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The world at the turn of the 20th century was in the throes of "Marconi-mania" - brought on by an incredible invention that no one could quite explain, and by a dapper and eccentric figure (who would one day win the newly minted Nobel Prize) at the centre of it all. At a time when the telephone, telegraph and electricity made the whole world wonder just what science would think of next, the startling answer had come in 1896 in the form of two mysterious wooden boxes containing a device one Guglielmo Marconi had rigged up to transmit messages "through the ether". It was the birth of the radio, and no scientist in Europe or America, not even Marconi himself, could at first explain how it worked. It just did. And no one knew how far these radio waves could travel, until 1903, when a message from President Theodore Roosevelt to the king of England flashed from Cape Cod to Cornwall clear across the Atlantic. This volume is a rich portrait of the man and his era - and a captivating tale of science and scientists, business and businessmen. There are stories of British blowhards, American con artists - and Marconi himself: a character par excellence, who eventually winds up a virtual prisoner of his worldwide fame and fortune.
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Previews available in: English
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Edition | Availability |
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1
Signor Marconi's Magic Box: The Most Remarkable Invention of the 19th Century & the Amateur Inventor Whose Genius Sparked a Revolution
September 21, 2004, Da Capo Press
Paperback
in English
- New Ed edition
0306813785 9780306813788
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2
Signor Marconi's magic box: how an amateur inventor defied scientists and began the radio revolution
2003, HarperCollins
in English
0007130058 9780007130054
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3
Signor Marconi's magic box: the most remarkable invention of the 19th century & the amateur inventor whose genius sparked a revolution
2003, Da Capo Press
in English
- 1st Da Capo Press ed.
0306812754 9780306812750
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Book Details
First Sentence
"On a winter's evening in 1896 a brougham, a four-wheeled cab drawn by a single horse, left the fashionable stuccoed terraces of west London and headed eastwards along the dirt roads and cobbled streets of the capital, which glistened in the gaslight under a light rain."
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- Created April 30, 2008
- 8 revisions
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January 26, 2022 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
April 28, 2011 | Edited by OCLC Bot | Added OCLC numbers. |
August 12, 2010 | Edited by IdentifierBot | added LibraryThing ID |
April 24, 2010 | Edited by Open Library Bot | Fixed duplicate goodreads IDs. |
April 30, 2008 | Created by an anonymous user | Imported from amazon.com record |