The romantic side of wireless telegraphy has been admirably touched in some words uttered by Professor Ayrton in 1899, after the reading of a paper by Mr. Marconi before the Institution of Electrical Engineers.
“If a person wished to call to a friend” (said the Professor), “he would use a loud electro-magnetic voice, audible only to him who had the electro-magnetic ear.
“‘Where are you?’ he would say.
“The reply would come—‘I am at the bottom of a coal mine,’ or ‘Crossing the Andes,’ or ‘In the middle of the Pacific.’ Or, perhaps, in spite of all the calling, no reply would come, and the person would then know his friend was dead. Let them think of what that meant; of the calling which went on every day from room to room of a house, and then imagine that calling extending from pole to pole; not a noisy babble, but a call audible to him who wanted to hear and absolutely silent to him who did not.”
Guglielmo Marconi.
When will Professor Ayrton’s forecast come true? Who can say? Science is so full of surprises that the ordinary man wonders with a semi-fear what may be the next development; and wise men like Lord Kelvin humbly confess that in comparison with what has yet to be learnt about the mysterious inner workings of Nature their knowledge is but as ignorance.