The Wonder Book of Knowledge: The Marvels of Modern Industry and Invention, the Interesting Stories of Common Things, the Mysterious Processes of Nature Simply Explained
History
The Wonder Book of Knowledge: The Marvels of Modern Industry and Invention, the Interesting Stories of Common Things, the Mysterious Processes of Nature Simply Explained
Industrial arts -- History
It consists of a master station in the form of a box less than a foot
long and six inches deep, and any number of sub-stations that may be
required. Any voice within fifteen feet is taken by the receiving
instrument and carried over the wires to any distance within about a
thousand miles.
It has now been adopted by a great many business organizations as a
convenient means of inter-communication.
The Story of the Wireless Telegraph
Though one or more means of transmitting messages by electricity have
been known now for a great many years, the mechanisms by which they are
accomplished are understood only by those who take a general interest in
physical science, and the few to whom electrical communication is a
profession. So far as theory and details of working are concerned, there
are a good many people still in the same shadowy frame of mind as the
old Aberdeen postmaster, of whom the story is told. When asked to
explain the working of a telegraph instrument he said, “Look at that
sheep-dog. Suppose we hold his hind-quarters here and stretch him out
until his head reaches Glasgow. Then if we tread on his tail here he
will bark in Glasgow. As it is not convenient to stretch a dog, we
stretch a wire, and that serves the purpose.”
As the name implies, “stretching a wire” is unnecessary in wireless
telegraphy, though in order to understand the finer points of theory one
needs to stretch the imagination a little. That, however, is not so
much, because there is any inherent obscurity or difficulty in the
underlying principles, as because the mechanism of all electrical
effects is more or less intangible. Electricity and magnetism operate
across apparently empty space, and the links which connect cause and
effect have to be guessed at.
Three different methods have been made use of in wireless telegraphy,
which may be classed as conduction, induction and wave methods. In the
first method currents are sent through the earth from an electrode to
another at the sending station. In induction, use is made of the
property which alternating currents possess of exciting similar currents
in neighboring conductors, the aim being to get as intense a current as
possible in the secondary circuit. Mr. W. H. Preece, of England, by
combining the two, signaled in this way as far as forty miles. The third
and the only method which has proved practically available is by the use
of electro-magnetic waves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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