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Written Communication Sec: 102 Assignment 7 How Wireless Came To Be Mohammed Jawwad Ahmed 201200013 HOW WIRELESS CAME TO BE Transferring intelligent data across a space without physically covering that distance can be called wireless communication. Broadening the definition with respect to the times, as I see it, we can also say that the transmission of binary signals from one system to another is known as wireless communication. In this essay we will see how wireless communication came to be, who the main contributors were and how the ideas of a few revolutionists conflicted with the ideas of the masses. Wireless Technology has been under development for the past 200 years. It all started with Benjamin Franklin’s kite experiment which proved that electricity could be transferred or transmitted through air. With the discovery of the relationship between electricity and magnetism by Hans Christian Oersted, that a magnetic element would react in the presence of an electric field, came the unified theory combining both electricity and magnetism known as electromagnetism. This theory was elaborated by Michael Faraday and Scottish scientist Maxwell. With Maxwell’s treatise on electricity travelling in the form of waves and at the speed of light we got the Maxwell’s equations, which gave way to the next critical inventions. Heinrich Hertz, with the help of Maxwell’s work, proved the existence of electromagnetic waves. His experiments were what triggered the development of radios etc. Moving away from the technicalities, we can even say that wireless communication has been amidst us since ancient times. Blowing a horn to warn of an approaching army, sending smoke signals in the air, and the very recent and popular Morse code are all examples of communicating wirelessly. The very first wireless device was the photo phone developed by Alexander Graham Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter in 1880. Although it was not a very efficient tool for communicating, as it required a lot of natural factors to coincide, it opened a gateway to many future possibilities. It was Nikola Tesla, often known as the “mad scientist” during his life, who, with his demonstration of a radio-controlled boat, first presented the idea of wireless communication to the public successfully. His demonstration was met with cynicism, some calling it magic and others referring to it being piloted by a monkey. The invention of the radio by Guglielmo Marconi in 1895 opened a flood gate for new inventions. Marconi is the person responsible for familiarizing the common man with the word radio. Edwin Armstrong is the person accredited with the invention of F.M. radio. This was another step towards the massive market that wireless technology provided. Other notable inventors of that time period include Lee De Forest (electron tube), Andrew Viterbi (digital decoding and C.D.M.A.). Philo Farnsworth in 1921, at the tender age of 14, invented the television. He is accredited for the development of the image dissector device, a device used till date in all commercial line television sets. He is undisputedly known as one of the fathers of the modern day television. Coming down the timeline even further, the duo responsible for inventing the first ever computer were a Professor Walter Atanasoff and his student Clifford Berry at the Iowa University, between the years 1939 and 1942. It weighed 700 pounds and contained a mile of wire. The most common word with reference to wireless today is Wi-Fi. One could not have said so a decade before as it was still the developing stage for mobile phones. It will be very difficult to predict what the future holds for us as it only takes one revolutionary, one out of the box thinker to change the entire game. It is possible to say that there will come a time soon when, instead of typing a paper, we would just be projecting our thoughts to the screen and our commands would be followed. So let’s wait for that future to transpire so that a paper would not take a week long to materialize but instead a couple of minutes.