More modern developments

During the development of radio, many scientists and inventors contributed to radio technology and electronics. In his classic physics experiments of 1888, Heinrich Hertz transmitted radio waves with a spark-gap transmitter, and detected them by using simple electrical devices. The mathematical work of James Clerk Maxwell during the 1850s had shown the possibility of radio waves but Heinrich Hertz was the first to demonstrate their existence in 1888.

Guglielmo Marconi known for his pioneering work on long distance radio transmission

In 1897, Karl Ferdinand Braun introduced the cathode ray tube as part of an oscilloscope, a crucial enabling technology for electronic television.^[11] John Fleming invented the first radio tube, the diode, in 1904. Two years later, Robert von Lieben and Lee De Forest independently developed the amplifier tube, called the triode.^[12] In 1895, Guglielmo Marconi furthered the art of hertzian wireless methods. Early on, he sent wireless signals over a distance of one and a half miles. In December 1901, he sent wireless waves that were not affected by the curvature of the Earth. Marconi later transmitted the wireless signals across the Atlantic between Poldhu, Cornwall, and St. John's, Newfoundland, a distance of 2,100 miles (3,400 km).^[13] In 1920 Albert Hull developed the magnetron which would eventually lead to the development of the microwave oven in 1946 by Percy Spencer.^[14][15] In 1934 the British military began to make strides toward radar (which also uses the magnetron) under the direction of Dr Wimperis, culminating in the operation of the first radar station at Bawdsey in August 1936.^[16]
In 1941 Konrad Zuse presented the Z3, the world's first fully functional and programmable computer using electromechanical parts. In 1943 Tommy Flowers designed and built the Colossus, the world's first fully functional, electronic, digital and programmable computer.^[17] In 1946 the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) of John Presper Eckert and John Mauchly followed, beginning the computing era. The arithmetic performance of these machines allowed engineers to develop completely new technologies and achieve new objectives, including the Apollo program which culminated in landing astronauts on the Moon.^[18]