He was a top rich second generation from an early age, and lived in a Baroque palace from birth;
He never went to a formal school, but he was fascinated by science and devoted his life to the field of global communications;
He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics before he was 40 years old, but 34 years later, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated his patent, finding Nikola Tesla a patent for radio;
His travels are all over Italy, Britain, the United States, and his circle of friends is vast and complex, with close relations with the Catholic faction, the British government, the American telecommunications industry, the German scientific community, European colonialism, the international news media, and even fascism...
Such a person, not only rich in family, but also has a strong legend, although extremely intelligent, but has always been an "outsider" in various groups, he is our protagonist today, the "father of radio" - Guglielmo Marconi.
Guglielmo Marconi Source: Wikipedia
Marconi is a true world-class celebrity in the modern field of communication, not only because he was the first to conduct global communication, but also because he was the first person to think about communication globally, and his discovery changed the world today. But he is also a complex personality, sometimes heroic, sometimes despicable, full of legendary stories.
This biography of Guglielmo Marconi looks back on his legendary life, with the addition of unpublished archives and fieldwork materials from 4 countries and in multiple languages. The author wants to tell us that Marconi's life and achievements did not belong only to Italy, that his imagination and invention transcended time, and that the world and we still live in his creations today.
The following excerpts are abridged from the Biography of Guglielmo Marconi
What we think of as a global networked media and communication system originated in the mid-19th century and early 20th century, when, for the first time, information traveled over long distances in the form of electronic signals. Telegraphs, telephones, and radio were the precursors of the Internet, iPods, and cell phones, although the many areas of early electronic communication and their impact on our way of life had not yet been explored and thought about.
The link between technological innovation and the business model of contemporary capitalist enterprises is one aspect, and the role of government management as a medium for comprehensive technological mediation of social interaction is another. The relationship between national sovereignty, colonialism, imperialism and transnational management mechanisms is another way of thinking.
All of this can be traced back to Marconi, and his story becomes the entry point for our thinking. From 1896, when the 22-year-old Marconi applied for his first patent in England to his death in Italy in 1937, every major innovation in electronic communication technology was centered on Marconi.
However, in the public mind, Marconi is the "inventor of the radio", and his contributions as an inventor are more limited than popular belief, which has long been the subject of heated debate in the industry. Marconi did drive some of the most significant advances in radiocommunication technology, but he was also a capable and sophisticated organizer unlike his competitors. As an entrepreneur inventor, he is well-versed in corporate strategy, media relations, government lobbying, international diplomacy, patents, and litigation, where his abilities are indisputably superior to those of his competitors.
There's only one thing Marconi is really interested in: extending mobile, personal, and long-distance communication to the ends of the earth (and beyond Earth, if we believe what some reports say). Some people are willing to call Marconi a genius, even if his genius lies only in his imagination.
Guglielmo Marconi Source: Wikipedia
In 1895, he began to try to send signals across the hills, and it was here, at The Griffney Estate. Some would say that this is talent.
In 1901, despite scientists claiming it was impossible, he successfully crossed the Atlantic, transmitting the signal from Cornwall to Newfoundland. If that's not talent, there's at least a lot of unbridled courage and imagination.
In 1924, he persuaded the British government to scrap a plan to surround the world with a series of radio stations and replace it with his latest design, shortwave radio communications. The Pope was a friend of Marconi's, but he did not trust Marconi's other donor, Mussolini.
So in 1931, Marconi created the world's first international broadcasting service for the Pope, from which the Vatican could deliver an unfiltered message to the faithful. Some say that in the development of commercial broadcasting, Marconi lost his bottom line, and he failed to see that radio broadcasting can or will go to the extreme of frivolity and boredom.
In March 1937, in several later public lectures, he once denounced through radio broadcasting that broadcasting had become a unilateral means of communication, and predicted that broadcasting would turn in another direction, that communication would become a means of exchange. He really has a talent for prophecy!
Marconi's career was characterized by — as Malcolm Gladwell put it in a 2011 Article on Computer Mice in The New York Times — "an evolution of ideas." Marconi's mind is long-distance, peer-to-peer communication, and his career has been devoted to making such communications cheap, effective, smooth, and, if you will, elegant, because such communication is intuitive, uncomplicated, and, yes, humane to the user.
There is a direct link between Marconi and today's social media, namely search engines, and program streaming can be used with a recognized inflammatory exclamation: the 20th century did not exist. In a sense, Marconi's imagination and vision transcended his time and saw directly where we are now.
The Biography of Guglielmo Marconi
Author: [Canada] Mark Raboy
Hunan Science and Technology Press
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