MIRACLES OF SCIENCE 



Marconi service is in active competition with the 

 transatlantic cables in sending news from one conti- 

 nent to another. 



To the American public Professor Braun's name 

 is by no means so familiar as Signor Marconi's, but 

 the wireless system of the former is very generally 

 used in Germany, and is also extensively used in the 

 American army. Neither of the distinguished men 

 in question is the original discoverer of the method 

 of transmitting messages through the air, but they * 

 were among the most prominent developers of the 

 method. To Marconi unquestionably belongs the 

 honor of sending the first message across the ocean. 

 This transcendent fact was accomplished on the 12th 

 of December, 1901, a single letter being signalled 

 repeatedly on that day. Complete messages were 

 first sent December 21, 1902. 



Had the great German physicist Hertz been living, 

 it is probable that he would have been named along 

 with the two inventors of the wireless in connection 

 with the Nobel $>rize. For it was his investigation 

 that gave the clue to the practical work of his suc- 

 cessors. Even before Hertz made his demonstration 

 of the electro-magnetic waves that are used in send- 

 ing 'the wireless messages, the great Englishman, 

 Clerk Maxwell, had theoretically shown the existence 

 of such waves in connection with his electro-magnetic 

 theory of light. But the tangible demonstration was 

 made by Hertz through the development of a very 

 rapidly oscillating current of electricity which gener- 

 ates measurable waves in the ether. 



In all probability these waves differ in no wise 



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