In 1900, the world's greatest scientists agreed on one thing.
They argued that wireless transmission across the ocean was impossible.
Scientists believed that radio waves travel in a straight line.
If a signal were sent from England, it would travel directly into space,and could not reach America by crossing the Earth's curve.
But on December 11, 1901, a young man of just 27 years old stood on a hill in Newfoundland, Canada, amidst a cold wind and a raging blizzard...
And he was about to challenge the laws of physics.
That young man's name was Guglielmo Marconi.
He wasn't just fighting the weather,he was fighting the world's perception of it.
At that time, the entire world was connected by heavy and expensive undersea cables.
The undersea cables could break at any time,and repairs would take weeks.
Marconi thought,"There must be a better way."
He had demonstrated sending a signal across the English Channel,but the Atlantic Ocean was more than 2,000 miles wide.
This task was considered nearly impossible.
His large antenna in Poldhu, England, had broken in a storm.
The team quickly built a smaller antenna.
On the other hand, conditions in St. John's, Canada, were also dire.
Marconi installed his system in an old, abandoned hospital.
The winds were so strong that a permanent antenna could not be installed.
Finally, he hit upon a strange idea:
Fly the antenna with a kite.
The first kite broke as soon as it was airborne.
But Marconi didn't stop.
He flew a second kite.
The kite floated about five hundred feet in the air.
Marconi sat in a cool room,with headphones on his ears, waiting.
He needed to hear a specific sound from England.
Three short clicks.
The sound of the letter "S" in Morse code.
At 12:30 PM,
Suddenly, a sound came from the headphones...
Click... Click... Click...
That was the sound.
The signal hadn't traveled into space.
It had hit a specific layer of the atmosphere,traversing with the Earth's rotation,reached Canada.
Marconi handed the headphones to his assistant.
He heard the same sound too.
At that moment, the impossible became a reality.
It wasn't just a signal.
It was a triumph of new thinking, of perseverance, and of human ingenuity.
It was that moment that changed the world.
Today, your car radio,your mobile phone,Wi-Fi, satellites,all began with that same antenna flown from a kite.
Marconi showed that even invisible things can connect humans.
Read more : - The Triumph of Faith
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