this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
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I mean, it would be some 25 years until the radio was invented. And Hertz' machine required a 30kV spark on a 2.5m meter long antenna with 2 solid 30cm zinc spheres, and his transmission range was something like "barely down the hall".
Not the most practical method.
I'm sure someone thinks it's perfect for their use case, semi relevant xkcd:
collapsed inline media
At least physics will never get patched. The spark device with zinc spheres will always do that thing.
FCC: And get you arrested
Fun fact: The german word for using a radio is "funken"; literally "to spark". A radioman is, or was, a "Funker". When you are talking over the radio, you are doing it "Über Funk".
So like Bluetooth?
But somehow more reliable.
Yes, except you need to buy each bit in a big glass jar.
Edit: only half joking, they used big Leiden Jars, which were basically giant glass batteries. There was no such thing as people with power at home, unless you were crazy rich
Those practical methods would never have existed if not for Hertz' experiments. Those were 25 years of other scientists, having seen that this new concept exists, refining his contraption into what eventually would become the machine that we know as a radio.