The young Guglielmo Marconi indulged his passion for science in two attic rooms of the family home in Bologna, Italy. After reading about the work of Heinrich Hertz (who had developed equipment to...

The young Guglielmo Marconi indulged his passion for science in two attic rooms of the family home in Bologna, Italy. After reading about the work of Heinrich Hertz (who had developed equipment to send and detect electromagnetic waves), Marconi wondered whether these waves could be used to send messages as signals through the air, just as messages could be sent along wires in the telegraph and telephone. One night in 1895, Marconi completed an experiment where a transmitter was set up at one side of the room to send out radio signals, which were then picked up by a receiver connected to a bell 9m away. Soon, Marconi had developed his prototype to send and receive such signals over a distance of 2km. Marconi was quick to seize on the commercial applications of wireless telegraphy and obtained his first patent in 1897. He used this to form the Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company Limited, which then became Marconi’s Wireless Telegraphy Company Ltd in 1900 3 the forerunner of Marconi plc. Encouraged by the construction of a number of radio stations on the west coast of England and Ireland, Marconi was able to improve his equipment and grow his business. By 1901, he had successfully transmitted a signal from Cornwall, England to Newfoundland, Canada, and the Atlantic Ocean had been bridged by radio for the first time. In 1909, Marconi was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics, and in 1931 (on the 30th anniversary of his first transatlantic signal), his own voice circled the globe in a radio broadcast