Rudolph Diesel


Rudolph Diesel was born to Theodor and Elise Diesel in their small Paris apartment at 38 rue Notre-Dame de Nazareth. Theodore, in his late twenties, met Elise in Paris in 1855, they were married shortly after. Theodore was a leather worker, making small consumer goods, he had immigrated from Augsburg in Bavaria, in 1848. Elise was also from Augsburg, she was the daughter of a prosperous merchant.
Rudolph had an older sister, Louise, born in 1856, as well as a younger one. The younger sister, Emma, was born in 1859. At that time Theodore was having some business success, and moved the family into a new apartment on "rue de la Fontaine au Roi", where Theodore establish his small business downstairs. Theodore worked his shop from dawn to dusk, six days a week. He was a strong disciplinarian, but unfortunately, a poor manager of funds.
Rudolph was not allowed to bring friends over, and grew into a shy, but curious youngster. He spent most of time drawing and his curious nature almost got him killed when he tinkered with their apartment's gas distribution system. Small lies and screw ups were not tolerated by Rudolph's father, standard punishment was swift and hard.
Rudolph's artistic side was match with excellent academic performance, he spoke three languages. German was spoken at home, French at school, and English which was taught by his mom, a one time governess in London. Rudolph sought refuge and solace spending his free time at the 'Conservatoire des Art Metiers'. A repository for odd and ends of inventions. Rudolph finished elementary school, and was awarded a scholarship for excellence.
Meanwhile, France under the Emperor Napoleon III, was sliding into difficult times. A convenient target of this hardship was the growing confederation known as Germany, and it's dominant Prussian influence. The Diesel considered themselves Bavarian, with more of a French influence than Prussian, but unfortunately France declared war on Prussia on July 19, 1869. The French army was losing ground and displaced persons quickly engulfed Paris seeking refuge. Being of German descent, the Diesels were ordered out of the country. On September 6, the Diesels boarded a steamer from Rouen to New haven, England.
With little comforts, the Diesels manage to get by, Louise, the eldest daughter began to work in a private school. Rudolph was enrolled in a London school to continue his education. He was most impressed by the British Museum and the South Kensington Museum's exhibits of science and engineering. Theodore's cousin, Betty Barnickel, heard of their misfortune and offered to take in Rudolph into their home in Augsburg. So once again Rudolph boarded a steamer across the channel to Rotterdam.
Betty Barnickle was married to Cristoph Barnickel, he was a professor at the Augsburg's Royal District Trade School and they lived in a modest, warm home. They quickly fell in love with Rudolph, after all he was handsome, modest and intelligent. He was enrolled in a three year program at Koniglichen Kreis-Gewerbsschule, which offered outlets for all his deepest passion. Chemistry lab, art gallery, machine  shop and forge provided fertile ground for a young imaginative mind.
On his fourteen birthday, Rudolph announced he was to become an engineer. He wrote to his parents in July, 1871, to let them know his intentions to excel in his choice of career. With the war ending six month earlier, Rudolph's parents had moved back to Paris.
Theodore was anxious for his son to start earning some money, and soon after finishing industrial school, and placing first in his class, Rudolph returned to Paris. Then tragedy struck, Rudolph's sister, Louise, died of heart failure. With the Diesel Family grief-stricken, the Barnickel renewed their offer to have Rudolph come live with them back in Augsburg, Theodore accepted.
In 1883 Rudolph was enrolled in the mechanical engineering program, and as usual he excelled, graduating the youngest student with the highest marks ever. He was awarded a scholarship to Munchen Polytechnic. In Munchen, his interest broaden. He made several friendships during this time. Theodore and Elise then move to Munchen to find their towering son, 185 cm, now a German citizen and granted a scholarship and a deferment from the required three years of military service.
He found his parents a little strange, his father had turn to spirituality soon after his daughters death, he soon set himself up as a faith healer. In July 1879, Rudolph grew sicker as final examinations approached. He was soon diagnosed as having typhus, and spent a miserable, bedridden summer. He survived, but many Germans did not; Betty Barnickel did not.
In January 1880, Rudolph joined the Sulzer Engine Works in Winterthur Switzerland to begin his apprenticeship building refrigeration and steam engines. Although "just" an apprentice, a "bleu monteur" he grew more confident in his convictions and began his harden belief that there must be a better way. A better way to use the energy from the fuel that the most efficient steam plant used. At the time, 90% of the fuel was wasted, a blasphemy to Rudolph, who was raised to loathe waste from his strict father.
Then Rudolph read a book. A book by Sadi Carnot a gifted engineer with a specialization of thermodynamics. Reflexion sur la puissance motrisse de feu was published in 1824 and cut right to the heart of the heat engine, and gave us the "First Law of Thermodynamics"; which is "heat and mechanical energy are convertible to each other, but are never created or destroyed, only changed in form". Along with the other two "laws" Rudolph found the ideals he wanted to achieve.
As usual, Rudolph made quite an impression with his peers and supervisors, he was soon sent to Paris to oversee the building of a refrigeration plant. Although a jump in statute to white collar, he still earn blue collar wages; much too meagre of an existence, void of comforts.
But all that would change in the following year, 1881, Rudolph would finally see some payoff. He would see his salary double, his first patent (production of table ice in glass containers) and a love interest in the form of a mistress, Martha Flasche from the United States. She was the Governess of a well to do German family, the Brandes. The Brandes approved of Rudolph; his smarts, talents and growing salary were hard to ignore.
With the patent secured, Rudolph began to search for a manufacturer to build it. He then kindles a friendship with the Augsburg Machine Works in the town where he had studied. Carl Buz, and Carl Augustus Reichenbach, once managers, were now owners of the Machine Works. Soon they were making parts for Diesel's refrigeration machine. In late 1883, the ice machine worked and in November he and Martha were married. A whirlwind year ensued. Income was coming in from the refrigeration machine, good thing too, he and Martha give birth to their first child, Rudolph Jr.
In October 1885, Heddy, a baby girl is born, Martha and Rudolph second child, amidst economic troubles. France sentiment against the German and even Swiss made the ice machines a hard sell. As a result, Rudolph's income suffered. Violent headaches forgotten since his childhood, came back. On May 3, 1889, their third child is born, Eugen arrives into the world.
Amidst strong anti German sentiment in 1889, Rudolph is the only German engineer invited to give a his paper, "Revue Technique de l'Exposition Universelle" at the International Engineering Congress. Although he was warmly accepted as a Frenchman, he traded away his French refrigeration franchise, for the sales rights in Germany and some money. The new job was headquartered in Berlin, and Rudolph moved his family there in 1890. Martha loved it, but Rudolph had a hard time adjusting to the Prussian military social atmosphere.
But a chance encounter with an school mate rekindles his competitive spirit. He began to work his theories into an engine design, at first, it is declined a patent. On appeal, his "not original" idea is patented on February 28, 1892. He now had 15 years of protection and a need to find a builder for it. Remembering his friends at Augsburg, Rudolph approached Buz.
Buz, being the methodical, and accomplished engineer, turned him down. The design was based on "The theory and construction of a rational heat engine to replace steam engine and contemporary combustion engine" a title that didn't exactly warm Buz's heart, or make his factory's chief engineer - a staunch supporter of steam engines, enthusiastic about the new idea. He rewrote the manuscript, and Buz accepted to build a prototype. Patent were further sought in Germany, USA and England with a more confine description of the operation.
Rudolph's ideas result in a steady pay check for his work on the development of the new prime mover, and even better payoff if it becomes all that it is supposed to be. He goes on a frenzy of contract signing and names like Krupp and Sulzer lines up to sign deals to be part of the action. When the test began in July, and finally the first run, Rudolph realized it was not going to be easy, so much so, he moved the family into a more modest apartment. The engine showed promised, but it needed far reaching re-engineering.
Meanwhile, Cristoph Barnickel, in his fifties and widowed three years earlier, was dating Emma, Rudolph's youngest sister. They built a house after their marriage in September, and invite Rudolph to stay in Augsburg while he worked on the new engine. The new engine, redesigned ran for 88 revolutions - one minute, on February 17, 1894. Shortly after, Maschinefabrik Augsburg's stock rose by 30%. On January 17, 1895 Rudolph's patent was almost up, and they hurried to have a prototype running in order to maintain the patent. In between deal signing and brainstorming episodes they succeeded. The engine ran; all 16.93kW with an efficiency of 16.6%, and he was given the patent.
The first engine ready for testing was built on December 31, 1896; a much different engine than the one they had started with.
In 1897, Rudolph was busy; finally some financial success was coming to him. Companies were approaching him for the rights to build his new efficient engine. At home, Martha and the kids were moved into a new, luxurious apartment, complete with a staff. Rudolph also had a desire to build a mansion, and he bought a lot in Munchen for that purpose. He was gifted in many different fields, "including" personal finances, his gift was that no matter how much came in, more went out. All was not doom and gloom, as he took advantage of his windfall, taking up hobbies like photography, and enjoying the theatre and opera.
Making new friends was also in the cards. Graf Ferdinand von Zeppelin, Aldolphus Busch, a German immigrant who made it big brewing beer in the United States. The Busch were very wealthy and had the means to build Diesel's engine in the US. Upon advise from his adviser, Busch himself went to Germany, he then proceeded to buy the rights by nonchalantly writing a check for 1,000,000 marks. It was only the beginning. Newly formed companies line up for the opportunity to build the new engine.
On his fortieth birthday, Rudolph was riding high. A millionaire, on paper, five times over, a wife traveling the elite social crowds, three beautiful, smart children; along with his personal health and demeanour being radiant. This was thanks to his idea of a better world, and his hard work to put it together. Indeed a wonderful time for him.
In order to manage the explosive growth of the Diesel engine. Rudolph establishes a company to manage the licensing. It buys all patent, and is tasked with the further developments and management of the new engine. It is called the General Diesel Corporation, and is founded on September 17, 1898. Rudolph is paid a sum of 3.5 million German marks. Shortly after, he is diagnosed with nervous exhaustion and enters a private sanatorium in Munchen.
After leaving the sanatorium, not feeling any better, he was further agonized by the fantastic fortune beginning to roll in and the problems associated with it. The violent headaches were becoming more prevalent. The doctors decide that a "rest castle" in the Alps might be better for him, then the sanatorium close to home in April of 1898. While there, Rudolph invested heavily into an oil development in the Balkans, it went sour. He had lost 300,000 marks, at a time when his "dream" mansion, Maria - Theresia _ Strasse 32, was taking shape.
The mansion was magnificent. It had all the "modern luxuries", as well as kids amenities. Plumbing and wired to the highest standards, marble fireplaces in every room. Even the windows were custom made. The decoration was luxurious. Painted, vaulted ceiling, French furniture, Italian wardrobes etc. All, for a staggering sum of money. The Diesel's financial situation was hinging precariously close to disaster.
But all was not doomed. Rudolph was invited witness the first flight of the 128 meter Luftshiftf Zeppelin 1 airship. In 1900, the grandest event ever. The Diesel engine takes the Grand Prix, the highest prize, at the 1900 Paris Exposition. The exposition was attended by 50 million people. In 1904 Rudolph attended a car race in Germany, he came back excited, with one of his own, a machine, which could go so fast, a gas powered Mercedes. But he overestimated his ability to drive it, mainly his vision and gouty right foot, so he hired a driver. 
Later in that year Rudolph decided to travel to the United States. After spending some time in New York City, he traveled to St Louis where he was a guest of Adolphus Busch who was having a tough time selling the engine in the United State. He traveled far and wide, and took all the sight in. Amazingly, the trip rejuvenated him, and as soon as he came back to Germany, he designed and built a four cylinder "petite" version of his engine. That engine later wins the Grand Prix in Paris in 1910, once again.
In 1907 his daughter Heddy marries Arnold von Schmidt, an engineer. It's the social event of the year in Munchen. Amidst the wedding joy, the headaches came back, with an astonishing loss of 3.5 millions marks, it was no wonder. Additionally the patent ran out on the Diesel engine; indeed a tumultuous year for the Diesels.
In 1911, Rudolph is invited to be co-guest of honor with Sir Charles Parsons at the World Congress of Mechanical Engineers in London. Sir Parsons was the inventor of the compound steam turbine. Continuing in his travels, he and Martha go to the US once again to help Mr. Busch sell the floundering diesel engine in America. But America the land of plenty, the country has too many resources to really care about an efficient engine.
They return to the Germany and a lawsuit from a real estate company, he is forced to pay 600,000 marks. The headaches grow in severity. The latest financial woes brings up the total losses of the Diesel's up to nearly ten million marks. In 1913, he published a book about the origins of the Diesel engine. It makes a small dent into the his debt.
Along with war brewing in the Balkans and being a pacifist, times are hard. He takes life a bit slower, taking time to enjoy simpler things, like hiking. He sold the car to help pay some of his debts, and his friends commented on a "less proud man" that Mr. Diesel had become. His son, Rudolph, left school to become a clerk, much to the disappointment of Rudolph the senior. He soon married and had a son. Eugen, the Diesel's youngest son, had an intense desire to follow in his dad's footstep. Like his father, he apprentices as a "bleu monteur" at Sulzer.
With a mortgage on the new mansion, and war breaking out in the Balkans, the future seem quite bleak for Rudolph. He had been invited to England to dine with Sir Parsons. Martha had left to visit her mother in Remscheid. Before meeting up with Martha, he summoned his eldest son for a short visit. Rudolph Jr. later states that their time together was "bizarre", his father had taken him around the house and showed him the keys for the rooms. Eugen had left for Sulzer in Switzerland.
Rudolph on his way to England spends two weeks in Frankfurt with Heddy, Martha, and his grandchildren. Before leaving, he leaves with Martha a leather case, with instruction that it be well looked after, and not opened. On September 26, 1913, he boarded a slow train to Belgium, first class. In Gent, he checked in to the Hotel de la Poste, where 31 years earlier he had met Martha. He wrote her a loving, but confused letter; he misaddressed it and the letter does not reach her until a lengthy detour. On the 28, he writes his son, mentioning his headaches and insomnia troubles.
The next afternoon he boarded the steamer Dresden at Antwerp, with the line's owner and it's chief engineer, George Carels and Alfred Laukman, they had a pleasant dinner and Rudolph, he was said to be in good spirits. When Rudolph did not meet Mr Carels and Mr Laukman for breakfast, the ship was searched. Mr Diesel's cabin was empty, the bed had not been slept in and the luggage had not been opened. His coat and hat was found neatly folded under the stern railing. Capt H Hubert ordered the ship to search but to no avail, he was reported missing. The inventor's notebook had a small cross under the 29 of September, nothing else.
On October 10, a Belgian steamer Coertsen spotted a body in the water, it was left at sea. The effects taken from the body were later identified by Eugen Diesel in the Dutch port of Vlissingen as his father's articles. When Martha opened the bag Rudolph had left for her, she found twenty thousand marks, and financial statements showing all bank accounts were empty. It was evident Rudolph had taken his life.

Nicolaus Otto



Nicolaus Otto was born on June 14, 1832 in Holzhausen, Germany. Otto's first occupation was as a traveling salesman selling tea, coffee, and sugar. He soon developed an interest in the new technologies of the day and began experimenting with building four-stroke engines (inspired by Lenoir's two-stroke gas-driven internal combustion engine). After meeting Eugen Langen, a technician and owner of a sugar factory, Otto quit his job, and in 1864, the duo started the world's first engine manufacturing company N.A. Otto & Cie (now DEUTZ AG, Köln). In 1867, the pair were awarded a Gold Medal at the Paris World Exhibition for their atmospheric gas engine built a year earlier.

In May 1876, Nicolaus Otto built the first practical four-stroke piston cycle internal combustion engine. He continued to develop his four-stroke engine after 1876 and he considered his work finished after his invention of the first magneto ignition system for low voltage ignition in 1884. Otto's patent (see drawing below) was overturned in 1886 in favor of the patent granted to Alphonse Beau de Roaches for his four-stroke engine. However, Otto built a working engine while Roaches' design stayed on paper. On October 23, 1877, another patent for a gas-motor engine was issued to Nicolaus Otto, and Francis and William Crossley.

Nicolaus Otto died at age 59, on January 26, 1891, in Cologne.

James Watt




James Watt was an inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements in steam engine technology drove the Industrial Revolution.
Watt did not invent the steam engine. Steam engines were already in existence, mainly being used to pump water out of mines. He made important changes to the design, increasing efficiency and making steam engines cheaper to run.

Early childhood
James Watt was born in Greenock in 1736. He was not a healthy child and was educated at home for most of his early years.
His father was a carpenter and shipwright who set himself up in business as a merchant and ship-owner. Watt liked to make models and repair nautical instruments in his father's workshop.

Engineering work in Scotland
In 1755 Watt went to London to be an apprentice scientific instrument maker. He was a quick learner and mastered his craft in one year.
Aged 19 he returned to Glasgow, where he set up his own business. Before long he was recognised as a high-quality engineer, and employed on the Forth and Clyde Canal and the Caledonian Canal.
He was also involved in the improvement of harbours and in the deepening of Scottish rivers, including the Forth and the Clyde.

Improving steam engines
In the late 1750s, Watt met Joseph Black, who then was Professor of Chemistry at Glasgow University. The men became friends, and Watt provided model engines for Black to use in his lectures on the properties of heat.
One Sunday in 1765, Watt was struck by the idea that was to spark the Industrial Revolution.
Walking in a park near the Clyde, he suddenly he realised how he could make the standard Newcomen steam engine more efficient. He could use a separate chamber to condense steam without cooling the rest of the engine.
He patented his steam engine condensing chamber in 1769.

Boulton & Watt and the Industrial Revolution
In 1774, Watt started a business in Birmingham with investor Matthew Boulton to manufacture his improved steam engine.
The Boulton & Watt Company produced steam engines that could be used anywhere, and demand for them was high. Watt and Boulton became leading figures in the Industrial Revolution.
Watt continued to make improvements to steam engines, and patented other important inventions, such as the rotary engine and a steam locomotive.
His achievements were recognised by fellow scientists. He was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London, and became a Foreign Associate of the French Academy of Sciences.

Family and later life
Watt's first wife, Margaret, died in childbirth in 1773, leaving him with two young children. He married Ann in 1776 and had a son and a daughter, who died of consumption before their father's death.
James Watt died in 1819 in Heathfield, near Birmingham, aged 83.


Hendrik Antoon Lorentz



Hendrik Antoon Lorentz was born at Arnhem, The Netherlands, on July 18, 1853, as the son of nursery-owner Gerrit Frederik Lorentz and his wife n￩e Geertruida van Ginkel. When he was four years old, his mother died, and in 1862 his father married Luberta Hupkes. In those days the grade school did not only have school hours in the morning and in the afternoon, but also in the evening, when teaching was more free (in a sense resembling the Dalton method). In this way, when in 1866 the first highschool (H.B.S.) at Arnhem was opened, Hendrik Lorentz, as a gifted pupil, was ready to be placed in the 3rd form. After the 5th form and a year of study of the classics, he entered the University of Leyden in 1870, obtained his B.Sc. degree in mathematics and physics in 1871, and returned to Arnhem in 1872 to become a night-school teacher, at the same time preparing for his doctoral thesis on the reflection and refraction of light. In 1875, at the early age of 22, he obtained his doctor's degree, and only three years later he was appointed to the Chair of Theoretical Physics at Leyden, newly created for him. In spite of many invitations to chairs abroad, he always remained faithful to his Alma Mater. From 1912 onward, when he accepted a double function at Haarlem as Curator of Teyler's Physical Cabinet and Secretary of the "Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen" (Dutch Society of Sciences), he continued at Leyden as Extraordinary Professor, delivering his famous Monday morning lectures for the rest of his life. The far-seeing directors of Teyler's Foundation thus enabled his unique mind to be freed from routine academic obligations, permitting him to spread his wings still further in the highest secluded realms of science, which are attainable by so few.

From the start of his scientific work, Lorentz took it as his task to extend James Clerk Maxwell's theory of electricity and of light. Already in his doctor's thesis, he treated the reflection and refraction phenomena of light from this standpoint which was then quite new. His fundamental work in the fields of optics and electricity has revolutionized contemporary conceptions of the nature of matter.

In 1878, he published an essay on the relation between the velocity of light in a medium and the density and composition thereof. The resulting formula, proposed almost simultaneously by the Danish physicist Lorenz, has become known as the Lorenz-Lorentz formula.

Lorentz also made fundamental contributions to the study of the phenomena of moving bodies. In an extensive treatise on the aberration of light and the problems arising in connection with it, he followed A.J. Fresnel's hypothesis of the existence of an immovable ether, which freely penetrates all bodies. This assumption formed the basis of a general theory of the electrical and optical phenomena of moving bodies.

From Lorentz stems the conception of the electron; his view that his minute, electrically charged particle plays a r￴le during electromagnetic phenomena in ponderable matter made it possible to apply the molecular theory to the theory of electricity, and to explain the behaviour of light waves passing through moving, transparent bodies.

The so-called Lorentz transformation (1904) was based on the fact that electromagnetic forces between charges are subject to slight alterations due to their motion, resulting in a minute contraction in the size of moving bodies. It not only adequately explains the apparent absence of the relative motion of the Earth with respect to the ether, as indicated by the experiments of Michelson and Morley, but also paved the way for Einstein's special theory of relativity.

It may well be said that Lorentz was regarded by all theoretical physicists as the world's leading spirit, who completed what was left unfinished by his predecessors and prepared the ground for the fruitful reception of the new ideas based on the quantum theory.

In 1919, he was appointed Chairman of the Committee whose task it was to study the movements of sea water which could be expected during and after the reclamation of the Zuyderzee in The Netherlands, one of the greatest works of all times in hydraulic engineering. His theoretical calculations, the result of eight years of pioneering work, have been confirmed in actual practice in the most striking manner, and have ever since been of permanent value to the science of hydraulics.

An overwhelming number of honours and distinctions from all over the world were bestowed on Lorentz. International gatherings were presided over by him with exceptional skill, both on account of his amiable and judicious personality and his masterly command of languages. Until his death he was Chairman of all Solvay Congresses, and in 1923 he was elected to the membership of the "International Committee of Intellectual Cooperation" of the League of Nations. Of this Committee, consisting of only seven of the world's most eminent scholars, he became the President in 1925.

Through his great prestige in governmental circles in his own country, Lorentz was able to convince them of the importance of science for national production. He thus initiated the steps which finally led to the creation of the organisation now generally known under the initials T.N.O. (Dutch for Applied Scientific Research).

Lorentz was a man of immense personal charm. The very picture of unselfishness, full of genuine interest in whoever had the privilege of crossing his path, he endeared himself both to the leaders of his age and to the ordinary citizen.

In 1881 Lorentz married Aletta Catharina Kaiser, whose father, J.W. Kaiser, Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, was the Director of the Museum which later became the well-known Rijksmuseum (National Gallery) of Amsterdam, and the designer of the first postage stamps of The Netherlands. There were two daughters and one son from this marriage. The eldest daughter Dr. Geertruida Luberta Lorentz is a physicist in her own right and married Professor W.J. de Haas, Director of the Cryogenic Laboratory (Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory) of the University of Leyden.

Lorentz died at Haarlem on February 4, 1928.

Alessandro Volta



Alessandro Volta was born in Como, Italy in 1745. In 1774, he was appointed as professor of physics at the Royal School in Como. While at the Royal School, Alessandro Volta designed his first invention the electrophorus in 1774, a device that produced static electricity. For years at Como, he studied and experimented with atmospheric electricity by igniting static sparks. In 1779, Alessandro Volta was appointed professor of physics at the University of Pavia and it was while there that he invented his most famous invention, the voltaic pile.

Alessandro Volta - Voltaic Pile
Constructed of alternating discs of zinc and copper, with pieces of cardboard soaked in brine between the metals, the voltaic pile produced electrical current. The metallic conducting arc was used to carry the electricity over a greater distance. Alessandro Volta's voltaic pile was the first battery that produced a reliable, steady current of electricity.

Alessandro Volta - Luigi Galvani
One contemporary of Alessandro Volta was Luigi Galvani, in fact, it was Volta's disagreement with Galvani's theory of galvanic responses (animal tissue contained a form of electricity) that led Volta to build the voltaic pile to prove that electricity did not come from the animal tissue but was generated by the contact of different metals, brass and iron, in a moist environment. Ironically, both scientists were right.

Named In Honor of Alessandro Volta
Volt - The unit of electromotive force, or difference of potential, which will cause a current of one ampere to flow through a resistance of one ohm. Named for Italian physicist Alessandro Volta.
Photovoltaic - Photovoltaic are systems that convert light energy into electricity. The term "photo" is a stem from the Greek "phos," which means "light." "Volt" is named for Alessandro Volta, a pioneer in the study of electricity.

Alexander Graham Bell



Alexander Graham Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on 3rd March, 1847. His father was Alexander Melville Bell, a leading authority in elocution and speech correction. The second of three sons, Bell was mainly educated at home. However, he did spend two years in Edinburgh Royal High School and attended a few lectures at Edinburgh University.
In 1864 Bell began work as a teacher at Elgin's Western House Academy. Four years later he moved to London where he became his father's assistant. Bell's health began to deteriorate and as both his brothers both died of tuberculosis, and in 1870 the family decided to emigrate to Canada. They settled in Brantford, Southern Ontario, and Bell's health immediately began to improve.
Bell gave lectures on Visible Speech, a method of teaching speech to the deaf that had been developed by his father. In 1871 he was invited to give a series of speeches in the United States. He opened a school for the teachers of the deaf in Boston and in 1873 became professor of vocal physiology at the city's university.
After experimenting with various acoustical devices Bell produced the first intelligible telephonic transmission with a message to his assistant, Thomas Watson, on 5th June, 1875. When he heard that Elisha Gray was working on a similar device, Bell patented his telephone on 3rd March, 1876. The following year formed the Bell Telephone Company. The telephone was an instant success. Within three years there were 30,000 telephones in use around the world. Gray later claimed the invention of the telephone but lost the long legal battle in the Supreme Court. [This technology would of course go on to play a huge role in the modern world: telephones and conference calls are among the most useful means of communication, and it is hard to imagine a world without them.
With the 50,000 francs that he obtained from the French government for winning the Volta Prize in 1880, Bell established the Volta Laboratory in Washington. Over the next few years he invented the photophone, a machine which used selenium crystals to transmit words in a beam of light. This was followed by a device that could identify metal in the human body. This was used to locate bullets after someone had been shot.
In 1883 Bell invented the graphophone, the first practical system of sound recording. The laboratory also experimented with flat disc records, electroplating records, and impressing permanent magnetic fields on records (an early type of tape recorder).
In 1898 Bell became president of the National Geographic Society. With the help of Gilbert Grosvenor, his future son-in-law, Bell established the illustrated National Geographic Magazine. Bell also built a research laboratory in Nova Scotia where he invented an air-cooling system, a way of desalinating sea-water and a sorting machine for punch-coded census cards.
In his later years Bell took a keen interest in aeronautics. His wife, Mabel Hubbard Bell, founded the Aerial Experiment Association and Bell built giant man-carrying kites. In 1919 Bell produced a hydrofoil craft that reached speeds of 70 miles per hour.
Alexander Graham Bell died in Nova Scotia, Canada, on 2nd August, 1922.

Guglielmo Marconi


Guglielmo Marconi was born at Bologna, Italy, on April 25, 1874, the second son of Giuseppe Marconi, an Italian country gentleman, and Annie Jameson, daughter of Andrew Jameson of Daphne Castle in the County Wexford, Ireland. He was educated privately at Bologna, Florence and Leghorn. Even as a boy he took a keen interest in physical and electrical science and studied the works of Maxwell, Hertz, Righi, Lodge and others. In 1895 he began laboratory experiments at his father's country estate at Pontecchio where he succeeded in sending wireless signals over a distance of one and a half miles.
In 1896 Marconi took his apparatus to England where he was introduced to Mr. (later Sir) William Preece, Engineer-in-Chief of the Post Office, and later that year was granted the world's first patent for a system of wireless telegraphy. He demonstrated his system successfully in London, on Salisbury Plain and across the Bristol Channel, and in July 1897 formed The Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company Limited (in 1900 re-named Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company Limited). In the same year he gave a demonstration to the Italian Government at Spezia where wireless signals were sent over a distance of twelve miles. In 1899 he established wireless communication between France and England across the English Channel. He erected permanent wireless stations at The Needles, Isle of Wight, at Bournemouth and later at the Haven Hotel, Poole, Dorset.
In 1900 he took out his famous patent No. 7777 for "tuned or syntonic telegraphy" and, on an historic day in December 1901, determined to prove that wireless waves were not affected by the curvature of the Earth, he used his system for transmitting the first wireless signals across the Atlantic between Poldhu, Cornwall, and St. John's, Newfoundland, a distance of 2100 miles.
Between 1902 and 1912 he patented several new inventions. In 1902, during a voyage in the American liner "Philadelphia", he first demonstrated "daylight effect" relative to wireless communication and in the same year patented his magnetic detector which then became the standard wireless receiver for many years. In December 1902 he transmitted the first complete messages to Poldhu from stations at Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, and later Cape Cod, Massachusetts, these early tests culminating in 1907 in the opening of the first transatlantic commercial service between Glace Bay and Clifden, Ireland, after the first shorter-distance public service of wireless telegraphy had been established between Bari in Italy and Avidari in Montenegro. In 1905 he patented his horizontal directional aerial and in 1912 a "timed spark" system for generating continuous waves.
In 1914 he was commissioned in the Italian Army as a Lieutenant being later promoted to Captain, and in 1916 transferred to the Navy in the rank of Commander. He was a member of the Italian Government mission to the United States in 1917 and in 1919 was appointed Italian plenipotentiary delegate to the Paris Peace Conference. He was awarded the Italian Military Medal in 1919 in recognition of his war service.
During his war service in Italy he returned to his investigation of short waves, which he had used in his first experiments. After further tests by his collaborators in England, an intensive series of trials was conducted in 1923 between experimental installations at the Poldhu Station and in Marconi's yacht "Elettra" cruising in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, and this led to the establishment of the beam system for long distance communication. Proposals to use this system as a means of Imperial communications were accepted by the British Government and the first beam station, linking England and Canada, was opened in 1926, other stations being added the following year.
In 1931 Marconi began research into the propagation characteristics of still shorter waves, resulting in the opening in 1932 of the world's first microwave radiotelephone link between the Vatican City and the Pope's summer residence at Castel Gandolfo. Two years later at Sestri Levante he demonstrated his microwave radio beacon for ship navigation and in 1935, again in Italy, gave a practical demonstration of the principles of radar, the coming of which he had first foretold in a lecture to the American Institute of Radio Engineers in New York in 1922.
He has been the recipient of honorary doctorates of several universities and many other international honours and awards, among them the Nobel Prize for Physics, which in 1909 he shared with Professor Karl Braun, the Albert Medal of the Royal Society of Arts, the John Fritz Medal and the Kelvin Medal. He was decorated by the Tsar of Russia with the Order of St. Anne, the King of Italy created him Commander of the Order of St. Maurice and St. Lazarus, and awarded him the Grand Cross of the Order of the Crown of Italy in 1902. Marconi also received the freedom of the City of Rome (1903), and was created Chevalier of the Civil Order of Savoy in 1905. Many other distinctions of this kind followed. In 1914 he was both created a Senatore in the Italian Senate and app ointed Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order in England. He received the hereditary title of Marchese in 1929.
In 1905 he married the Hon. Beatrice O'Brien, daughter of the 14th Baron Inchiquin, the marriage being annulled in 1927, in which year he married the Countess Bezzi-Scali of Rome. He had one son and two daughters by his first and one daughter by his second wife. His recreations were hunting, cycling and motoring.
Marconi died in Rome on July 20, 1937.