A History of Radio Technology
(Osher-RIT Fall 2014)
The science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke once said that, “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” That is, observers who are members of a culture with less-advanced technology will find the devices of the advanced technology to be a form of uncanny sorcery. This is just how most people view the rapidly changing technologies that surround us. We push buttons and things happen. There may as well be a genie in the box who conjures up the result that we seek.
No current-day form of technology is more ubiquitous nor more mystifying than the dozens of wireless devices we encounter all day every day. We have iPhones, iPads, wireless Internet, GPS receivers, ID chips implanted in our pets, satellite TV, remote controls…this list goes on and on.
There is nothing really new about wireless technology. Even the name is old, dating back to the early 20th century when any form of radio was an oddity. Later, we just started calling them radios and it stayed that way until fairly recently when, inexplicably, this archaic term was dusted off and used to describe some innovative new uses for radio.
This class will provide a five-week history of radio from the earliest discoveries to the most recent applications. It is aimed at a curious person with little or no prior knowledge of physics, electronics, or mathematics. We will emphasize the people who made the key discoveries. We will see how individual flashes of insight accumulated to result in the wireless world we now inhabit.