Oliver Lodge, an ambitious Maxwellian and professor of physics at University College, Liverpool, worked on the various characteristics of Hertzian waves between 1888 and 1894. The links between optics and electromagnetism particularly attracted him. The subject was faithfully Maxwellian, as it had a root in Maxwell's doctrine that light and electromagnetic waves were the same. It was also truly Lodgian "imperial science," as it led electrical science to the conquest of other fields-in this case, optics and physiology. The subject came to be divided into two parts: first, the physical investigation of the quasi-optical property of electromagnetic waves-that is, reflection, refraction, and polarization of the electromagnetic waves in air, in other media, and in some cases along the wires; second, the physiological investigation of the mechanism of the perception of light (color, intensity, and so on) by human eyes.'"

With these experiments, Lodge made two important advances. First, he constructed a radiator that generated waves with wavelengths of several inches. Hertz had once used the wavelength of 66 centimeters, but that was still too long for most optical experiments. Because of the difficulty in decreasing the wavelength with Hertz's dipole radiator, Lodge turned to a spherical radiator. In 1890, Lodge used three 12-centimeter balls and obtained 17-centimeter waves, "the shortest yet dealt with."'7 Lodge then went further along this line of development and devised two more spherical radiators that he exhibited in his Friday Evening Lecture on the "Work of Hertz" at the Royal Institution in June 1894.

Lodge's second line of research was on detectors. The Hertzian wave was at first detected by a small spark-gap resonator. But this spark-gap

'"For Lodge's early conceptions of electromagnetic waves, see Jed Z. Buchwald, "Wave Guides and Radiators in Maxwellian Electrodynamics," published as app. 1 to his The Creation of Scientific Effects: Heinrich Hertz and Electric Waves (Chicago, 1994). See also Hunt, The Maxwellians (n. 6 above), pp. 24-47. Lodge's research after 1888 is best described in Aitken, Syntony and Spark (n. 4 above), pp. 80-102. Lodge's program with Hertzian waves, as well as his concept of "imperial science," was promulgated in Oliver Lodge, Modern Views of Electricity (London, 1889), pp. 303-7. For the early quasi-optical experiments with Hertzian waves, see John F. Ramsay, "Microwave Antenna and Waveguide Technique before 1900, " Proceedings of the IRE 46 (1958): 405-15.

'7Oliver Lodge, "Electric Radiation from Conducting Spheres, an Electric Eye, and a

Suggestion regarding Vision," Nature 41 (1890): 462-63.




resonator was not suitable for Lodge's physiological research. For example, nothing in the spark-gap detector corresponded to different color perceptions in human eyes. Lodge, therefore, concentrated on the construction of an "electric eye." In 1890, his assistant Edward Robinson constructed a "gradated receiver," and Lodge tried "a series of long cylinders" of various diameters. The principle of both detectors was to make each of them respond to a specific radiation, forming "an electric eye with a definite range of colour sensation." In 1891 Lodge exhibited an electric eye of Robinson's type at the Physical Society, London, which had "strips of tin foil of different lengths attached to a glass plate, and spark gaps at each end which separate them from other pieces of foil."'

Yet, it was not the electric-eye resonator that was associated with the name of Lodge. Rather, it was the coherer. To understand Lodge's coherer, we need to examine its prehistory briefly. In 1890, while experimenting on lightning rods, Lodge found that two metallic conductors separated by a very tiny air gap were fused when the oscillatory discharge passed through them. At that time, Lodge accepted David Hughes's explanation that this was a thermoelectric phenomenon and dropped the subject. In 1890, Edouard Branly in France found that fine copper filings, capsuled into a glass tube, were conducting only feebly under ordinary conditions but that their conductivity was abruptly increased when a spark was generated nearby. Branly's tube was introduced in Britain when the Electrician fully translated his articles with figures, but they were apparently overlooked at that time. The tube was noticed later, however, by Dawson Turner, who demonstrated the decrease of the resistance of copper filings at the British Association meeting in Edinburgh in 1892. Turner's demonstration was seen by W. B. Croft, who addressed a short experiment on the same phenomenon before the Physical Society, London, in October 1893. There, George M. Minchin, one of those interested in Hertzian waves, noticed the similarity between Croft's (actually Branly's) tube and his solar cell's response to Hertzian waves. Minchin immediately read a paper on the subject at the Physical Society. While hearing Minchin's paper, Lodge noticed that Branly's and Minchin's discovery was very similar to his previous research on the action of lightning discharge to a very tiny metallic gap. Lodge reasoned that electromagnetic radiation made the metallic molecules both in the filings and in the microscopic air gap actually cohere with one another. Based on this similarity, Lodge soon devised a single-point contact "coherer," in which a spring wire formed a slight contact with an aluminum plate, and soon found that its

'sIbid.; and Oliver Lodge, "Some Experiments with Leyden Jars" (abstract), Nature 43 (1891): 238-39.



726 Sungook Hong

sensitivity as a detector was not only much better than ordinary spark-gap resonators but also better than Branly's filing tube."9

Lodge therefore had two new detectors, his coherer and Branly's tube. Initially, Lodge called only his single-point detector a coherer, but the name "coherer" soon came to designate both types. Both Lodge's coherer and Branly's tube were connected in series to a battery and a galvanometer. Under this condition, they act like an on-off switch: before a Hertzian wave strikes them, their resistances are very high, as if the switch were off, but when a Hertzian wave strikes them, their resistances fall off, as if the switch were turned on. This action makes the current flow from a battery, and the current can be detected by a galvanometer. The two detectors, however, differed in sensitivity. At Liverpool on April 17, 1894, Lodge found that the filing tube could detect radiation emitted from 40 yards away. However, "a sender in Zoology Theatre affected the coherer in Physics Theatre perceptibly," a distance of perhaps 70 yards.20 Though more sensitive, Lodge's coherer was less stable than the filing tube. In addition, Branly's tube had a crude metrical character: its decrease in resistance seemed roughly proportional to the intensity of the Hertzian waves. This resembled a human eye's perception of the light of different intensity. For physiological experiments, therefore, Branly's tube was more suitable than Lodge's single-point contact coherer.

On January 1, 1894, Hertz died at the age of 36, and Lodge delivered a Hertz Memorial Lecture at the Royal Institution Friday Evening Lecture on June 1. Here Lodge spoke on the life and work of Hertz, exhibited Hertz's and his own radiators and detectors, and then performed several experiments.21 The demonstrations were divided into a physical and a physiological part. In the first part, he demonstrated reflection, refraction, and polarization of the Hertzian waves. For this purpose, Lodge used his spherical radiator enclosed in a metallic box

'9For Lodge's experiments on the air gap of lightning conductors, see Oliver Lodge, "On

Lightning-Guards for Telegraphic Purposes and on the Protection of Cables from Light- ning," Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers 19 (1890): 346-79, on 352-53. For the

story of Branly's tube in Britain, see Oliver Lodge, "The History of the Coherer Principle," Electrician 40 (1897): 87-91. Refer also to E. Branly's papers under the title "Variations of

Conductivity under Electrical Influence," Electrician 27 (1891): 221-22, 448-49. Also useful is Vivian J. Phillips, Early Radio Wave Detectors (London, 1980), pp. 18-37.

'Rowlands (n. 5 above), pp. 116-17. 21The lecture, "The Work of Hertz," was published in Nature, the Electrician (with

illustrations), and later in the Proceedings of the Royal Institution. The reference here is to Oliver Lodge, "The Work of Hertz," Nature 50 (1894): 133-39. The lecture, with

appendixes, was published in 1894 as a book, The Work of Hertz and Some of His Successors (London, 1894). From the third edition (1900), its title was changed to Signalling through Space without Wires.




paraffin prism O Q a 6" spherical galvanometer radiator in a metallic box

polarization grating

a Bfanly tube in a copper hat

FIG. 2.--Oliver Lodge's quasi-optical experiment with Hertzian waves at the Royal Institution in June 1894. A spherical radiator is in a metallic box, and a Branly tube is in a copper hat. Notice the mirror galvanometer. (Electrician 33 [1894]: 205.)

and a Branly tube in a copper hat as a detector, and a mirror galvanometer as a signal indicator (fig. 2). In the second part, he explained the function of human eyes by means of the analogy of the coherer. "When light falls upon the retina," Lodge said, "these gaps become more or less conducting, and the nerves are stimulated."'' Lodge also tried an outdoor experiment, in which the receiver was in the theater and the transmitter was in the library of the Royal Institution, separated across 40 yards by three rooms and stairs. I shall return to this outdoor experiment after examining Lodge's other demonstrations.

The coherer, in particular the Branly tube, had a character that was absent in the spark-gap resonator. After detecting electromagnetic waves, the coherer needed to be mechanically vibrated or "tapped" to make it ready for the next wave trains. This feature raised a question with relation to physiological concerns. To what, in human eyes, did this tapping correspond? Lodge assumed that, in the eye, "the tapping back is done automatically by the tissues, so that it is always ready for a new impression." How to demonstrate this automatic tapping in human eyes? Lodge prepared an electric bell, which was mounted on the same board as the filing tube. By constantly vibrating itself, and thus by constantly shaking the table and the coherer on it, the bell always made the coherer ready to detect new waves.23

Was Lodge's lecture successful? It is true that the published abstracts in Nature and the Electrician were read worldwide. Nevertheless, the

nLodge, "Work of Hertz," p. 137. "Ibid. It is noteworthy that the bell was neither connected to the coherer circuit nor

tapped the coherer directly.



728 Sungook Hong demonstrations were rather unsuccessful. The Electrician noted that "the experiments were performed under very unfavourable conditions.""24 Moreover, the "lack of enthusiasm" in Lodge's lecture was contrasted with the success of Nikola Tesla's lecture a year earlier, where "the weird waving of glowing tubes in the suitably darkened room" impressed everyone. What Lodge lacked was a "theatrical effect" or "scenic setting." Neither the sound of the spark nor the "moderate galvanometer" connected to the coherer was theatrical. In particular, the galvanometer was very tricky. It proved to be a "very lively kind of galvanometer" for the coherer circuit. The swing of the needle was not stable, not even when there were no waves. For success subsequently, the Electrician suggested using a more effective galvanometer such as a deadbeat galvanometer.

No detailed descriptions about the galvanometer used by Lodge survive. From the abstract and the figure, we see that Lodge used a mirror galvanometer.25 From the comment in the Electrician, we understand that it was not of a deadbeat type. From other pieces of evidence, we know that Lodge had not paid much attention to the galvanometer, in contrast to the situation several years earlier. Before the coherer, for example, FitzGerald, Lodge's closest friend and professor of natural and experimental philosophy at Trinity College, Dublin, had constructed an extremely sensitive galvanometer to show to an audience the detection of waves. This instrument would have needed to detect the disturbance of electric equilibrium caused by a tiny spark.26 The coherer, an on-off switch, made such a sensitive galvanometer unnecessary, because the galvanometer had to detect only a relatively large current from a battery, triggered by the action of the coherer. As Lodge noted, "a rough galvanometer" was therefore sufficient27

But why was the galvanometer troublesome at the crucial moment? Lodge suspected that the source of the trouble was the electric bell used for the automatic tapping. There is a "jerk current" in the electric bell, which would certainly influence the adjacent coherer electrically. The jerky current "produces one effect, and a mechanical vibration ... produces an opposite effect; hence the spot of light can hardly keep still." He knew the way to eliminate this: a "clockwork" that did not use an electric current "might do better."2 As we shall see, Lodge actually employed the clockwork in his Oxford lecture two months later.

24"Hertzian Waves at the Royal Institution" (lead article), Electrician 33 (1894): 156-57. "Lodge mentioned "the spot of light" in a mirror galvanometer. See Lodge, "Work of

Hertz," p. 137. "George F. FitzGerald, "Electro-Magnetic Radiation" (Friday Evening Lecture at the

Royal Institution on March 21, 1890), Nature 42 (1890): 172-75. "See also Lodge's exhibition of the portable detector of his assistant's design at the

Royal Society soiree a few days after his Friday Lecture, in "The Royal Society Conversazi- one," Nature 50 (1894): 182-83.

"Lodge,"Work of Hertz" (n. 21 above), p. 137.




Now recall Lodge's statement concerning the "Muirhead connection" in his letter to Fleming. Here Lodge emphasized that in his Oxford demonstration he used a deadbeat Thomson (Kelvin) marine galvanometer he had borrowed from Muirhead's firm. In 1900 Lodge stated that "Dr. Alexander Muirhead foresaw the telegraphic importance of this method of signalling immediately after hearing the author's lecture on June 1st, 1894, and arranged a siphon recorder for the purpose."29 In Lodge's much-quoted letter to one of his friends in 1914, he emphasized that "it was at the first of these lectures [Royal Institution Friday Lecture] that my friend Alexander Muirhead conceived the telegraphic applica- tions which ultimately led to the foundation of the Lodge-Muirhead Syndicate."'I Elsewhere, Lodge recalled that the galvanometer at Oxford "responded to signals sharply, in a dead-beat manner, without confusing oscillations.""3 This Muirhead connection makes Lodge's telegraphic trial at Oxford, performed only two months after his obviously nontelegraphic experiment at the Royal Institution, both feasible and timely.

Some parts of this Muirhead connection are undoubtedly true. Muirhead constructed a delicate siphon recorder for a wireless detector during the late 1890s and early 1900s; Lodge and Muirhead, who began to file for patents on wireless telegraphy in 1897, formed the Lodge- Muirhead Syndicate in 1901. Nevertheless, the central point in the Muirhead connection (that Muirhead lent Lodge a deadbeat Thomson marine galvanometer after/because he was inspired by Lodge's June lecture) is very doubtful. According to the recollection of Muirhead's wife, it was Lodge's Oxford lecture, not the Royal Institution lecture, that inspired Muirhead to think about wireless telegraphy." One of Lodge's biographers doubts that he actually used a Thomson marine deadbeat galvanometer borrowed from Muirhead at Oxford." But that

"Lodge, Signalling through Space without Wires (n. 21 above), p. 45. Refer also to Oliver Lodge, "Alexander Muirhead" (obituary), Proceedings of the Royal Society 100, pt. A (1921-22): viii-ix.

SOliver Lodge toJ. Arthur Hill, December 11, 1914, inJ. Arthur Hill, ed., Letters from Sir Oliver Lodge (London, 1932), p. 47.

3"Oliver Lodge, "Reminiscences of the Last British Association Meeting in Oxford, 1894," Discovery 7 (August 1926): 263-66 (quoted on 265-66). See also the same recollection in Oliver Lodge, Advancing Science (London, 1931), p. 164, and Past Years: An Autobiography (New York, 1932), p. 231.

3"Muirhead was excited after Lodge's Oxford lecture, and "the next day he went to Lodge with the suggestion that messages could be sent by use of these waves to feed cables." See M. E. Muirhead, Alexander Muirhead (Oxford, 1926), p. 39, quoted in Pocock (n. 5 above), p. 83.

"Rowlands (n. 5 above), p. 148, n. 30. Thomson's marine galvanometer was a very sensitive current-measuring device specially designed so that the swing of a ship could not change the readings. In principle, it utilized rotation of a small magnet fixed in the middle of the coils by silk fiber. When magnetic fields were created around the coils by the action



730 Sungook Hong is, I think, highly plausible, not because Muirhead had been inspired by Lodge's June lecture, but because Lodge had borrowed from Muirhead such a device at various times since the late 1880s.' In addition, as we have seen, Lodge had an urgent reason to use a deadbeat galvanometer. He had experienced serious trouble in his "lively kind" galvanometer in the June lecture, and the Electrician had recommended the employment of a deadbeat galvanometer for future success. These factors might be the real motivations for Lodge's use of a Thomson marine galvanometer at Oxford, if it was actually used there.

Let us return to Lodge's outdoor experiment at the Royal Institution. Why did Lodge perform this experiment? Evidently, it was not to determine the maximum transmitting distance, nor to show the wave's penetrability of walls. Its real purpose lay in physiological concerns. With a metrical Branly tube and an electric bell, Lodge wanted to show that the coherer could discern Hertzian waves of various intensities Oust as the human eye could). The easiest way to vary the intensity of waves was to adjust the distance between transmitter and receiver. Lodge placed a 6-inch sphere radiator in the library of the Royal Institution, which had two advantages. First, owing to the theory of Horace Lamb and J.J. Thomson, it was easy to estimate the wavelength: with a 6-inch radiator, the wavelength was about 8 or 9 inches. Second, owing to FitzGerald's theory, it was known that the energy of radiation at a distance, other things being equal, is inversely proportional to the fourth power of the wavelength. That is, the shorter the wavelength, the more the energy of radiation, and thus the higher the possibility of being detected at a distance. The belief that short waves had more power to travel farther than long waves was strongly inscribed in Lodge's mind.35 But even with the short wave, Lodge estimated that "something more like half a mile

of current, the small magnet was forced to rotate, and this effect was magnified by the reflection of a ray of light from a small mirror fastened to the magnet. For a detailed

description of the device, see George B. Prescott, Electricity and the Electric Telegraph (New York, 1888), pp. 154-57.

"See, e.g. Lodge, Modern Views of Electricity (n. 16 above), p. 300, where Lodge used the Thomson marine galvanometer lent by Muirhead for his experiments on electric momentum. Notice also that their business relation started around the same time with the construction of Lodge's lightning guard by the Muirhead Company. For this, see Oliver Lodge, Lightning Conductors and Lightning Guards (London, 1892), pp. 419-26. I thank Ido Yavetz for this reference.

35Horace Lamb, "On Electrical Motion in a Spherical Conductor," Philosophical Trans- actions of the Royal Society 174, pt. 2 (1883): 519-49; J.J. Thomson, "On Electrical Oscillations and the Effects Produced by the Motion of an Electrified Sphere," Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society 15 (1883/84): 197-219. For FitzGerald's theory, see

George F. FitzGerald, "On the Quantity of Energy Transferred to the Ether by a Variable Current," Transactions of the Royal Dublin Society (1883), in The Scientific Writings of the Late




was nearer the limit of sensitiveness," even though he appended that "this is a rash statement not at present verified.""

What was the result of this first outdoor experiment? Was it successful? Lodge and his friends later repeated that the experiment was a great success. The answer was, however, both yes and no: no, because he failed to detect the wave with a metrical filing tube; yes, because he detected it with his sensitive coherer. Lodge's manuscript confirms this: "The spherical radiator ... though it could excite the filings tube ... when 60 yards away in the open air, yet could not excite it perceptibly when screened off by so many walls and metal surfaces as exist between the Library and Theatre of the Royal Institution. It could, however, still easily excite the coherer, which is immensely more sensitive, and also more troublesome and occasionally capricious than is a tube of iron filings.""7 With this experiment he was thus unable to show the metrical response of the Branly filing tube to radiations of various intensities.

Two months later, on August 14, 1894, at the joint session of the Physics and Physiology sections of the British Association, Lodge delivered two lectures and demonstrations on Hertzian waves at the theater in the museum of Oxford University. The first lecture was on "Experi- ments Illustrating Clerk Maxwell's Theory of Light"; the second was on "An Electrical Theory of Vision." In a sense, he split his previous Friday Lecture into two. In the first lecture, Lodge used a spherical radiator and a copper hat to concentrate the radiation. As before, Branly's tube and Lodge's coherer were used as detectors, with most experiments done with Branly's device. Refractions and reflections of Hertzian waves were demonstrated with lenses, gold papers, the human body, paraffin prisms, and a slab of wood. Polarization was shown with a copper wire polarizer; splitting of the polarized ray into the two elliptically polarized rays was also demonstrated. These experiments were "very beautifully, very carefully and very convincingly demonstrated," and "the audience ... repeatedly showed its warm appreciation." Lodge's employment of a deadbeat galvanometer might have been a reason for the success.'

Geoge Francis FitzGerald, ed. Joseph Lamor (London, 1902), pp. 122-26. For Lodge, see Lodge, Advancing Science (n. 31 above), p. 165.

6Lodge, "Work of Hertz" (n. 21 above), pp. 135-37. 37Oliver Lodge, "Notes on the History of the Coherer Method of Detecting Hertzian

Waves and other Similar Matters" (n.d.), Lodge Collection, UCL. In the published article, a similar paragraph read, "Almost any filing tube could detect signals from a distance of 60 yards, with a mere six-inch sphere as emitter and without the slightest trouble, but the single-point coherer was usually much more sensitive than any filing tube." See Lodge, "History of the Coherer Principle" (n. 19 above), p. 90.

'Since the lectures were not published, I rely on the brief reports of the meetings of the British Association published in Nature, Electrician, Engineering, and London Times, all of



732 Sungook Hong These were really "the prologue" of Lodge's second lecture and

demonstrations. In this lecture, Lodge proposed his hypothesis concerning the theory of vision that the coherer circuit "may be taken as an analogous, and may, ex hypothesi, be an enlarged model of the mechanism of vision." According to this hypothesis, "the retinal elements constitute an imperfect conductor, and ... the light waves would cause a sudden diminution in the resistance of the elements."Yet, once struck by the wave, the coherer "has a tendency to persist in its lessened resistance" and therefore requires tapping "to jerk the coherer contact back to its normal state of badness." For this tapping, he used "a sort of clockwork apparatus which automatically produces the tap every tenth of a second." With this device, Lodge showed that "for a continuous radiation the coherer showed continuous indications, which died away when the radiation ceased.""

Where was the transmitter in the physiological experiments? The issue has never been examined critically. Four years later, in 1898, Thompson-Lodge's close friend and professor of applied physics and electrical engineering of the Finsbury Technical College-commented that the radiator was in the Clarendon Laboratory, the building adjacent to the museum, at a distance of 200 yards." I believe that Thompson's statement may be erroneous, because Lodge, in his various recollections, never mentioned the Clarendon Laboratory. He would only remark that "in both cases, signalling was easily carried on from a distance through walls and other obstacles, an emitter being outside and a galvanometer detector inside the room," or that "this [sending] apparatus was in another room."41 Contrary to Lodge's and Thompson's remarks, the four sources on which I have relied for my account say nothing about the outdoor trial at all. Considering this evidence, as well as Lodge's previous trouble with the outdoor experiment at the Royal Institution, it may be said that the distance traversed by Hertzian waves in the Oxford lecture was fairly modest.

The lecture was followed by heated discussions by such physicists as Lord Rayleigh, Henry E. Armstrong, and FitzGerald, and the physiolo-

which sent their reporters to the British Association. See "Physics at the British Association," Nature 50 (1894): 408; "The British Association at Oxford: Tuesday, August 14th," Electrician 33 (1894): 458-59; "The British Association, Section A: Electric Theory of Vision," Engineering 58 (1894): 382-83; "The British Association," London Times, August 15, 1894.

3g"The British Association at Oxford: Tuesday, August 14," p. 458; "The British Association, Section A: Electric Theory of Vision"; London Times, August 15, 1894.

"Silvanus P. Thompson, "Telegraphy Across Space" (lecture given at the Royal Society of Arts on March 30, 1898), Journal of the Society of Arts 40 (1897/98): 453-60, esp. 458.

4Lodge, "History of the Coherer Principle" (n. 19 above), p. 90, and Past Years (n. 31 above), p. 231.




gists Burdon Sanderson and Edward A. Sharpey-Schifer, marking a great success. But that was all. There is not the slightest hint of telegraphic signals, nor "dots and dashes." With his improved automatic tapper, Lodge showed the persistency of vision and mere sensation of light, which corresponded to the continuous and short indication of the galvanometer. But that was far from dots and dashes for alphabetic signals. From beginning to end, the lecture was entirely "Lodgian." His purpose was to investigate the relation between optics and electromagnetism, between light and electromagnetic waves, and between optical receptors and electromagnetic ones. After the lecture, despite Muir- head's and Rayleigh's suggestions, Lodge did not pursue this subject further. He soon busied himself with ether experiments, X-rays, and psychic researches.

The preceding examination has shown that Lodge's first argument, namely, that he actually transmitted dots and dashes for alphabetic signals in the Oxford meeting, is doubtful. Let us next examine Lodge's second argument about "a Morse instrument," mentioned in his letter to Fleming. Fleming thought that this instrument must be a Morse inker. But it was not. Ironically, Aitken's first source reveals its nature. It listed five instruments used in Lodge's Oxford demonstrations, and one of them is "Morse instrument to shake the filings"42 (emphasis added). Lodge's Morse instrument was nothing but a clockwork or an automatic tapper that he used for tapping the coherer. To be sure, the Morse instrument that Lodge used for the clockwork was a telegraphic device, but he used this telegraphic device for nontelegraphic purposes, as confirmed by himself in his description of the automatic tapper in the Oxford meeting: "The tapping back was at first performed by hand ... but automatic tappers were very soon arranged; ... an electric bell was not found very satisfactory, however, because of the disturbances caused by the little spark at its contact breaker ... so a clockwork tapper, consisting of a rotating spoke wheel driven by the clockwork of a Morse instrument, and giving to the filings tube or to a coherer a series of jerks occurring at regular intervals ... was also employed."" The "Morse instrument" was neither a Morse inker nor a substitute for a galvanometer. To understand how a clockwork was transformed into a Morse detector, we now examine the impact of Marconi's wireless telegraphy on the British Maxwellians.

Marconi, Preece, the Maxwellians, and "Practice versus Theory" Since 1886, Lodge and his Maxwellian friends, Oliver Heaviside

(1850-1925) in particular, had been involved in a bitter controversy-

4"Dr. Oliver Lodge's Apparatus for Wireless Telegraphy" (n. 9 above), p. 686. eLodge, "History of the Coherer Principle," p. 90 (emphasis added).



734 Sungook Hong the so-called Practice vs. Theory controversy--with William H. Preece (1834-1913), an eminent practical telegrapher of the Post Office. The issues of the controversy involved the role of the self-induction of lines and its implication in long-distance telephony and lightning conductors. Heaviside's counterintuitive, theoretical claim for the beneficial effect of self-induction for long-distance telephony was severely rebuked by Preece, who based his argument on his practice and experience in the field. The news that Hertz had discovered Maxwell's electromagnetic waves was known to them in 1888, when Lodge was attempting to generate and detect electromagnetic waves on wires with Leyden-jar discharge. Even though Hertz deprived Lodge of credit for the discovery of electromagnetic waves, and even though the electromagnetic wave was not directly related to the controversies, Hertz's discovery certainly had a favorable impact for the Maxwellians, allowing them to defeat Preece. The most important part of Maxwell's theory was proved, and it was followed by Sir William Thomson's warm recognition of Heaviside's mathematical work in 1889, marking the victory of the theoretical men over practicians. Hertz's discovery of Maxwell's electromagnetic waves was timely and was good for theoreticians."

In 1896, Marconi came to England with his "secret box" (see fig. 3). In July 1896, Preece, then chief engineer of the Post Office, became Marconi's first, and most potent, patron. As Preece had had interests in induction telegraphy for several years, he might have realized a possibility of commercial wireless telegraphy in Marconi's demonstration. But in Marconi's apparatus Preece saw more than commercial possibility; it was a good means of revenge against the theoretical camp of the Maxwellians. Like Preece himself, Marconi was "what Mr. Oliver Heavi- side calls a 'practician,' " who knew nothing about Maxwell's mathematical theory and perhaps little about Hertz's physical experiments. But Marconi had developed the Hertzian wave telegraphy, which Lodge had failed to do. To Preece, Marconi's success was a marvelous example of the superiority of practice over theory. The Hertzian wave that had defeated Preece in 1888 now became his weapon.45

"For this controversy, see Bruce J. Hunt, " 'Practice vs. Theory': The British Electrical Debate, 1888-1891," Isis 74 (1983): 341-55; D.W. Jordan, "The Adoption of Self- Induction by Telephony, 1886-1889," Annals of Science 39 (1982): 433-61; Ido Yavetz, "Oliver Heaviside and the Significance of the British Electrical Debate," Annals of Science 50 (1993): 135-73.

'For the description of Marconi as "practician," see "Notes," Electrician 39 (1897): 207. Different opinions have existed about the relation between Preece and Marconi. Aitken, in Syntony and Spark (n. 4 above), pp. 210-16, suggests that Preece's interest came from the "bureaucratic responsibility" of Preece and the Post Office to oversee the development of all forms of electric communication in Britain. Based on the manuscripts of the Post Office, Pocock shows that Preece was rather cool toward the Marconi system's commercial




-L

FIG. 3.-Marconi in 1896 with his "secret box" closed. (Courtesy of the Marconi Company Archives, Chelmsford.)

At the meeting of the British Association in Liverpool in September 1896, Preece prepared two counterattacks. First, based on the observa- tions of various submarine cables, he attacked Heaviside's mathematical theory of distortionless cables and advocated his own empirical law." Then, in his discussion of J. Chunder Bose's paper, Preece stated that "an Italian had come with a box giving a quite new system of space telegraphy," advertising Marconi's splendid success in transmitting across 1? miles on Salisbury Plain.47 Preece's announcement astonished most Maxwellians, as shown in the following quote from a letter from

possibility and then argues that Preece in fact followed the policy of the Post Office to new

inventions--"neither to accept the invention, nor to invest substantial sums" without entirely ignoring it altogether. See Pocock (n. 5 above), pp. 114-17. But Pocock seems to feel the difficulty in explaining why Preece ardently advertised Marconi in the British Association and in his public lectures. The difficulty disappears if the personal factors are counted in. Among secondary materials, Paul Nahin, Oliver Heaviside: Sage in Solitude (New York, 1988), p. 281, mentions this possibility.

"William H. Preece, "On Disturbance in Submarine Cables," Annual Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1896): 732 (title only), and "Electrical Distur- bances in Submarine Cables," Electrician 37 (1896): 689-91.

47Lodge, Advancing Science (n. 31 above), p. 168. See also "Physics at the British Association," Nature 54 (1896): 567; "The British Association," London Times, September 23, 1896; "Notes," Electrician 37 (1896): 685. Preece also mentioned Marconi's parabolic antenna in the transmitter and a relay and a Morse inker in the receiver.



736 Sungook Hong FitzGerald to Heaviside: "On the last day but one Preece surprised us all by saying that he had taken up an Italian adventurer who had done no more than Lodge & others had done in observing Hertzian radiations at a distance. Many of us were very indignant at this over-looking of British work for an Italian manufacturer. Science 'made in Germany' we are accustomed to but 'made in Italy' by an unknown firm was too bad."'4 According to the later recollection, Lodge did not get up to refute Preece, who was "far more ignorant than he ought to have been of what had been already done," but "retired to [his] laboratory and rigged up an arrangement which I showed to Lord Kelvin and a few others, saying 'This is what Preece was talking about.' "49

In December 1896, Preece again publicized Marconi's feat in his public lecture at Toynbee Hall and promised there to spare no expense for Marconi's research. This promise especially upset the Maxwellians, because they were then engaged in difficult negotiations with the British government to secure financial support (?35,000) for the establishment of the National Physical Laboratory (NPL). Lodge had initiated the movement in 1891 at the British Association's annual meeting. When it was revived in 1895 by Douglas Galton, Lodge was appointed as secretary of the British Association Committee on the Establishment of an NPL. FitzGerald had also emphasized the role of science in industrial development." The Maxwellians were at first nervous about Preece, who continuously publicized Marconi as the "inventor of wireless telegraphy," and who, as an influential person at the Post Office, ignored the role of scientific research. Yet, their attitude to Marconi was not very hostile initially. In March 1897, in a letter to Thompson, Lodge expressed his hope that "M[arconi] is improving things all around & going to bring it in commercially." It was certainly because Lodge thought that "there will be many improvements in details wanted before that can be done.""' But things were moving rapidly. Somebody had coined and publicized the term "Marconi waves"; Marconi approved of it. In an interview with McClureS Magazine, Marconi remarked that his wave from the vertical antenna was not same as Hertz's wave. He

"George F FitzGerald to Oliver Heaviside, September 28, 1896, Heaviside Collection, Institution of Electrical Engineers, London.

"4Lodge to Fleming, August 26, 1937 (n. 14 above). Lodge's remark on Preece is in

Lodge to Hill, December 11, 1914 (n. 30 above). 5Oliver Lodge, "Presidential Address in Section A," Annual Report of the British Association

for the Advancement of Science (1891): 550-51; George F. FitzGerald, "Science and Industry" (lecture to the Irish Industrial League on May 7, 1896), in Scientific Writings (n. 35 above), p. 383. For the NPL, see also E. Pyatt, The National Physical Laboratory: A History (Bristol, 1983), pp. 12-35.

51Oliver Lodge to Silvanus P. Thompson, March 16, 1897, Lodge Collection, UCL.




emphasized that his wave could penetrate almost everything.5' This strange comment was accompanied by his splendid practical successes. In March 1897 Marconi succeeded in transmitting over 4 miles; he conquered 8 miles of the Bristol Channel in May. Popular reports poured forth, and public interest in wireless telegraphy ran high.

With his secret box and vertical antenna, Marconi pulled the Hertzian waves out of the scientific laboratories. At first, as is often the case, scientists were not very effective outside their laboratories. Nobody could exactly guess what constituted Marconi's secret box. Nobody could explain why the Marconi wave could communicate across build- ings and even high hills. Most important, it was not certain why only Marconi could send the messages over several miles when all others had failed.53 The views of scientific authorities on Hertzian waves no longer held. Instead, a practical success, along with public recognition, became the new authority. As the editorial of the Electrician remarked, "Professor Marconi," along with Tesla and Edison, had become an authority on electrical science to the British public, instead of Lord Kelvin, George G. Stokes, and H. von Helmholtz.' An invisible battle between theory and practice was under way.

On June 4, 1897, Preece had planned a lecture on the "Signalling through Space without Wires." This was the first Friday Lecture on wireless telegraphy. Having heard this news, Lodge sent Preece a copy of his Friday Lecture in 1894, "to remind him" of what Lodge had already done.55 In the lecture, Preece compared Marconi to Columbus and applauded Marconi's feat as "a new system of telegraphy." From Lodge's 1894 lecture, Preece quoted Lodge's comment that "half a mile was nearer the limit of sensibility" and then proudly declared that "half a

5"When asked about the difference, Marconi answered, "I don't know. I am not a scientist, but I doubt if any scientist can tell you." See H. J. W. Dam, "Telegraphy without Wires: A Possibility of Electrical Science. II. The New Telegraphy-Interview with Signor Marconi," McClure' Magazine 8 (March 1897): 389-92. On an episode of how much the "Marconi wave" upset Silvanus Thompson, see Jane Smeal Thompson and Helen G. Thompson, Silvanus Phillips Thompson: His Life and Letters (New York, 1920), p. 81.

53Concerning Marconi's secret box, there was an interesting story. When Frederick T. Trouton, an assistant of FitzGerald, found an ordinary glass-tube coherer in Marconi's secret box, Marconi slammed it down again, saying, "you would steal my invention." On this, see Jolly, Sir Oliver Lodge (n. 5 above), p. 148. FitzGerald seems to have first solved the puzzle of the Marconi system. He analyzed that "what Marconi is doing with his kites, poles &c &c, is to manufacture an enormous radiator and it is not the short waves of his double ball arrangement that he is emitting and receiving but the very much longer waves of his whole system. By connecting to earth he uses the earth as the second plate of his transmitter.... Anyway a big open system is the thing." See George E FitzGerald to Oliver Lodge, October 30, 1897, Lodge Collection, UCL.

""The Man in the Street of Science" (lead article), Electrician 39 (1897): 546-47. 55Oliver Lodge to Silvanus P. Thompson, June 1, 1897, Lodge Collection, UCL.



738 Sungook Hong mile was the wildest dream." By doing so, Preece successfully derided a theoretician's rash prediction and "scored an effective hit.",%

The lecture was a blow not only to Lodge but also to most British Maxwellians who had engaged in controversy with Preece several years before. "Preece is," FitzGerald wrote to Lodge indignantly, "distinctly and intentionally scoffing at scientific men and deserves severe re- buke."57 Lodge was concerned about his credits as a mediator between pure scientific research and commercial wireless telegraphy. In his immediate response as a letter to the London Times, Lodge explained that the prediction of a half mile was "a scientific one, concerning the small and early apparatus." He emphasized that he himself showed "the same plan of signalling in 1894." Lodge also emphasized that Marconi's coherer had been used by Rayleigh and Lodge himself.8

Lodge here tried two different, but related, strategies. The first was to stress the essential similarity of his 1894 experiments to Marconi's telegraphy. As Lodge reminded Thompson, "we had the automatic tapping back in '94 at Oxford; ... we have really had the tapper worked as a relay too & collectors to the coherer; in fact, the whole thing except the best conducting vacuum coherer."59 Lodge's second strategy was to find the connection between the efforts of the British scientific men like Lodge and Marconi's wireless telegraphy. But neither of these two strategies was easy. Lodge's 1894 lectures were not of a telegraphic nature at all, and the connections of the British scientists with Marconi were too indirect. Frederick T. Trouton, an assistant of FitzGerald, had advised Marconi in 1893 or 1894 via one of Marconi's friends. But Trouton's advice proved neither scientific nor of the technical kind." Such efforts, however, became meaningless after Marconi's patent was accepted. The impact of Marconi's patent was much more profound than his practical successes.

Marconi Patent "for Everything" On June 16, 1897, about two weeks after Preece's Royal Institution

lecture, and two weeks before the final acceptance of Marconi's patent, an interesting demonstration was held at the Royal Society soiree. In the entrance hall, Preece and Marconi demonstrated wireless telegraphy in their receptive method of "Signalling through Space without Wires"; on

."Notes" (n. 45 above). For Preece's Friday Lecture, see William H. Preece, "Signalling through Space without Wires," Electrician 39 (1897): 216-18. The lecture was later published in the Proceedings of the Royal Institution 15 (1896/97): 467-76.

57George F. FitzGerald to Oliver Lodge, June 21, 1897, Lodge Collection, UCL. 'Oliver Lodge, "Telegraphy without Wires," London Times, June 22, 1897. "Lodge to Thompson, June 1, 1897 (n. 55 above). "FitzGerald to Lodge, June 21, 1897 (n. 57 above).




the second floor, Muirhead demonstrated the same "as practised by Dr. Oliver Lodge in 1894."Here, Muirhead used a Branly tube and a Morse inker, and Preece and Marconi used a Morse sounder. The distances between the transmitters and the receivers were about 100 feet. Accord- ing to the Electrician's judgment, "Lodge's system worked satisfactorily," and "the marking of the signals on the ribbon were undoubtedly distinct and readable.""61

From this brief description, we can notice that Alexander Muirhead had collaborated with Lodge, igniting the competition between Marconi's and Lodge's method. About a month earlier, Lodge had filed a patent on the "Improvements in Syntonized Telegraphy without Line Wires." As the tide indicates, the principle of syntony or tuning by varying the inductance of the transmitter and the receiver was its central part. The patent is now famous as the first patent on syntony. But its provisional specification claimed more than that. Another important claim was on Lodge's improvement of Branly's tube filings and its use as a detector. Lodge also made a claim on his tapping device such as an electric bell and a clockwork. In short, the patent was on the Lodgian system of wireless telegraphy.62

Marconi had filed his provisional specification on June 2, 1896, about a year before Lodge's patent. There was no doubt that Marconi's patent was the first patent on Hertzian wave telegraphy, but there existed much doubt about its power. For Marconi's success to be continued commercially, the patent had to be strong enough to overcome the subsequent litigation. But its provisional specification shows the immature Mar- conism clearly. For instance, as Aitken points out, it contains such passages as " when transmitting through the earth or water I connect one end of the tube or contact to earth and the other to conductors" (emphasis added). This illustrates Marconi's early conviction that waves from a vertical antenna were different from Hertzian waves." In addition, an automatic tapper of Marconi's own design, operated by the relay current, was described side by side with an independent trembler of Lodge's clockwork type. If he had committed the same mistake in the complete specification, he would have invalidated his patent.

61"Notes" (n. 45 above), p. 237. See also "The Royal Society Conversazione," Nature 56 (1897): 185.

6Oliver Lodge, "Improvements in Syntonized Telegraphy without Line Wires," no. 11,575, Provisional Specification (date of application, May 10, 1897), and Complete Specification (February 5, 1898; date of acceptance, August 10, 1898). For Lodge's syntony, see Aitken, Syntony and Spark (n. 4 above), pp. 130-42.

OAitken, Syntony and Spark, pp. 285-86, n. 12. See also Guglielmo Marconi, "Improve- ments in Transmitting Electrical Impulses and Signals, and in Apparatus Therefor, " no. 12,039, Provisional Specification (date of application, June 2, 1896). The content of the patent, of course, had been kept secret until its complete specification was accepted on July 2, 1897.



740 Sungook Hong Without doubt, Marconi could safely patent two things: a tapper

activated by the relay current," and an antenna, that is, the aerial and the earth connection for the transmitter and the coherer." Except for these two, the matter was extremely uncertain. His transmitter was of the Righi type, his detector was an improved Branly filing-tube coherer, and his relay and inker were ordinary telegraphic devices. The coherer was most problematic. Even though the British patent on invention was given to the one who had first applied for it rather than to the person who had first invented the device or published it, it was generally believed that Marconi's claim on the coherer must be a modest one, restricting his claim to the improvement of its sensitivity. Even expert opinion was vacillating, as is shown by the following remark of FitzGerald:

Trouton was sufficiently impressed with its [Marconi's secret box's] value to venture some money in the concern. Since finding out how the thing is really worked he has become much more doubtful as to the validity of the patents and has refused to put any more money into it. It is all a question of patent rights and may depend on such a question as that mercury [in the coherer] is important in order to make the thing work with certainty and that a hammer worked by the relay itself is important and so forth. If these things are of value and patentable, the patents may be of considerable importance. Branly's tube, Righi's emitter &c are all certainly impatentable, but so many things go to make up a workable invention that Marconi's patents may be valuable."

However, FitzGerald's conclusion was optimistic: "As far as I can judge from what I am told it is only details that are patentable and their value is not proved." The editorial opinion of the Electrician was similar. This predicted that Marconi's patent would not be a master patent, because the general principles underlying the apparatus, as well as the appara- tuses themselves, were not new.67 And there was another factor contrib- uting to such optimism. Since Marconi was not a man of science, he had probably committed an error in describing the principle of wireless telegraphy (as he did in his provisional specification). If such were the

"Even Lodge admitted Marconi's novelty in the tapping system. See Oliver Lodge, "Report to the Chief Engineer of the Government Telegraphs" (June 1900), in ADM. 116. 570, Public Record Office, London, p. 5.

'For a contemporary witness on Marconi's antenna, see A. Slaby, "The New Telegraphy: Recent Experiments in Telegraphy with Sparks," Century Magazine 55 (April 1898): 867-74, esp. 870-71. Even Lodge admitted that this was Marconi's highly original novelty. See Lodge, Signalling through Space without Wires (n. 21 above), p. 47.

"FitzGerald to Lodge, June 21, 1897 (n. 57 above). 67""Notes" (n. 45 above), p. 431.




case, the patent would be invalidated. At the very least, this might leave room for another patent.

The complete specification for Marconi's patent was filed on March 2, 1897. But, as Aitken comments, it was a "different kind of document entirely."" Between the provisional and complete specification, Marconi had secured the crucial assistance ofJ. Fletcher Moulton, certainly the most famous patent expert in Britain." Moulton's assistance surprised the Maxwellians. Thompson wrote to Lodge on June 30, 1897, "I happen to know that Moulton was called in to advise Marconi on the claim of his final specification of patent, .... and he advised him to claim everything. I understand that as the claim was drawn, they claim, for telegraphy, not only coherers, oscillators, & such like details, but even Hertz waves! ... there is nothing new except the Hertz wave, the oscillator & the coherer, and these are not patented nor patentable."70 Marconi's patent was accepted on July 2, 1897. Meanwhile, Marconi, who had been under the patronage of Preece and the Post Office, formed a private company to exploit his patent.71

As the contents of Marconi's patent were publicized, his secret box was finally opened (see fig. 4). Marconi detailed his inventions and attached nineteen claims. To everyone's surprise, most of these claims were related to coherers and the various methods of connecting them, such as the ground connection. The claims were not limited to his improvement, but to the coherer itself. There were claims on the ball transmitters of Righi type, relay and hammer tapper, even his improved induction coils and the antenna (elevated condenser plate, not vertical wire)." In addition, an awkward expression like "transmitting through earth and water" was replaced by a more refined expression like

6?Aitken, Syntony and Spark (n. 4 above), p. 204. 'John Fletcher Moulton (1844-1921) was the first Smith's Prizeman and Senior

Wrangler of the Mathematical Tripos in Cambridge, in 1868. He soon became Fellow of the Royal Society as a result of his electrical research and then engaged in legal works. See Hugh Fletcher Moulton, The Life of Lord Moulton (London, 1922); Dictionary of National Biography (1912-21), s.v. "John Fletcher Moulton," pp. 392-94.

"Silvanus P. Thompson to Oliver Lodge, June 30, 1897, Lodge Collection, UCL. 71It was on July 20, 1897, and the company was the Wireless Telegraph and Signal

Company. In February 1900 the name was changed to Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company. For the early history of the company, see W.J. Baker, A History of the Marconi Company (London, 1970), pp. 35 ff.

"Under the British patent system at that time, in which the comptroller of the Patent Office had no power over the contents of the patent, an inventor could claim as many inventions as he wanted in a single specification at his own risk. In cases of some new inventions, an inventor could deliberately forge the claims with the effect of monopolizing the "principle" of that invention, rather than merely a specific artifact. Marconi's patent was close to such cases. James Watt's powerful patent on his new steam engine with a separate condenser is another example. Refer to Encyclopaedia Britannica (Chicago, 1961),



742 Sungook Hong

' I M

-,t *,

FIG. 4.-Marconi around 1900 with his "secret box" open. (Courtesy of the Marconi Company Archives, Chelmsford.)

transmitting "where obstacles, such as many houses or a hill or moun- tains, intervene between the transmitter and the receiver."" In terms of scientific principles, there was no mistake. FitzGerald noted that "Moul- ton has drawn his patents too cutely to commit him to any particular theory of what he is doing." Even the critical Electrician appraised the specification as "a model of perspicuity.""

How did Marconi, who was thought of as a modest and open youth, dare to claim everything in the Hertzian waves? How did he claim an originality over the Branly tube that had been used and improved by Lodge, and over the ball transmitter of Righi type?75 Once Marconi's widely ranging patent was accepted, Lodge had to withdraw his claims on the coherer and tapping device in filing his complete specification the following year. Only the principle of syntony was left in Lodge's patent. With this defeat, Lodge must have felt an immense frustration and a feeling of betrayal.

s.v. "Patent," 17:372. See also E. Robinson, "James Watt and the Law of Patents," Technology and Culture 13 (1972): 115-39.

nGuglielmo Marconi, "Improvements in Transmitting Electrical Impulses and Signals, and in Apparatus Therefor," no. 12,039, Complete Specification (March 2, 1897). The patent is also printed in J.J. Fahie, A History of Wireless Telegraphy, 1838-1899 (New York, 1899), pp. 296-320.

74"Notes" (n. 45 above), p. 665. On FitzGerald's comment, see FitzGerald to Lodge, October 30, 1897 (n. 53 above).

'Just after Marconi's patent was published, Electrician published a series of articles on the coherer, including Lodge's "History of the Coherer Principle" (n. 19 above).




An element of nationalism deepened the frustration. Marconi was an Italian. The "ether" had been discovered by great British scientists like Faraday, Kelvin, and Maxwell. The Maxwellians were their heirs, but they had lost the priority of the discovery of electromagnetic waves to a German, Heinrich Hertz. Maxwell's electromagnetic wave was then named the Hertzian wave. Lodge tried to change its name to the "Maxwellian wave" at Oxford, but he failed as a result of the strong objection of another German scientist, Ludwig Boltzmann.76 The possibility of a commercial use of the ether was then opened by Marconi. This rendered Lodge twice narrowly anticipated by foreigners in important discoveries. Marconi's comprehensive patent worsened things. The immense use of wireless telegraphy during wartime and for naval ships seemed obvious. If Marconi's patent went unchallenged, it would monopolize not only Hertzian waves but also important British national interests. It was thus no accident that, after Marconi's patent, many British scientists and engineers such as J. J. Thomson, Minchin, Rollo Appleyard, and Campbell Swinton joined with Lodge in deprecat- ing Marconi's originality.77

As Thompson reported in 1899, "They were evidently purposely drafted as widely as possible to cover all possible extensions to telegraphy, explosion of mines, and the like, which, indeed, were talked about publicly in connection with Marconi from the first.... they are not patents for telegraphy, but for the transmission by Hertz waves of signals or impulses of any kind. .... In this sense beyond all question Lodge was using Hertz waves for a wireless 'telegraph' in 1894."78 For Lodge and Thompson, it was Marconi, with his marvelously broad claims, who first violated "the rules of the game." Thus, there was no need for them to follow the rules.

Constructing Lodge's Priority Now let us examine Aitken's first source, an article in the Electrician

entitled "Dr. Oliver Lodge's Apparatus for Wireless Telegraphy." The article was intentionally published side by side with Marconi's patent as the "best antidote of Marconism.""79 Aitken apparently thought that the article could support the claim of Lodge's telegraphy in 1894. But there was in fact no mention of Lodge's telegraphic trial. What the article said

76For this episode, see "The British Association," London Times, August 15, 1894; Lodge, Advancing Science (n. 31 above), pp. 162-63. Even after this, Lodge often used the term "Maxwellian wave"; see, e.g., his "History of the Coherer Principle," p. 89.

"Pocock (n. 5 above), pp. 103-5. 7Silvanus P. Thompson, "Report of Wireless Telegraph Patents" (1900), in ADM. 116.

570, Public Record Office, p. 38. ""Notes" (n. 45 above), p. 665.



744 Sungook Hong was that "Lodge described and exhibited publicly in operation a combination of sending and receiving apparatus constituting a system of telegraphy substantially the same as that now claimed in" Marconi's patent, and that "Dr. Lodge published enough three years ago to enable the most simple-minded 'practician' to compound a system of practical telegraphy."" These two strategies are exactly the same as Lodge's two strategies, namely, identifying the principles of his experiments in 1894 with those in Marconi's wireless telegraphy and stressing the possible influence of Lodge on Marconi.

After 1898, the "Maxwell-Hertz-Marconi" genealogy in wireless telegraphy was firmly established. More so, Lodge and Thompson tried all possible ways of refuting Marconi. In order to weaken Marconi's patent, they advertised that, due to the wires ("base lines," as Thompson called them), "there is no such thing as wireless telegraphy." They publicized other scientists' success, particularly Adolf Slaby's success in Germany.8" But, most important for our discussions, Lodge's 1894 experiments began to be interpreted as telegraphic in nature. Thompson for the first time forged the claim that "on several occasions, and notably at Oxford in 1894, he showed how such coherers could be used in transmitting telegraphic signals to a distance. He showed that they would work through solid walls. Lodge's great distance at that time had not exceeded some 100 or 150 yards. Communication was thus made between the University Museum and the adjacent building of the Clarendon Laboratory""82 (emphasis added). It marked the beginning of the long story of Lodge's telegraphy in 1894.

Thompson's "telegraphic interpretation" of Lodge's 1894 experiments did not appear in Lodge's own writings. In 1900, Lodge admitted that "the writer [Lodge] himself did not pursue the matter into telegraphic application, because he was unaware that there would be any demand for this kind of telegraph.""3 In the third edition of his Signalling thmugh Space without Wires (1900), which Fleming even criti- cized as "a perversion of fact,"84 Lodge's recollection was essentially the same, saying that "so far as the present author was concerned he did not realise that there would be any particular advantage in thus with difficulty telegraphing across space.... In this non-perception of the practical uses of wireless telegraphy he undoubtedly erred."85

80"Dr. Oliver Lodge's Apparatus for Wireless Telegraphy" (n. 9 above). 8"Thompson, "Telegraphy Across Space" (n. 40 above); "Dr. Lodge on Wireless

Telegraphy," Electrical Review 42 (1898): 103-4. 8"Thompson, "Telegraphy Across Space," p. 458. "Lodge, "Report to the Chief Engineer of the Government Telegraphs" (n. 64 above). 'MJohn Ambrose Fleming to Guglielmo Marconi, January 12, 1900, Marconi Company

Archives, Chelmsford. 'Lodge, Signalling thmugh Space without Wires (n. 21 above), p. 45.

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