Scientists' reactions to Marconi's transatlantic radio experiment

Abstract

It is shown how mathematicians tried to explain that waves could surmount the wall of ocean 160 km high in their travel from England to Newfoundland, and how their explanations were shown to be fallacious by simple physical arguments. Kennelly and Heaviside suggested that the waves were reflected by the upper atmosphere, which they believed to be highly conducting simply because it was at low pressure; the reason for that belief is discussed. Published information about the circuits at the sender and at the receiver in Newfoundland, and in a ship on which the signals were also received, is used in an attempt to deduce the wavelength and the bandwidth of the radiation. Present-day knowledge of the ionosphere is then used to inquire under what conditions the signal could have been received in Newfoundland, and a number of possibilities are listed. All require that the receiver in Newfoundland must have been much more sensitive than that on the ship.

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