WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.660 Just for a moment, stop and think about the world 00:00:02.660 --> 00:00:04.459 around you. I mean, right now, the very fact 00:00:04.459 --> 00:00:07.620 that you can hear us is it's a product of wireless 00:00:07.620 --> 00:00:09.839 communication. It's completely invisible, isn't 00:00:09.839 --> 00:00:13.320 it? Wi -Fi, 5G, Bluetooth. It's everything. It's 00:00:13.320 --> 00:00:15.779 this network woven into the fabric of our lives, 00:00:15.839 --> 00:00:17.239 and we really don't give it a second thought. 00:00:17.519 --> 00:00:20.280 But if you trace that invisible web all the way 00:00:20.280 --> 00:00:23.100 back to its origin, its physical starting point, 00:00:23.179 --> 00:00:27.960 you land on one person, a truly towering and... 00:00:28.780 --> 00:00:30.879 let's be honest, intensely controversial figure. 00:00:31.059 --> 00:00:34.100 Guglielmo Marconi. Exactly. And his story is 00:00:34.100 --> 00:00:37.219 maybe the ultimate case study in what it means 00:00:37.219 --> 00:00:39.479 to be a modern inventor. Because it forces you 00:00:39.479 --> 00:00:41.299 to ask that question, right? What's the difference 00:00:41.299 --> 00:00:43.600 between the scientist who discovers a phenomenon 00:00:43.600 --> 00:00:46.579 in a lab? And the engineer who takes that discovery 00:00:46.579 --> 00:00:48.740 and scales it into something that changes the 00:00:48.740 --> 00:00:52.250 world. Marconi took what were just laboratory 00:00:52.250 --> 00:00:54.810 curiosities, these Tertian ways. And he turned 00:00:54.810 --> 00:00:57.329 them into a system, a robust, commercial, indispensable 00:00:57.329 --> 00:01:00.070 system that just changed everything. Navigation, 00:01:00.229 --> 00:01:03.009 warfare, broadcasting, it all changed practically 00:01:03.009 --> 00:01:05.150 overnight. So yeah, that's what we're going to 00:01:05.150 --> 00:01:08.849 do today. We are going to unpack the life and 00:01:08.849 --> 00:01:11.129 really the legacy of Guglielmo Giovanni Maria 00:01:11.129 --> 00:01:14.159 Marconi. And our mission for this deep dive is 00:01:14.159 --> 00:01:17.280 to get way beyond that simple label, the inventor 00:01:17.280 --> 00:01:20.439 of radio, because, well, that's not really the 00:01:20.439 --> 00:01:22.680 full story, is it? It's not even close. We need 00:01:22.680 --> 00:01:25.099 to look at the specific technical breakthroughs, 00:01:25.099 --> 00:01:27.780 the dramatic achievements at sea that made him 00:01:27.780 --> 00:01:29.819 a global celebrity. And then we have to get into 00:01:29.819 --> 00:01:32.959 the really messy stuff, the intense legal fights, 00:01:33.079 --> 00:01:35.739 the huge controversies over who invented what 00:01:35.739 --> 00:01:39.239 and his very complicated political life later 00:01:39.239 --> 00:01:42.810 on. That duality is the absolute key to understanding 00:01:42.810 --> 00:01:45.689 Marconi. You have to hold two sort of conflicting 00:01:45.689 --> 00:01:47.849 truths in your head at the same time. Okay, so 00:01:47.849 --> 00:01:50.069 what's the first truth? The first is that he 00:01:50.069 --> 00:01:52.689 was a Nobel laureate. He shared the 1909 Nobel 00:01:52.689 --> 00:01:55.790 Prize in Physics with Carl Ferdinand Braun. For 00:01:55.790 --> 00:01:57.870 the development of wireless telegraphy. Right. 00:01:57.950 --> 00:02:00.950 His work created the first truly global functioning 00:02:00.950 --> 00:02:03.650 wireless system. It's a foundation for almost 00:02:03.650 --> 00:02:05.590 everything we use today. But then there's the 00:02:05.590 --> 00:02:09.150 other truth, the big asterisk next to his name. 00:02:09.469 --> 00:02:12.569 The huge asterisk. Decades later, the U .S. Supreme 00:02:12.569 --> 00:02:15.729 Court basically invalidated his most important 00:02:15.729 --> 00:02:18.169 patent claims. They acknowledged that others 00:02:18.169 --> 00:02:21.150 like Nikola Tesla, Oliver Lodge and John Stone's 00:02:21.150 --> 00:02:24.270 Stone had actually anticipated many of the core 00:02:24.270 --> 00:02:27.110 ideas he patented and made a fortune from. So 00:02:27.110 --> 00:02:30.000 he's both. He's the architect of the global wireless 00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:32.340 network we live in. And he's also the central 00:02:32.340 --> 00:02:35.219 figure in maybe the most contested invention 00:02:35.219 --> 00:02:38.199 in all of modern history. OK, so to really understand 00:02:38.199 --> 00:02:41.389 how he became this. this global networker, we 00:02:41.389 --> 00:02:44.229 have to go back to the beginning, to Villa Graffoni, 00:02:44.409 --> 00:02:46.969 his family's estate near Bologna, Italy. He was 00:02:46.969 --> 00:02:49.509 born there in 1874. And that family background 00:02:49.509 --> 00:02:51.729 is so important. It really set the stage for 00:02:51.729 --> 00:02:54.509 his international career. His father, Giuseppe 00:02:54.509 --> 00:02:56.889 Marconi, was a wealthy Italian aristocrat, a 00:02:56.889 --> 00:02:58.930 landowner. But his mother wasn't Italian. No, 00:02:58.969 --> 00:03:00.590 his mother, Annie Jameson, was from Ireland. 00:03:01.039 --> 00:03:02.960 And she was the granddaughter of John Jameson. 00:03:02.960 --> 00:03:06.000 As in Jameson Irish whiskey. The very same. So 00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:07.900 this meant that Marconi grew up spending a lot 00:03:07.900 --> 00:03:09.919 of time in England. He traveled. He was completely 00:03:09.919 --> 00:03:12.319 fluent in English and Italian. Which must have 00:03:12.319 --> 00:03:14.400 been a massive advantage later on when he was 00:03:14.400 --> 00:03:16.520 looking for patents and investment outside of 00:03:16.520 --> 00:03:18.979 Italy. Oh, profound advantage. It gave him this 00:03:18.979 --> 00:03:21.979 cultural literacy and ease of movement that was 00:03:21.979 --> 00:03:24.460 just essential. What's really striking, though, 00:03:24.500 --> 00:03:27.400 is his education. For someone who would become 00:03:27.400 --> 00:03:30.360 this... you know, giant of technology. He didn't 00:03:30.360 --> 00:03:33.139 really have a formal education. Not in the traditional 00:03:33.139 --> 00:03:35.500 sense. He was essentially homeschooled. He had 00:03:35.500 --> 00:03:38.840 private tutors for chemistry, math, physics. 00:03:39.099 --> 00:03:40.719 And this was often happening while the family 00:03:40.719 --> 00:03:42.560 was on the move, right? Going to warmer places 00:03:42.560 --> 00:03:45.099 in the winter. Exactly. From Bologna to Tuscany 00:03:45.099 --> 00:03:48.240 or Florence. And, you know, while that might 00:03:48.240 --> 00:03:51.780 sound like a disadvantage, that lack of rigid 00:03:51.780 --> 00:03:53.740 structure. It might have actually helped him. 00:03:53.879 --> 00:03:57.099 I think it did. It let him follow his own curiosity 00:03:57.099 --> 00:03:59.439 with this incredible focus. He wasn't stuck in 00:03:59.439 --> 00:04:01.680 a curriculum. He could just dive deep into what 00:04:01.680 --> 00:04:03.860 interested him. And what was it that guided him 00:04:03.860 --> 00:04:07.740 specifically towards electromagnetic waves? Two 00:04:07.740 --> 00:04:10.500 key mentors, really. The first was a man named 00:04:10.500 --> 00:04:12.879 Vincenzo Rosa, a physics teacher in Livorno. 00:04:13.120 --> 00:04:15.740 And what did he teach the young Marconi? He gave 00:04:15.740 --> 00:04:18.399 him the basics, the fundamental concepts of electricity, 00:04:18.740 --> 00:04:20.959 all the new theories. This was his foundation 00:04:20.959 --> 00:04:23.639 when he was about 17. But the really pivotal 00:04:23.639 --> 00:04:26.220 connection was with Professor Augusto Rie at 00:04:26.220 --> 00:04:28.740 the University of Bologna. Yes. Rie was a top 00:04:28.740 --> 00:04:30.980 physicist, and he was doing major research on 00:04:30.980 --> 00:04:33.420 the work of Heinrich Hertz. The man who proved 00:04:33.420 --> 00:04:37.120 radio waves existed? The man himself. Hertz had 00:04:37.120 --> 00:04:39.180 just recently proven the existence of what he 00:04:39.180 --> 00:04:43.079 called Hertzian waves. So Rie was at the absolute 00:04:43.079 --> 00:04:46.040 cutting edge. And Marconi, even without being 00:04:46.040 --> 00:04:48.680 a formal student, managed to get access. He did. 00:04:49.040 --> 00:04:51.740 At age 18, he convinced Reed to let him attend 00:04:51.740 --> 00:04:54.740 lectures and, crucially, use the university's 00:04:54.740 --> 00:04:58.000 lab and library. That access was just priceless. 00:04:58.079 --> 00:04:59.939 It put him right at the center of the action. 00:05:00.120 --> 00:05:02.139 So he's surrounded by all this brand new science. 00:05:02.220 --> 00:05:03.879 This is where we hit that critical distinction 00:05:03.879 --> 00:05:06.660 you mentioned earlier, the scientific gap. What 00:05:06.660 --> 00:05:09.379 was the accepted wisdom at the time among physicists 00:05:09.379 --> 00:05:13.019 like Hertz? The consensus was pretty clear. Hertz 00:05:13.019 --> 00:05:15.579 had proven the ways existed, sure. But in the 00:05:15.579 --> 00:05:17.740 lab, they behaved exactly like light. Meaning 00:05:17.740 --> 00:05:20.319 they traveled in straight lines. Straight lines. 00:05:20.500 --> 00:05:22.579 They were limited to line of sight. If there 00:05:22.579 --> 00:05:24.620 was a hill or even just the curve of the Earth 00:05:24.620 --> 00:05:27.160 in the way, the signal was gone. It would just 00:05:27.160 --> 00:05:30.160 shoo off into space. So from their perspective, 00:05:30.399 --> 00:05:32.879 it wasn't very useful for long distance communication. 00:05:33.459 --> 00:05:36.639 Not at all. People like Hertz and another pioneer. 00:05:37.180 --> 00:05:40.000 Oliver Lodge, they mostly dismissed the commercial 00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:42.600 or military value. They saw it as this really 00:05:42.600 --> 00:05:44.680 interesting scientific phenomenon, something 00:05:44.680 --> 00:05:47.160 for academics to study. But not a communication 00:05:47.160 --> 00:05:49.800 revolution. No, just a cool thing you could do 00:05:49.800 --> 00:05:52.540 in a lab. So what was it about Marconi? Why did 00:05:52.540 --> 00:05:55.019 he look at the same phenomenon and see a global 00:05:55.019 --> 00:05:58.279 network? It was his mindset. He wasn't a physicist 00:05:58.279 --> 00:06:01.199 in that pure academic sense. He was an engineer. 00:06:01.680 --> 00:06:03.939 He had a practical, goal -oriented mind. He wasn't 00:06:03.939 --> 00:06:06.560 trying to prove why the waves existed. No, Hertz 00:06:06.560 --> 00:06:08.920 had already done that. Marconi's single driving 00:06:08.920 --> 00:06:12.480 goal was to turn this scientific curiosity into 00:06:12.480 --> 00:06:15.759 a practical, repeatable, marketable system. He 00:06:15.759 --> 00:06:18.160 immediately saw the commercial and military potential, 00:06:18.459 --> 00:06:21.100 if he could just push the range beyond the horizon. 00:06:21.300 --> 00:06:23.319 And that focus on application was what set him 00:06:23.319 --> 00:06:25.620 apart. Completely. That's why he's the one we're 00:06:25.620 --> 00:06:27.899 talking about today. That focus drove him back 00:06:27.899 --> 00:06:31.790 to his family home, Villa Graffoni. and his lab 00:06:31.790 --> 00:06:35.170 was not exactly state -of -the -art. Not even 00:06:35.170 --> 00:06:38.509 close. At age 20, his laboratory was the attic. 00:06:38.709 --> 00:06:41.329 He just started building his own equipment, trying 00:06:41.329 --> 00:06:43.750 to replicate and improve on what he'd read about 00:06:43.750 --> 00:06:46.029 from Hertz and Rigi. And the sources mention 00:06:46.029 --> 00:06:48.490 he had some help. Yeah, which is a great little 00:06:48.490 --> 00:06:50.990 detail. His assistant was often his family's 00:06:50.990 --> 00:06:54.379 butler, a man named Mignani. Wow. So you have 00:06:54.379 --> 00:06:57.660 this young aristocratic inventor and his butler 00:06:57.660 --> 00:07:00.300 up in an attic piecing together the technology 00:07:00.300 --> 00:07:02.420 that would eventually connect the entire planet. 00:07:02.560 --> 00:07:04.600 It's a pretty powerful image, isn't it? It is. 00:07:04.639 --> 00:07:07.040 Now, a key piece of that technology, something 00:07:07.040 --> 00:07:09.879 he didn't invent but massively improved, was 00:07:09.879 --> 00:07:12.300 the coherer. We need to spend a minute on this. 00:07:12.360 --> 00:07:15.180 What was it? The coherer was the detector. It 00:07:15.180 --> 00:07:17.850 was the ear of the whole system. Originally, 00:07:17.850 --> 00:07:20.029 it was a little glass tube with some loose metal 00:07:20.029 --> 00:07:23.029 filings inside. Just loose metal shavings. That's 00:07:23.029 --> 00:07:26.269 it. Nickel, silver, things like that. Normally, 00:07:26.490 --> 00:07:28.769 those filings have a very high electrical resistance. 00:07:29.410 --> 00:07:32.569 But when a radio wave hits the tube, the energy 00:07:32.569 --> 00:07:36.930 makes the little particles, well, cohere. They 00:07:36.930 --> 00:07:38.759 stick together for a moment. And that sticking 00:07:38.759 --> 00:07:41.899 together changes the electrical properties. Drastically. 00:07:42.160 --> 00:07:45.079 The resistance plummets, and that allows a current 00:07:45.079 --> 00:07:47.259 from a battery to flow through, which can then 00:07:47.259 --> 00:07:49.600 ring a bell or make a mark on a paper tape. But 00:07:49.600 --> 00:07:52.399 the original design had a major flaw, right? 00:07:52.420 --> 00:07:55.339 A huge one. Once the filings cohered, they stayed 00:07:55.339 --> 00:07:58.160 that way. To detect the next signal, you had 00:07:58.160 --> 00:08:00.040 to physically tap the tube to shake them loose 00:08:00.040 --> 00:08:02.439 again. Which is completely useless for receiving 00:08:02.439 --> 00:08:04.639 Morse code. You can't be tapping a tube for every 00:08:04.639 --> 00:08:07.759 dot and dash. You can't. And that's where Marconi's 00:08:07.759 --> 00:08:10.120 engineering brilliance comes in. He refined it. 00:08:10.199 --> 00:08:12.220 He used a vacuum in the tube. He changed the 00:08:12.220 --> 00:08:14.480 filings. And most importantly, he built a little 00:08:14.480 --> 00:08:16.740 automatic tapper into the system. So the same 00:08:16.740 --> 00:08:19.180 mechanism that recorded the dot also reset the 00:08:19.180 --> 00:08:21.720 device for the next one. Exactly. It made the 00:08:21.720 --> 00:08:25.180 coherer sensitive, reliable, and fast enough 00:08:25.180 --> 00:08:28.220 to actually receive telegraph messages. He turned 00:08:28.220 --> 00:08:30.610 it from a novelty... into a practical instrument. 00:08:30.790 --> 00:08:33.690 And his first successes in 1894 were based on 00:08:33.690 --> 00:08:36.070 this. They were. He built a little storm alarm 00:08:36.070 --> 00:08:38.509 to ring a bell when lightning, which creates 00:08:38.509 --> 00:08:41.210 radio waves, flashed nearby. And then came the 00:08:41.210 --> 00:08:44.110 famous demonstration for his mother. Yes. He 00:08:44.110 --> 00:08:45.870 set up a transmitter in one room and the receiver 00:08:45.870 --> 00:08:48.909 in another. He pressed a telegraph key, and across 00:08:48.909 --> 00:08:51.929 the room, a bell rang. No wires. That was the 00:08:51.929 --> 00:08:54.409 proof of concept. A bell across a room is one 00:08:54.409 --> 00:08:56.639 thing. But he had to assemble this into a full 00:08:56.639 --> 00:08:58.779 system to go any farther. What were the five 00:08:58.779 --> 00:09:01.500 key parts of that first successful design? You 00:09:01.500 --> 00:09:04.000 can think of it as a complete chain. First, the 00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:06.539 transmitter, a simple spark gap device to create 00:09:06.539 --> 00:09:09.240 the radio waves. Okay. Second, the antenna, an 00:09:09.240 --> 00:09:12.120 elevated wire just hung up high. Third, the receiver, 00:09:12.299 --> 00:09:15.059 which was his improved self -resetting coherer. 00:09:15.139 --> 00:09:17.580 And then the input and output. Fourth, the input, 00:09:17.740 --> 00:09:20.100 a standard telegraph key to send the Morse code. 00:09:20.299 --> 00:09:23.860 And fifth, the output. A telegraph register that 00:09:23.860 --> 00:09:25.580 would print the dots and dashes onto a paper 00:09:25.580 --> 00:09:29.240 tape. That's the whole system. And in 1895, he 00:09:29.240 --> 00:09:32.279 takes it outside onto his father's estate. And 00:09:32.279 --> 00:09:34.580 that's when the real revelation happens. This 00:09:34.580 --> 00:09:36.779 is the moment. Initially, he's only getting a 00:09:36.779 --> 00:09:40.120 range of about half a mile, 800 meters. Which 00:09:40.120 --> 00:09:42.059 is exactly what the line of sight theory predicted. 00:09:42.500 --> 00:09:44.659 Precisely. Any other scientist might have just 00:09:44.659 --> 00:09:46.919 packed it in and said, well, Lodge was right. 00:09:47.100 --> 00:09:49.240 But he kept going. What did he do differently? 00:09:49.580 --> 00:09:52.539 He was a telegrapher, not just a physicist. And 00:09:52.539 --> 00:09:55.299 he tried something from the world of wired telegraphy 00:09:55.299 --> 00:09:57.919 that the physicists had totally overlooked for 00:09:57.919 --> 00:10:00.600 radio waves. Which was? Grounding. He did two 00:10:00.600 --> 00:10:03.620 things. He raised his antenna much higher, and 00:10:03.620 --> 00:10:05.659 then, this is the critical part, he connected 00:10:05.659 --> 00:10:08.120 both the transmitter and the receiver to the 00:10:08.120 --> 00:10:10.940 Earth. He grounded them. Why was that so revolutionary? 00:10:11.100 --> 00:10:14.159 It feels counterintuitive. You're trying to send 00:10:14.159 --> 00:10:17.000 waves into the air, not the ground. It fundamentally 00:10:17.000 --> 00:10:19.960 changes the physics of the wave. By connecting 00:10:19.960 --> 00:10:22.539 the elevated wire to the Earth, you create what's 00:10:22.539 --> 00:10:25.620 called the monopole antenna. It forces the system 00:10:25.620 --> 00:10:28.240 to radiate vertically polarized waves. And those 00:10:28.240 --> 00:10:30.779 waves can follow the curve of the Earth. They 00:10:30.779 --> 00:10:32.980 hug it. It's called ground wave propagation. 00:10:33.940 --> 00:10:36.259 The conductive surface of the Earth basically 00:10:36.259 --> 00:10:39.840 guides the signal along. And the result was immediate 00:10:39.840 --> 00:10:42.480 and staggering. What was in the new range? It 00:10:42.480 --> 00:10:45.840 jumped to two miles. Over three kilometers. And 00:10:45.840 --> 00:10:48.220 most importantly, the signal could travel over 00:10:48.220 --> 00:10:50.840 the hills on the estate. That was it. That was 00:10:50.840 --> 00:10:53.039 the proof that long distance wireless communication 00:10:53.039 --> 00:10:55.720 was possible. It completely broke the line of 00:10:55.720 --> 00:10:59.139 sight limitation. It was the technical aha moment. 00:10:59.440 --> 00:11:02.679 So he has this definitive proof in 1895. He must 00:11:02.679 --> 00:11:04.860 have been celebrated in Italy. You would think 00:11:04.860 --> 00:11:07.639 so. But he applied to the Italian Ministry of 00:11:07.639 --> 00:11:10.620 Post and Telegraphs for funding. And they turned 00:11:10.620 --> 00:11:12.799 him down flat. They just said no. Said it had 00:11:12.799 --> 00:11:15.460 no practical use. There's a famous, maybe slightly 00:11:15.460 --> 00:11:17.679 embellished story that one of the ministers suggested 00:11:17.679 --> 00:11:20.159 he be committed to an asylum. The bottom line 00:11:20.159 --> 00:11:22.159 was the Italian establishment just didn't see 00:11:22.159 --> 00:11:24.080 it. Which pushed him directly to Great Britain. 00:11:24.299 --> 00:11:26.639 In 1896, he packed up his gear and moved to London. 00:11:27.120 --> 00:11:29.240 His English and his family connections gave him 00:11:29.240 --> 00:11:32.159 an in. And though the customs agents at Dover 00:11:32.159 --> 00:11:34.419 apparently broke some of his equipment thinking 00:11:34.419 --> 00:11:37.149 it was a bomb. Wow, really? Yeah, that's how 00:11:37.149 --> 00:11:39.470 new it all was. But he quickly got the attention 00:11:39.470 --> 00:11:41.870 of William Preece, the chief electrical engineer 00:11:41.870 --> 00:11:44.169 of the General Post Office. And Preece became 00:11:44.169 --> 00:11:47.210 his champion. His most important supporter. And 00:11:47.210 --> 00:11:51.710 just a few months later, in June 1896, Marconi 00:11:51.710 --> 00:11:55.450 filed for and received British Patent No. 112Z 00:11:55.450 --> 00:11:58.549 and 39. The first ever patent for a system of 00:11:58.549 --> 00:12:01.230 communication using radio waves. That was his 00:12:01.230 --> 00:12:04.009 official entry onto the world stage. He was no 00:12:04.009 --> 00:12:06.509 longer just an inventor in an attic. He was a 00:12:06.509 --> 00:12:09.710 serious government -backed pioneer. And once 00:12:09.710 --> 00:12:11.450 he had that backing in Britain, his progress 00:12:11.450 --> 00:12:14.250 just seems to explode. It's just one public demonstration 00:12:14.250 --> 00:12:16.509 after another, each one bigger than the last. 00:12:16.730 --> 00:12:19.490 Momentum was incredible. He sends a signal three 00:12:19.490 --> 00:12:22.710 miles across Salisbury Plain. Then on May 13, 00:12:23.009 --> 00:12:26.470 1897, the big one. the first wireless communication 00:12:26.470 --> 00:12:29.289 over open sea. This was across the Bristol Channel. 00:12:29.570 --> 00:12:31.909 Yes, from Flat Home Island to Lavernoch Point. 00:12:32.049 --> 00:12:34.889 Three miles, and the message itself was so fitting. 00:12:35.029 --> 00:12:37.309 What was it? Are you ready? Perfect. That must 00:12:37.309 --> 00:12:39.350 have immediately shown the maritime and naval 00:12:39.350 --> 00:12:42.470 potential. Absolutely. And William Priest was 00:12:42.470 --> 00:12:45.269 a master publicist. He gave these huge lectures 00:12:45.269 --> 00:12:48.070 in London, signaling through space without wires. 00:12:48.389 --> 00:12:50.909 And suddenly Marconi was an international name. 00:12:51.110 --> 00:12:53.710 The scale just keeps increasing after that. It 00:12:53.710 --> 00:12:56.759 does. Tests for Lloyd's of London in Ireland. 00:12:57.059 --> 00:13:00.240 Then in 1899, he transmits across the entire 00:13:00.240 --> 00:13:03.620 English Channel. From France to England, no wires. 00:13:03.940 --> 00:13:06.080 But the thing that really proved its value, the 00:13:06.080 --> 00:13:07.980 thing that made it essential, wasn't a business 00:13:07.980 --> 00:13:11.059 deal. It was a disaster. This is the moment the 00:13:11.059 --> 00:13:13.919 narrative changes forever. Wireless goes from 00:13:13.919 --> 00:13:17.299 being a convenience to being a lifesaver. March 00:13:17.299 --> 00:13:21.620 17, 1899. A light ship, the East Goodwin. set 00:13:21.620 --> 00:13:23.899 the first ever wireless distress signal. What 00:13:23.899 --> 00:13:26.000 happened? A merchant ship called the Elba had 00:13:26.000 --> 00:13:28.539 run aground on the Goodwin Sands. The light ship's 00:13:28.539 --> 00:13:30.720 signal was picked up and the Ramsgate lifeboat 00:13:30.720 --> 00:13:33.019 was launched. It directly saved lives. And that 00:13:33.019 --> 00:13:35.240 single event must have cemented its importance 00:13:35.240 --> 00:13:37.460 in everyone's mind. It proved the technology 00:13:37.460 --> 00:13:39.539 wasn't just about money or military advantage. 00:13:39.919 --> 00:13:42.659 It was about human survival. After that, he makes 00:13:42.659 --> 00:13:46.320 his big debut in America. Yep, in 1899, the New 00:13:46.320 --> 00:13:48.639 York Herald brings him over to cover the America's 00:13:48.639 --> 00:13:51.820 Cup races. But the really clever demonstration 00:13:51.820 --> 00:13:55.200 was on a passenger ship, the SS St. Paul. What 00:13:55.200 --> 00:13:57.559 did he do on board? His equipment let the ship 00:13:57.559 --> 00:13:59.919 report its arrival back in Great Britain while 00:13:59.919 --> 00:14:02.799 it was still 66 nautical miles from shore. And 00:14:02.799 --> 00:14:04.639 that's also where the first shipboard newspaper 00:14:04.639 --> 00:14:06.679 was born, right? That's right, the Transatlantic 00:14:06.679 --> 00:14:09.440 Times. They received news about the start of 00:14:09.440 --> 00:14:12.720 the Second Boer War by wireless and printed a 00:14:12.720 --> 00:14:14.659 newspaper for the passengers right there on the 00:14:14.659 --> 00:14:17.440 ocean. It's just one brilliant PR move after 00:14:17.440 --> 00:14:19.799 another. It is. And it was all building toward 00:14:19.799 --> 00:14:22.539 the single biggest goal of all, crossing the 00:14:22.539 --> 00:14:25.340 Atlantic. The ultimate prize, to compete directly 00:14:25.340 --> 00:14:27.860 with the undersea telegraph cables. This was 00:14:27.860 --> 00:14:30.259 the moonshot of its day. People were excited, 00:14:30.340 --> 00:14:33.360 but also deeply, deeply skeptical. He built these 00:14:33.360 --> 00:14:36.100 enormous high -power stations in Cornwall, England. 00:14:36.360 --> 00:14:39.360 And then on December 12, 1901, he makes the claim. 00:14:39.440 --> 00:14:41.879 The claim that shocked the world. He said that 00:14:41.879 --> 00:14:44.139 from Signal Hill in Niffinland, he had heard 00:14:44.139 --> 00:14:47.639 the Morse code letter S. Three faint clicks sent 00:14:47.639 --> 00:14:50.259 from over 2 ,200 miles away in Cornwall. This 00:14:50.259 --> 00:14:52.559 claim just flew in the face of all the accepted 00:14:52.559 --> 00:14:55.559 physics. But as our sources make clear, there 00:14:55.559 --> 00:14:57.840 are some pretty big questions about that 1901 00:14:57.840 --> 00:15:00.559 test. Oh, huge questions. We have to be critical 00:15:00.559 --> 00:15:03.399 here. First off, he did the test during the daytime. 00:15:03.679 --> 00:15:05.980 Which we now know is the worst possible time. 00:15:06.139 --> 00:15:09.100 The absolute worst. The sun energizes a layer 00:15:09.100 --> 00:15:11.299 of the atmosphere called the ionosphere, and 00:15:11.299 --> 00:15:14.200 it just soaks up. Medium wave radio signals like 00:15:14.200 --> 00:15:16.440 a sponge. So the signal should have been completely 00:15:16.440 --> 00:15:19.299 gone long before it reached Newfoundland. Based 00:15:19.299 --> 00:15:22.840 on what we know now, yes. Second, he knew what 00:15:22.840 --> 00:15:25.500 he was listening for. Those three clicks. That 00:15:25.500 --> 00:15:27.440 makes it really easy for your brain to pick out 00:15:27.440 --> 00:15:29.820 a pattern from random noise. Confirmation bias. 00:15:30.080 --> 00:15:33.500 Exactly. And the signal was reported as faint 00:15:33.500 --> 00:15:36.259 and sporadic. with no independent confirmation 00:15:36.259 --> 00:15:38.639 at all. It was impossible to really distinguish 00:15:38.639 --> 00:15:41.100 it from atmospheric static. So it was a world 00:15:41.100 --> 00:15:43.200 -changing claim, but the evidence was pretty 00:15:43.200 --> 00:15:45.580 thin. Very thin, which is why he immediately 00:15:45.580 --> 00:15:48.500 organized a better, more scientific test to shut 00:15:48.500 --> 00:15:50.500 the skeptics up. This was the test on board the 00:15:50.500 --> 00:15:54.720 SS Philadelphia in 1902. Yes. This time, everything 00:15:54.720 --> 00:15:58.240 was documented. They had the coherer making marks 00:15:58.240 --> 00:16:00.860 on a paper tape as the ship sailed away from 00:16:00.860 --> 00:16:04.289 England. And this test... produced a monumental 00:16:04.289 --> 00:16:07.250 scientific discovery. What did they find? They 00:16:07.250 --> 00:16:09.929 confirmed they could get signals on tape up to 00:16:09.929 --> 00:16:14.090 1 ,550 miles away. But the crucial discovery 00:16:14.090 --> 00:16:16.870 was the difference between day and night. The 00:16:16.870 --> 00:16:18.850 range was better at night. Massively better. 00:16:19.009 --> 00:16:21.370 Those maximum distances were only achievable 00:16:21.370 --> 00:16:23.970 at night. During the day, the reliable range 00:16:23.970 --> 00:16:27.059 dropped to about 700 miles. So that was the first 00:16:27.059 --> 00:16:29.779 real proof that something in the atmosphere was 00:16:29.779 --> 00:16:32.120 affecting the signals. It was the first empirical 00:16:32.120 --> 00:16:35.259 proof of the ionosphere's effect. Marconi didn't 00:16:35.259 --> 00:16:37.100 know what it was, but he proved it was there. 00:16:37.399 --> 00:16:39.700 He proved that radio waves could reflect off 00:16:39.700 --> 00:16:41.639 something high in the atmosphere, especially 00:16:41.639 --> 00:16:43.679 at night when the sun wasn't interfering. And 00:16:43.679 --> 00:16:46.539 that discovery paved the way for actual, reliable 00:16:46.539 --> 00:16:49.929 commercial service. It did. By late 1902, the 00:16:49.929 --> 00:16:51.809 first messages were crossing from North America. 00:16:51.950 --> 00:16:55.110 By 1907, a regular commercial transatlantic service 00:16:55.110 --> 00:16:57.289 was up and running. But the event that would 00:16:57.289 --> 00:16:59.669 permanently cement Marconi and his invention 00:16:59.669 --> 00:17:02.509 in the public consciousness was, of course, the 00:17:02.509 --> 00:17:06.230 Titanic disaster in 1912. The Titanic is the 00:17:06.230 --> 00:17:09.390 story that makes wireless immortal. And it's 00:17:09.390 --> 00:17:12.130 so important to remember the two wireless operators 00:17:12.130 --> 00:17:15.539 on board. Jack Phillips, and Harold Bride. They 00:17:15.539 --> 00:17:17.640 weren't employees of the cruise line. No, they 00:17:17.640 --> 00:17:19.599 worked for the Marconi Company. They were Marconi's 00:17:19.599 --> 00:17:22.240 men. And the SOS they sent was the only reason 00:17:22.240 --> 00:17:24.539 anyone from the Carpathia knew to come for the 00:17:24.539 --> 00:17:26.779 survivors. Right. Britain's postmaster general 00:17:26.779 --> 00:17:30.099 said it best. Those who have been saved have 00:17:30.099 --> 00:17:33.500 been saved through one man, Mr. Marconi, and 00:17:33.500 --> 00:17:36.819 his marvelous invention. After Titanic, having 00:17:36.819 --> 00:17:39.220 reliable wireless on every ship wasn't just a 00:17:39.220 --> 00:17:42.119 good idea. It was the law. And there's that just 00:17:42.119 --> 00:17:45.059 unbelievable, almost fateful anecdote about Marconi 00:17:45.059 --> 00:17:47.359 himself. It's incredible. He was offered free 00:17:47.359 --> 00:17:49.480 passage on the Titanic for its maiden voyage. 00:17:49.720 --> 00:17:51.539 But he didn't take it. He took the Lusitania 00:17:51.539 --> 00:17:53.859 three days earlier. Apparently he had some paperwork 00:17:53.859 --> 00:17:56.380 to do and preferred the public stenographer on 00:17:56.380 --> 00:17:58.400 the other ship. A stenographer saved his life. 00:17:58.559 --> 00:18:01.970 A simple, mundane choice. It's a powerful reminder 00:18:01.970 --> 00:18:04.890 of the role of chance in history. So the Titanic, 00:18:05.269 --> 00:18:08.289 as horrific as it was, made Marconi a global 00:18:08.289 --> 00:18:11.150 hero and made his company incredibly powerful 00:18:11.150 --> 00:18:13.829 and profitable, which, of course, is what leads 00:18:13.829 --> 00:18:16.750 directly into the patent wars. That's the perfect 00:18:16.750 --> 00:18:19.299 pivot. Because as soon as the technology became 00:18:19.299 --> 00:18:22.339 essential and worth billions, the fight over 00:18:22.339 --> 00:18:25.180 who really invented it became absolutely vicious. 00:18:25.519 --> 00:18:28.259 And that fight starts with the very device he 00:18:28.259 --> 00:18:30.940 used for that famous 1901 transatlantic test. 00:18:31.180 --> 00:18:33.599 We need to look closer at that specific detector. 00:18:33.960 --> 00:18:36.200 Right. It wasn't the simple coherer we talked 00:18:36.200 --> 00:18:38.960 about earlier. Yeah. For the 1901 test, he was 00:18:38.960 --> 00:18:41.940 using a much more sensitive mercury coherer connected 00:18:41.940 --> 00:18:44.140 to a telephone earpiece. Which was self -restoring, 00:18:44.180 --> 00:18:46.099 right? No chapper needed. Correct. Which made 00:18:46.099 --> 00:18:48.829 it far more reliable. But this brings us to the 00:18:48.829 --> 00:18:52.269 Italian Navy coherer scandal. Because Marconi 00:18:52.269 --> 00:18:54.970 didn't invent this version either. No. The original 00:18:54.970 --> 00:18:56.829 design for this type of solid -state detector 00:18:56.829 --> 00:18:59.569 came from an Indian scientist, Sir Jagadish Chandra 00:18:59.569 --> 00:19:02.589 Bose. A professor in Calcutta? Yes. And he described 00:19:02.589 --> 00:19:05.269 a very similar device in a paper way back in 00:19:05.269 --> 00:19:09.269 1899, two years before Marconi's test. So how 00:19:09.269 --> 00:19:12.119 did Marconi get his hands on it? He got an adapted 00:19:12.119 --> 00:19:14.599 version from an Italian Navy lieutenant named 00:19:14.599 --> 00:19:17.980 Luigi Solari. The whole origin story got very 00:19:17.980 --> 00:19:20.740 messy and political, with different people claiming 00:19:20.740 --> 00:19:24.099 different inventors. But the key point is Marconi's 00:19:24.099 --> 00:19:27.500 reaction to all this. It is. Initially, he tried 00:19:27.500 --> 00:19:30.200 to patent the device in his own name. He later 00:19:30.200 --> 00:19:32.970 changed it to Credit Solari. But in all his public 00:19:32.970 --> 00:19:35.690 accounts and private letters, he consistently, 00:19:35.869 --> 00:19:38.930 well, he just ignored Bose. He wrote Bose's foundational 00:19:38.930 --> 00:19:41.349 work completely out of the story. Which tells 00:19:41.349 --> 00:19:43.490 you a lot about his priority. It wasn't about 00:19:43.490 --> 00:19:45.910 scientific credit. It was about consolidating 00:19:45.910 --> 00:19:48.089 patents for the Marconi company. He was ruthless 00:19:48.089 --> 00:19:50.490 in that regard. He's building a system and he 00:19:50.490 --> 00:19:52.309 needed to own every part of it or at least control 00:19:52.309 --> 00:19:54.470 the narrative around it. But the ultimate judgment 00:19:54.470 --> 00:19:56.289 on all this didn't come from the scientific community. 00:19:56.569 --> 00:19:58.849 It came from the U .S. Supreme Court in 1943. 00:19:59.829 --> 00:20:01.589 This is the moment we need to really break down 00:20:01.589 --> 00:20:04.210 for everyone. This is the legal climax of the 00:20:04.210 --> 00:20:07.130 entire story. The court case came about because 00:20:07.130 --> 00:20:09.430 the U .S. government had used a lot of radio 00:20:09.430 --> 00:20:12.349 technology during World War I, and the Marconi 00:20:12.349 --> 00:20:15.549 company was suing them for massive patent infringement 00:20:15.549 --> 00:20:18.190 fees. So the government had a pretty strong financial 00:20:18.190 --> 00:20:20.670 motive to challenge Marconi's patents. Yeah, 00:20:20.670 --> 00:20:23.609 massive motive. To avoid paying a fortune, they 00:20:23.609 --> 00:20:26.950 had to prove that Marconi wasn't the sole fundamental 00:20:26.950 --> 00:20:29.599 inventor. And what was the specific patent they 00:20:29.599 --> 00:20:34.700 went after? His big one. Patent number 763 ,772. 00:20:35.150 --> 00:20:37.490 This was the patent for the four -circuit tuning 00:20:37.490 --> 00:20:40.170 system. The technology that lets you tune a radio 00:20:40.170 --> 00:20:42.490 to a specific station, right? Absolutely essential 00:20:42.490 --> 00:20:44.490 for it to be commercially useful. The absolute 00:20:44.490 --> 00:20:46.950 core of it. And the court's ruling was that this 00:20:46.950 --> 00:20:49.109 patent was invalid because it was anticipated 00:20:49.109 --> 00:20:51.250 by others. Meaning someone else had invented 00:20:51.250 --> 00:20:54.390 the key ideas first. Yes. The ruling systematically 00:20:54.390 --> 00:20:57.130 restored the prior patents of Alderver Lodge, 00:20:57.309 --> 00:21:00.529 John Stone Stone, and most famously, Nikola Tesla. 00:21:00.809 --> 00:21:03.329 So what did the court say Tesla invented before 00:21:03.329 --> 00:21:06.240 Marconi? The court pointed to Tesla's earlier 00:21:06.240 --> 00:21:09.220 patents from the 1890s that describe the fundamental 00:21:09.220 --> 00:21:12.640 components of a tuned system. The coupled transformer, 00:21:12.900 --> 00:21:16.099 the synchronization of two circuits, a transmitter 00:21:16.099 --> 00:21:19.289 and a receiver. Tesla had laid out the basic 00:21:19.289 --> 00:21:21.470 architecture. And Oliver Lodge had contributed 00:21:21.470 --> 00:21:23.849 a piece of it, too. Yes. Lodge had developed 00:21:23.849 --> 00:21:26.130 the idea of variable inductance, which is how 00:21:26.130 --> 00:21:28.829 you physically tune the circuit. The court looked 00:21:28.829 --> 00:21:31.250 at the timeline and concluded that while Marconi 00:21:31.250 --> 00:21:33.690 had put it all together into a brilliant commercial 00:21:33.690 --> 00:21:36.829 package. The foundational patentable ideas were 00:21:36.829 --> 00:21:39.589 already there. They belong to Tesla and Lodge. 00:21:39.730 --> 00:21:42.109 That's the essential takeaway. The U .S. legal 00:21:42.109 --> 00:21:44.509 system decided that Marconi was an unparalleled 00:21:44.509 --> 00:21:47.390 engineer and a brilliant businessman who scaled 00:21:47.390 --> 00:21:49.970 the technology, but he was not the original inventor 00:21:49.970 --> 00:21:52.190 of its core principles. It's a huge distinction. 00:21:52.349 --> 00:21:54.170 It doesn't take away from what he built, but 00:21:54.170 --> 00:21:56.490 it completely reframes the story of where radio 00:21:56.490 --> 00:21:59.150 came from. Absolutely. He was the great integrator 00:21:59.150 --> 00:22:02.029 and commercializer. He took these brilliant but 00:22:02.029 --> 00:22:04.509 scattered ideas from the labs of Hertz, Tesla, 00:22:04.710 --> 00:22:07.690 Lodge, and Bose, and he hammered them into a 00:22:07.690 --> 00:22:11.880 global communication network. But the 1943 ruling 00:22:11.880 --> 00:22:14.220 makes it impossible to just call him the inventor. 00:22:14.440 --> 00:22:16.920 Even with these patent fights, Marconi's work 00:22:16.920 --> 00:22:19.480 kept evolving. His company had been built on 00:22:19.480 --> 00:22:21.839 spark gap transmitters, which were good for Morse 00:22:21.839 --> 00:22:24.200 code. But terrible for anything else. They were 00:22:24.200 --> 00:22:26.359 noisy and inefficient. You couldn't transmit 00:22:26.359 --> 00:22:29.019 a human voice or music with a spark. The future 00:22:29.019 --> 00:22:31.619 was in continuous wave transmissions. Right, 00:22:31.720 --> 00:22:34.470 which was made possible by the vacuum tube. A 00:22:34.470 --> 00:22:37.630 continuous wave is a clean, stable signal that 00:22:37.630 --> 00:22:40.309 you can modulate with audio. That was the key 00:22:40.309 --> 00:22:42.509 to broadcasting as you know it. And Marconi's 00:22:42.509 --> 00:22:45.650 company eventually made that pivot. It did. By 00:22:45.650 --> 00:22:48.029 1920, his factory in Chelmsford was doing some 00:22:48.029 --> 00:22:50.049 of the first entertainment radio broadcasts in 00:22:50.049 --> 00:22:52.690 the UK. This was the work that directly led to 00:22:52.690 --> 00:22:54.970 the formation of the BBC a couple years later. 00:22:55.470 --> 00:22:57.529 So he helps create the mass media landscape, 00:22:57.650 --> 00:22:59.750 and he also personally connects one of the world's 00:22:59.750 --> 00:23:02.890 oldest institutions to this new network. That's 00:23:02.890 --> 00:23:06.529 a fascinating moment. In 1931, he personally 00:23:06.529 --> 00:23:08.990 supervised the setup of Vatican Radio for Pope 00:23:08.990 --> 00:23:11.369 Pius XI. And he was there for the first broadcast. 00:23:11.609 --> 00:23:14.029 He was. He stood at the microphone and introduced 00:23:14.029 --> 00:23:16.650 the pope's first radio address to the world. 00:23:17.099 --> 00:23:19.740 It was this incredible merger of ancient tradition 00:23:19.740 --> 00:23:22.660 and brand new technology. But this final chapter 00:23:22.660 --> 00:23:24.759 of his life is where this story takes a very 00:23:24.759 --> 00:23:27.480 dark turn. We have to talk about his politics 00:23:27.480 --> 00:23:30.700 and his open embrace of Italian fascism. We have 00:23:30.700 --> 00:23:32.900 to. And we have to be impartial and just look 00:23:32.900 --> 00:23:35.140 at the facts. He joined the National Fascist 00:23:35.140 --> 00:23:37.680 Party in 1923. And he wasn't just a rank and 00:23:37.680 --> 00:23:39.640 file member. Not at all. He was a huge celebrity. 00:23:40.079 --> 00:23:42.819 And the regime used him. Mussolini appointed 00:23:42.819 --> 00:23:45.359 him president of the Royal Academy of Italy and 00:23:45.359 --> 00:23:47.259 made him a member of the Fascist Grand Council. 00:23:47.680 --> 00:23:50.920 These were very high ranking, powerful positions. 00:23:51.240 --> 00:23:53.700 And he used that platform to actively promote 00:23:53.700 --> 00:23:56.299 fascist ideology. He even drew these strange 00:23:56.299 --> 00:23:59.039 analogies between his science and their politics. 00:23:59.440 --> 00:24:02.319 It's incredibly chilling to read today. He gave 00:24:02.319 --> 00:24:04.799 a speech where he said, I reclaim the honor of 00:24:04.799 --> 00:24:06.839 being the first fascist in the field of radio 00:24:06.839 --> 00:24:09.069 telegraphy. What did he mean by that? He made 00:24:09.069 --> 00:24:11.430 an analogy. He said that just as he had learned 00:24:11.430 --> 00:24:13.789 to join electric rays into a focused bundle for 00:24:13.789 --> 00:24:16.630 efficient transmission, Mussolini had been the 00:24:16.630 --> 00:24:19.170 first to merge all the energies of the country 00:24:19.170 --> 00:24:21.849 into a bundle for the greatness of Italy. He's 00:24:21.849 --> 00:24:24.430 using his scientific authority to create a metaphor 00:24:24.430 --> 00:24:27.029 for totalitarian control. That's exactly what 00:24:27.029 --> 00:24:29.890 he's doing. And sadly, it wasn't just talk. Documents 00:24:29.890 --> 00:24:32.829 that came out in 2002 show that he actively colluded 00:24:32.829 --> 00:24:35.130 with Mussolini's anti -Semitic campaigns. I thought 00:24:35.130 --> 00:24:37.990 so. As president of the Royal Academy, he used 00:24:37.990 --> 00:24:40.509 his power to prevent Jewish scientists from becoming 00:24:40.509 --> 00:24:43.750 members in the 1930s. He was an active participant 00:24:43.750 --> 00:24:46.390 in the regime's discriminatory policies. So his 00:24:46.390 --> 00:24:49.130 final years are this strange mix of continued 00:24:49.130 --> 00:24:51.490 innovation. He was working on microwave technology 00:24:51.490 --> 00:24:54.009 while also serving as a willing and powerful 00:24:54.009 --> 00:24:56.569 propagandist for a totalitarian. And his health 00:24:56.569 --> 00:24:58.490 was failing. He had a series of heart attacks 00:24:58.490 --> 00:25:02.670 and died in Rome in 1937 at age 63. But the world's 00:25:02.670 --> 00:25:04.849 reaction to his death showed just how monumental 00:25:04.849 --> 00:25:08.230 his creation was. The global silence. It's an 00:25:08.230 --> 00:25:10.609 incredible tribute. At the request of the British 00:25:10.609 --> 00:25:13.269 Post Office and others, radio transmitters all 00:25:13.269 --> 00:25:16.130 over the world went silent for two minutes in 00:25:16.130 --> 00:25:18.769 his honor. The invisible network he built just 00:25:18.769 --> 00:25:21.349 paused. To acknowledge its architect. It's a 00:25:21.349 --> 00:25:23.930 powerful, complicated moment. And just a final 00:25:23.930 --> 00:25:26.599 note on his personal life. His will also caused 00:25:26.599 --> 00:25:29.339 some controversy. Yes. He had divorced his first 00:25:29.339 --> 00:25:32.240 wife and remarried. When he died, for reasons 00:25:32.240 --> 00:25:34.539 that are still not clear, he left his entire 00:25:34.539 --> 00:25:37.259 considerable fortune to his second wife and their 00:25:37.259 --> 00:25:39.619 one child. And left nothing to the children from 00:25:39.619 --> 00:25:42.140 his first marriage. Nothing at all. Another complex 00:25:42.140 --> 00:25:45.240 piece of a very complex man. So when we pull 00:25:45.240 --> 00:25:48.039 back and look at the whole story, his central 00:25:48.039 --> 00:25:50.859 achievement seems so clear. It wasn't the pure 00:25:50.859 --> 00:25:55.079 science. That came from Hertz, Tesla, Bose, Lodge. 00:25:55.160 --> 00:25:57.200 No, his genius was in the application. He was 00:25:57.200 --> 00:25:59.460 in the relentless engineering. He took a collection 00:25:59.460 --> 00:26:02.319 of lab experiments and forged them into a robust, 00:26:02.539 --> 00:26:05.200 marketable, global system. He was the one who 00:26:05.200 --> 00:26:07.720 refused to believe that radio waves were limited 00:26:07.720 --> 00:26:10.839 by the horizon, and he proved it. He was the 00:26:10.839 --> 00:26:14.819 integrator, the entrepreneur, the man who industrialized 00:26:14.819 --> 00:26:17.160 the revolution, even if he didn't invent all 00:26:17.160 --> 00:26:20.170 the parts. So the key takeaway for you listening 00:26:20.170 --> 00:26:22.690 to this is to make that distinction. The difference 00:26:22.690 --> 00:26:25.069 between the inventor of the underlying science 00:26:25.069 --> 00:26:27.829 and the inventor of the practical scalable system. 00:26:28.410 --> 00:26:31.230 Marconi was absolutely the latter. Which brings 00:26:31.230 --> 00:26:33.589 us back to that ethical dimension. Marconi himself 00:26:33.589 --> 00:26:35.930 apparently asked the question once. He wondered, 00:26:36.049 --> 00:26:39.170 have I done the world good or have I added a 00:26:39.170 --> 00:26:41.609 menace? And the answer really seems to be both. 00:26:42.250 --> 00:26:44.930 On one hand, his system saved hundreds of lives 00:26:44.930 --> 00:26:47.529 in the Titanic disaster and made the seas safer 00:26:47.529 --> 00:26:50.529 for everyone. Absolutely. But on the other hand, 00:26:50.589 --> 00:26:53.150 that same technology was immediately weaponized 00:26:53.150 --> 00:26:55.950 for military communication in World War I. And 00:26:55.950 --> 00:26:58.569 he himself used his fame to promote a fascist 00:26:58.569 --> 00:27:00.480 regime. So we'll leave you with this to think 00:27:00.480 --> 00:27:02.940 about. Marconi's technology was inherently global 00:27:02.940 --> 00:27:05.299 and had military value from the moment it was 00:27:05.299 --> 00:27:07.980 born. So what responsibility does an inventor 00:27:07.980 --> 00:27:10.160 like that have for how their creation is used? 00:27:10.380 --> 00:27:12.759 Can a technology that powerful ever truly be 00:27:12.759 --> 00:27:15.180 neutral once it's out in the world? Something 00:27:15.180 --> 00:27:17.319 to consider the next time you connect to Wi -Fi.