Between Earth & Air by artist Hermeet Gill tells hidden stories about ten iconic objects from the Marconi Collection, framed by wave images visualising the development of radio from Marconi to the present day.
While just a teenager, Guglielmo Marconi undertook a series of pioneering experiments in his parents’ attic.
His inspiration?
A dream that many great scientific minds had dismissed as an unobtainable fantasy: the long-distance transmission of electromagnetic waves.
By his early 20s, Marconi's attic inventions had won over a sceptical scientific establishment — and given life to a technology that would change the world for ever.
Through him, radio was born.
Discover one of the minds who made the modern world
Our friend and colleague Ken Taylor — volunteer tour guide at the Museum and Chairman of the Oxford District Amateur Radio Society — shares the life and achievements of inventor and entrepreneur Guglielmo Marconi, and how he brought wireless radio communication to the world.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/jHPTViXlZ_c
Calling all Marconi fans ...
Ken gives us a short tour of the Marconi Collection
before joining fellow amateur radio enthusiasts for Marconi Day
Well, what do you know?
Ken goes behind the scenes to explain Marconi's connection to the Titanic, Irish whiskey and the BBC
Marconi probably used this Parabolic Receiver in a demonstration to the Post Office and Armed Services on Salisbury Plain in 1896, persuading the army that this new technology would be useful on the battlefield.
Probably the most important item in the Marconi Collection, this Receiver was used in the famous Toynbee Hall demonstration in December 1896 – a ‘magic moment’ in the history of wireless communication.
This early piece of apparatus was used to generate crude electric sparks which emit radio waves. It was not tuned to one particular wavelength; instead emitted a range of wavelengths. This was the kind of kit Marconi was mucking about with as a young man in the attic of his parents’ house.
