"The scientific man... does not expect that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up."
Nikola Tesia
In 1887 David Hughes transmitted Morse code over a short distance. A year later, Heinrich Hertz produced and detected his own radio waves, but he did not realize their practical use. It was only in 1891, when Nikola Tesia (1856-1943) began his researches, that radio technology started to come into its own.
Serbian-born Tesia, by then living in New York, was a practical inventor. He quickly saw the potential in the strange resonances and interactions caused by the alternating currents of his electrical experiments. He worked on radio for several years, filed several patents, presented his ideas in London, and created a working long-distance radio system in New York.
Tesia was distracted by the long, bitter war between his alternating-current electricity system and Thomas Edison's rival direct-curr.ent system, which left the way open to Guglieimo Marconi to take the public glory—and the money—from radio. Although the U.S. Patent Office did finally recognize Tesla's invention of radio, it was not until 1943, after Tesla's death, that they overturned Marconi's 1900 patent in favor of Tesla's earlier claims. One of the most world- changing inventions of all time, radio has given us television, the mobile phone, RADAR, wireless internet access, satellite navigation, radio telescopes, and even the microwave oven.
