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00:011.3 billion people streaming music.
00:0618.7 billion texts sent every day.
00:10And over 3 trillion hours spent on mobile devices every year.
00:16We can broadcast to the world from the palm of our hand.
00:20But the heart of all that technology dates back 130 years to one thing.
00:27The radio.
00:30At the turn of the 20th century, two rival inventors and Ocean Apart raced to be the first to connect the world wirelessly.
00:38This is the power of electromagnetic waves.
00:42The idea that a signal could leap across the air.
00:46This felt like magic.
00:48There it is.
00:50The competition between Tesla and Marconi is one of the great stories in the history of technology.
00:56Their quest will drive one to fame and fortune.
00:59It works.
01:00He's considered the father of the radio.
01:02The other to ruin.
01:05Here's a man skating right on the edge of sanity.
01:08And transformed the way the world communicates.
01:11Radio is at the heart of our entire culture and civilization.
01:15This is Tesla versus Marconi.
01:16This is Tesla versus Marconi.
01:20It's 1893.
01:21And a revolution is transferring.
01:23It's 1893, and a revolution is transforming America.
01:50Electric power.
01:52If you can just flip a switch and the light goes on,
01:55all of a sudden, your life has changed.
01:58Factories can operate around the clock if they want to now.
02:01Literally, no aspect of American life is left untouched.
02:06And what we'll see is this rapid transformation of America
02:09in a 50-year period,
02:11the likes of which human society had never seen before.
02:15Thanks to electricity, the economy is booming.
02:19But with it comes the need for faster, cheaper,
02:22and more reliable ways to communicate
02:24than sending a telegram.
02:26Telegraphy was point-to-point by land,
02:29and that was the great challenge.
02:31You can only send a message to where the wires go.
02:34It was hard to string these wires,
02:37particularly over hills or swamps or jungles,
02:39and you also couldn't send it to, you know,
02:42moving vehicles like boats.
02:50But one man is obsessed with ridding the world of wires entirely.
02:55Alternating current produced by my oscillator
02:59and transformed into hundreds of volts
03:02by a high-power transformer.
03:08His name is Nikola Tesla, a mercurial genius.
03:14He's one of the world's most famous inventors.
03:16Nikola Tesla was a super inventor.
03:19I mean, he gave us long-distance electricity transmission
03:22and electric motor, robots, remote control.
03:25On the other hand, he was a little weird.
03:27I mean, he was eccentric to say the least.
03:29He got nervous whenever he saw jewelry.
03:32He'd get a fever if he saw a peach.
03:35Tesla was an obsessive,
03:37and that was part of his genius, right?
03:39He focused on an idea and focused and focused
03:41and took it to the next level,
03:43was able to push the art of the possible
03:45because of the way his mind works.
03:49Fascinated by electricity since childhood,
03:51Tesla was born in what's now Croatia.
03:54He's already worked briefly for Edison
03:56and created patents for alternating electric current
03:59that have earned him hundreds of thousands of dollars.
04:04Now he's pushing electricity far beyond people's imagination.
04:08Ladies and gentlemen,
04:10Behold the power of electricity.
04:17Tesla's sending electricity through thin air.
04:20You might call it magic,
04:21but this is the power of electromagnetic waves.
04:25Tesla always looked for an image or a dream or a wish
04:31that people could connect with and get excited about
04:35so that they then would invest in his technology.
04:38They are traveling through the air,
04:41lighting this bulb.
04:43No wires.
04:45At the heart of his mind-blowing invention
04:48is the Tesla coil,
04:50a device that can amp up a small amount of electric power
04:53into a large amount.
04:55A Tesla coil is basically a transformer.
04:58It's a big coil of lots of copper wire in there,
05:01many, many, many thousands of times
05:04in order to step this power up the way it does.
05:07And Tesla was hoping to use this Tesla coil
05:11to broadcast power wirelessly.
05:14Scientists call these transmissions radio waves,
05:18and Tesla believes they can carry more
05:20than just electricity through the air.
05:22He's convinced they can also carry information.
05:26Tesla was truly so far ahead of the curve on this technology,
05:31and people had to think,
05:33wow, this is a true wizard.
05:36The secret of electricity is the secret of life.
05:44Motivated by the dream of wireless communication,
05:47Tesla patents his new invention.
05:49But if he's going to revolutionize anything,
05:52he has to send and receive radio waves
05:55much farther than a few feet.
05:57We're so used to radio waves, we don't think twice about it.
06:00The idea that a signal could leap across the air,
06:04this felt like magic.
06:10In 1894, Tesla takes to a rooftop,
06:14tying a receiving antenna to a balloon.
06:19He hopes to hear the hum of a radio signal
06:22coming from a Tesla coil at his lab over a mile away.
06:26.
06:47This is just amazing.
06:49For the first time, energy is being transmitted
06:53from point A to point B
06:55with no mechanical or electrical connections.
06:58The energy is basically traveling through space.
07:02One day, his breakthrough will launch
07:06a global communications industry
07:08that can beam music and news
07:10to 1.4 billion moving cars,
07:13and control a rover on Mars
07:15from 144 million miles away.
07:21But he needs to hurry.
07:23Tesla doesn't know it yet,
07:24but he's not the only one trying to figure this out.
07:344,000 miles away in Bologna, Italy,
07:37a 19-year-old aristocrat is struggling to reach the same goal.
07:42Like Tesla, he's intensely interested in electricity.
07:46His name is Guglielmo Marconi.
07:50I always sort of think of Marconi as something like a,
07:52you know, 19th century Mark Zuckerberg.
07:54He certainly didn't go to college,
07:56but he became intrigued with what scientists
08:00were learning about radio waves.
08:02Marconi grows up in this extremely wealthy family in Italy.
08:07They're the heirs to the Jameson whiskey fortune.
08:11And because he grows up so well off,
08:14he has time to tinker.
08:17Unlike Tesla, Marconi's interest goes beyond science.
08:21He knows that the telegraph business is worth billions.
08:26If he can replace that technology with something better,
08:29that fortune could be his.
08:32He wanted to invent a widget and get paid for it.
08:34That was more of a driving factor for Marconi
08:37than was for Tesla.
08:40You know what to do?
08:41Yes, sir.
08:43I will tap out a Morse code S.
08:45If you hear three clicks on the receiver,
08:47fire the gun three times, okay?
08:50Marconi is also trying to send a wireless radio signal
08:53about a half mile further than Tesla,
08:55though he's unaware that the famed scientist
08:58is working on the same thing.
09:03Tesla's secret is his powerful coil.
09:06Marconi tries something else.
09:08He adds a telegraph key so that he can use radio waves
09:12to send Morse code messages wirelessly.
09:15Sending a message almost two miles away without wires
09:25would be a game-changer.
09:33But it doesn't work.
09:34Back in his lab, Nikola Tesla is far ahead of Marconi.
09:48In fact, he hasn't even heard of him yet.
09:51Tesla now believes he can send a message 50 miles
09:54by increasing the power of his Tesla coil.
09:57And on March 13, 1895, he leaves his lab,
10:03ready to put his theory to the test.
10:08It was about 2.30 in the morning.
10:11Tesla had gone home.
10:13But the downstairs storeroom
10:17was covered with oily rags.
10:20And a careless night watchman flicked a still-lit cigarette.
10:28And the place just went up in flames.
10:30His entire lab, his models, his notes, his experiments...
10:52are all destroyed.
11:01Okay, ready?
11:07Ready.
11:09By August 1895,
11:11Guglielmo Marconi has spent months working relentlessly
11:15trying to send a radio signal...
11:18with no luck.
11:20Marconi is not a scientist in the purest sense of the word.
11:24He is more of a trial and error,
11:25let me see what happens if I do this.
11:28All of his hopes are riding on a new antenna design,
11:3240 feet of wire suspended from a single pole.
11:35If he can get it to work, he could make a fortune.
11:39Guglielmo Marconi again sends one of the family servants
11:43back to the far side of the estate saying,
11:46if you hear the signal on the receiver, fire the gun.
11:49The range, almost two miles.
11:59Almost half a mile longer than Tesla's rooftop test a year earlier.
12:05After countless failed attempts, Marconi's dream is fading.
12:14It works.
12:15One of the things that Marconi discovers is that he is able to get more distance by raising the antenna.
12:31And he starts to think, if you could get high enough, how far could you send the signal?
12:38Believing he's on the verge of a breakthrough,
12:41Marconi heads to the best potential market for what he hopes is a communications revolution.
12:53London had been the intellectual capital of the English speaking world.
12:58And in those days, that meant the scientific capital as well.
13:00If you want to make it big in the world of science, London is the place for you to go.
13:05As the dominant sea power in this period, Great Britain in particular was interested in developing the capacity for ship to shore communication.
13:16If Marconi can create a market to communicate with ships at sea, it could make his fortune.
13:22He uses his mother's connections to get a foot in the door with the most powerful engineer in the country.
13:32Sir William Preece.
13:35Preece was the chief engineer for the post office.
13:38That may not sound like much, but this was the British government monopoly over not only the mail, the telegraph, it would control the telephone.
13:46How far can you transmit?
13:52With your help, maybe 14 miles, possibly more.
13:59Preece sees Marconi's invention as a potential boon to Britain's Navy and puts his full resources behind him.
14:07But there's a problem.
14:08So far, Marconi's transmitter can only send a message two miles, not nearly enough to reach most ships.
14:16Marconi in London starts to do more testing.
14:19And one of the things that becomes pretty clear is the amount of power makes a difference.
14:25So if you can increase the power, you can increase the distance of the signal.
14:29Preece offers a solution, but it's a shady one.
14:33When Tesla came and gave his lecture in London, Preece had long discussions with Tesla.
14:45Preece shares with Marconi not only Tesla's ideas, but some designs, including the intel Marconi needs to build his own Tesla coil.
14:55With that added power boost, Marconi now sends his signal four miles, more than twice the distance he could before.
15:05It's corporate espionage 1890s style.
15:09But Marconi keeps it under wraps.
15:11He doesn't want Tesla to know he has a rival.
15:15Tesla's a big fish and Marconi is kind of unknown.
15:17Very often the David, in the case of innovation, has more of an advantage over the Goliath because he could take bigger risks.
15:25He's an unknown.
15:26If it doesn't work, so what?
15:36Across the Atlantic, unaware of Marconi, Nikola Tesla is back on track after fire gutted his lab.
15:43One of the amazing things about Tesla's mind is he had a photographic memory, and he literally rebuilt everything that he had in the old place, including all the notes he had taken. He rewrote them.
16:00Tesla resumes his work on his radio experiments.
16:06This time, he's pushing the power of his coil to its limits.
16:10Tesla decides to have his transmitter operating in his laboratory in downtown New York, and as he takes a steamboat up the Hudson River, he keeps getting a signal all the way up to West Point of distance to about 30 miles.
16:25But for Tesla, it's still not far enough.
16:28So instead of building on his breakthrough, he returns to his lab to work on an even more audacious idea.
16:34Tesla gives a speech in which he talks about the concept of using the Earth itself as the transmitter.
16:45He thought we would just send radio waves through the Earth and they could be picked up in other places.
16:49He calls his unprecedented idea world telegraphy.
16:55When published, Tesla's articles cause a sensation.
17:00Although few understand his theories, many are convinced he's a genius and he attracts new investors.
17:06He came up with stories and scientific articles about how there was going to be wireless communication in the future and how people would have devices that had all the information in the world at their fingertips.
17:19He saw our modern world.
17:21Across the Atlantic, Marconi is getting ready to receive a radio signal through the air sent from an island 10 miles away.
17:37He's using an even more powerful transmitter that he built by stealing Tesla's patented design.
17:42Marconi just really thought it didn't matter if Tesla had patented it because he was going to do it and the one who does it first is the one that gets the credit for it.
17:52He thinks of himself as being an important innovator, a genius, somebody who really sees things in the world that other people don't see.
17:58Somebody who is a great inventor has a sense of entitlement.
18:01No, I am put here to do this. I can do this. I can go where nobody's gone before.
18:06And I am going to bring this to the world and screw anybody that gets in my way.
18:09But sending a Morse code message over a large body of water using radio waves has never been attempted.
18:19Every other scientist was saying at the time you could not possibly send a message across the English Channel because these waves go in straight lines and they would just dissipate out into outer space.
18:32But Marconi doesn't care about conventional wisdom.
18:35He's invested five years and the equivalent of more than $4 million today into his dream.
18:43And he's willing to bet it all on a belief that the science is wrong.
18:48It's 1897 and Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi is attempting something scientists say is impossible.
19:01Send a Morse code message 10 miles over the open sea.
19:02It was very difficult to make it work over more than a few miles.
19:07Marconi's idea wasn't just miles but it was tens of miles because he wanted to help people communicate with ships at sea.
19:16Marconi and his team spend two agonizing days desperate to receive a message with no success.
19:23The tenacious Marconi makes one last move.
19:24The tenacious Marconi makes one last move.
19:29He uses a 150-foot pole to increase the height of his antenna.
19:39If he's right, that could improve its ability to receive a signal.
19:40If he's right, that could improve its ability to receive a signal.
19:49There it is.
19:50Congratulations.
19:51On May 13 Sie vezible.
19:52In the May 13th 1895,
20:20On May 13, 1897, Marconi achieves the impossible.
20:25Marconi's innovation was figuring out
20:27that he needed to use extremely large antennas
20:30in order to transmit signals across these larger distances.
20:35And it was really a revolution.
20:38Marconi is determined to quickly capitalize on his success.
20:42But he doesn't want to share the profits.
20:45I supported you before anybody knew your name.
20:48True.
20:49But we never had a contract.
20:52Marconi cuts ties with William Preece
20:54and prepares to take his technology to America.
21:03News of Marconi's remarkable achievement
21:06is reported in newspapers across the globe,
21:09alerting Tesla to a new reality.
21:12He has a rival.
21:15I think competition creates hunger.
21:16If you're, like, in the arena,
21:18you want to be the best and do the best.
21:20And so having other people out there
21:22makes you drive faster, drive quicker, drive better.
21:25Tesla is ready to take on Marconi.
21:28He wants to build a tower powerful enough
21:30to send electromagnetic signals through the earth
21:33and around the world.
21:35Tesla was a genius and a kook.
21:37He was one of the most profound thinkers about what you could do with electricity,
21:43but he often went off the deep end in terms of whether it would be practical.
21:49He'll need a huge influx of cash.
21:53Everything rides on convincing one of the world's richest men.
21:56J.P. Morgan is the nation's banker,
22:04but he also has controlling interests in numerous copper mines,
22:07in railroads, in a whole array of industries.
22:10He is the ultimate robber baron that controls money in this country.
22:14You need that seed capital.
22:16You need resources to get going.
22:19And so someone's got to believe in you.
22:21You know, you have to have enough passion
22:23to convince someone to believe an idea that might not even exist yet.
22:27I've read about Marconi.
22:33Why wouldn't I back him?
22:35He's using equipment designed by others.
22:38His waves travel through the air,
22:40so they break down in bad weather.
22:42And my electrical waves can transmit more information
22:45with greatest security anywhere on earth.
22:57Tesla is the kind of person that people who have deep pockets,
23:27love to hear talk, because he has these big ideas,
23:30a world powered by radio waves.
23:34Who wouldn't love that idea?
23:36Morgan gives Tesla $150,000,
23:40the equivalent of almost $5 million today.
23:48Marconi takes a different tactic to raise funds, publicity.
23:53By the end of the 19th century,
23:55a half-dozen well-known press barons are competing for newspaper sales.
24:01None is better known than the head of the New York Herald, Gordon Bennett.
24:07Marconi's shown that radio waves can travel long distances over water.
24:11Now he has an ambitious and risky plan
24:14to demonstrate its potential uses
24:16and plant his flag in the American market.
24:19He wants to entice investors by reporting live
24:24from one of the era's great sporting events,
24:27the America's Cup Yacht Race.
24:30That is a risky endeavor,
24:32but one that could have big, big results
24:34if folks loved it and they can't stop talking about it.
24:36The future of his fledgling company
24:38will depend on sending up-to-the-minute reports
24:41from a boat that's miles out on the water.
24:43The America's Cup race for Marconi was his launch event.
25:00So many entrepreneurs use launch events
25:03to, like, kick off their new thing they've built.
25:06I'm sure that he was incredibly nervous
25:09about putting so much on the line.
25:11So there was Marconi out in the boat
25:14sending off messages,
25:17and within, like, 30 seconds or a minute,
25:19there were these plasterboards outside the Herald.
25:23It caused a sensation
25:24because you had never been able to deliver news
25:27with that timeliness.
25:32People see him as both a dynamic and exciting inventor,
25:38but also a credible inventor.
25:40He says what he's going to do,
25:41and then he goes off, and he does it.
25:49Despite the publicity surrounding Marconi's
25:51live yacht race transmission,
25:54Tesla still doesn't see Marconi as a threat.
25:57He's moved on from sending a radio signal through the air,
26:00believing that using the Earth's core as a transmitter
26:03is a far superior technology.
26:06But while reading a scientific journal,
26:09Tesla comes across an article written by Marconi
26:12with a stunning admission.
26:15I first constructed an arrangement
26:17which included what may be called a Tesla coil conductor.
26:21He now knows Marconi's success
26:23comes from stealing Tesla's patented design.
26:26Damn, that is cold.
26:29Marconi just said,
26:30yeah, I'm going to do it.
26:31I'm going to do it in your face.
26:32What are you going to do about it?
26:34Angry, Tesla's determined to meet his rival face to face.
26:38Nikola Tesla is about to meet rival Guglielmo Marconi
26:52for the first time.
26:56That rivalry between Marconi and Tesla
26:59was so, so important to the invention of radio.
27:02There's so many different things
27:03that drive entrepreneurs, that drive inventors.
27:06Sometimes that rivalry,
27:08whether it's vitriolic or whether it's friendly,
27:10is a very key component of that.
27:15Though he's furious that Marconi stole
27:18his patented wireless technology,
27:20Tesla's confident he's now discovered a better way.
27:24You're now claiming you can send a message
27:26around the world using the Earth's core.
27:30Using electromagnetic waves,
27:33sending them through the Earth's core.
27:36It's a giant conductor.
27:38Just like copper wire.
27:43You still don't understand.
27:45I understand it isn't possible,
27:48even if you don't.
27:49Tesla and Marconi, they didn't get along.
27:55And in fact, they were in direct conflict.
28:01Tesla is anxious to prove Marconi wrong.
28:05He buys a tract of land in Long Island
28:07on a property called Wardenclyffe
28:09and begins designing the site's key component.
28:12Tesla had the idea of building a tower
28:16where the top of the tower would connect to the air.
28:21He also had the tower go equally distant under the ground
28:25by driving huge metal rods into the ground.
28:28And his idea was to create a completed circuit
28:30where the air acted as one wire
28:32and then the other wire would be the Earth itself
28:35that would come back to the power source.
28:38It's an incredible gamble.
28:40But if Tesla is right,
28:42Marconi will soon be irrelevant.
28:43But Marconi has other plans.
28:50In September of 1901,
28:53Marconi attempts the greatest radio experiment
28:56the world has ever seen,
28:58sending and receiving a message across the Atlantic.
29:02The whole thing about radio waves
29:05is to be able to send them over longer and longer distances.
29:10Across the sea in England,
29:12Marconi's team has built a transmitter
29:14capable of generating a 150,000-volt spark,
29:19enough power, the inventor hopes,
29:21to send a radio signal over 2,100 miles across the expanse.
29:28Experts of the time believed that radio waves
29:30can travel infinite distances,
29:32but only in a straight line,
29:35and that they will not bend to the curvature of the Earth.
29:39Marconi is banking that they will.
29:41The showman in him says,
29:42I'm going to do this without real proof that he can do it.
29:46Every day, in 10-minute increments
29:49between 3 and 7 p.m.,
29:51Marconi's transmitter in England
29:53sends out a Morse code S, three dots.
29:57To capture the signal back in Newfoundland,
30:00Marconi believes he must fly an antenna high over the coast,
30:03an incredible challenge in Newfoundland's notorious winds.
30:10December 11.
30:12Got ballooned up in a strong breeze
30:14and lost it at 3.9 meters when it blew away.
30:18After multiple attempts to get his antenna airborne with a balloon,
30:35Marconi switches to a kite,
30:38believing it can better weather the strong coastal winds.
30:41Thursday, December 12.
30:46Lost first kite after being up for one hour.
30:52Then got up another kite.
30:54But that, too, was lost.
30:56So you can imagine with Marconi,
31:00how does he have that conviction?
31:02How does he stay through it when he's testing stuff
31:05and doesn't know if it's actually going to work?
31:08Day after day,
31:11Marconi and his team
31:12hear nothing.
31:14It's 1901.
31:30The stock market crashes in May,
31:33resulting in huge losses.
31:36During moments of economic calamity,
31:38it's incredibly hard for investors
31:40to invest in new industries and new technologies.
31:42They become very conservative and risk-adverse.
31:46And they're certainly less willing to invest
31:48in risky, untested, blue-sky technology
31:51where it isn't really clear
31:52how you're going to make money on this.
31:55In financial trouble,
31:57Tesla returns to J.P. Morgan for help.
32:09You will earn 12 times as much.
32:11Get out, Mr. Tesla.
32:13But, sir...
32:14Get out!
32:23Morgan not only didn't give him money himself,
32:26but also went so far as to tell some people
32:29that they should not invest in Tesla
32:31because he went off on wild tangents
32:34instead of delivering the things that he had promised.
32:36There's one skill in coming up with an invention.
32:40There's another skill
32:41in understanding the market opportunity.
32:44And then there's another skill
32:45being able to sell it to the money people.
32:47And that's critical.
32:49You know, you kind of need all three of those skill sets
32:51to make magic happen.
32:53But Tesla isn't giving up.
32:55He still believes in his vision
32:56and that Marconi will soon fail.
32:59In December of 1901,
33:06Guglielmo Marconi is still in frigid St. John's,
33:10desperately trying to receive a radio message
33:12from across the Atlantic.
33:15If it happens,
33:16he's going to beat Tesla to the punch.
33:20This would be a game changer
33:22and a history changer.
33:26Brutal winds prevent Marconi
33:28from raising his antenna.
33:36Finally, after days of failure,
33:39Marconi is able to keep the kite in the air.
33:43He's elated and relieved.
33:48But will the message come through?
33:52You can imagine the pins and needles he sat on
34:03as he waits days to see,
34:05hey, did this work?
34:10Do you hear anything, Mr. Kemp?
34:15It's faint.
34:16So imagine his excitement
34:22when it actually came back
34:23and it actually did work.
34:31Marconi achieved something
34:33everyone told him was impossible.
34:36How could you find a way
34:38to send signals across the ocean,
34:41across this vast and scary expanse?
34:44We forget how impossible it sounded.
34:47It was almost like the moon landing.
34:49Marconi doesn't fully understand
34:51how these waves
34:53are getting across the ocean.
34:55He has an idea.
34:56But even he is stumped
34:57by the fact that the waves
34:58shouldn't be crossing
34:59the curvature of the Earth.
35:01And yet somehow, they are.
35:03Now we know
35:04the radio waves were bouncing up
35:06off the ionosphere,
35:08back down to the other side.
35:11Over the next few years,
35:15Marconi sets up transmitters
35:17all over the globe,
35:18opening the world
35:19to wireless communication.
35:21It's faster, more efficient,
35:24costless,
35:24and provides coverage
35:26to more people
35:27with greater ease.
35:28Wireless technology
35:29allows the world
35:30to be more mobile
35:31and flexible
35:32than ever before.
35:33For Nikola Tesla,
35:41Marconi's success
35:42is more than
35:43the unstable genius
35:44can handle.
35:45Marconi and Tesla
35:47wanted the same thing.
35:48They were looking for a way
35:49to transmit radio waves
35:51across the world.
35:52And they had different visions
35:54for how to do it,
35:55but Marconi was in the lead.
35:58Tesla still believes
36:00he can build his tower
36:01and use the Earth
36:02as a giant conductor
36:03to send signals
36:04around the world.
36:06But he needs more money
36:08to complete it,
36:09and his efforts
36:10to raise the funds
36:11have failed.
36:12He's running out of cash
36:13and running out of options.
36:16This is where you start
36:17to see Tesla
36:19become untethered
36:21to reality a little bit.
36:26Sometimes, unfortunately,
36:28the nature of the beast
36:28with inventors
36:29is that they're that intense
36:31about making it happen.
36:32And then, when that dies,
36:34it literally is as if someone
36:35like their baby is gone.
36:37By 1912,
36:54after two decades
36:55trying to invent
36:56wireless technology,
36:57famed inventor Nikola Tesla
36:59is headed toward financial ruin
37:01and spiraling out of control.
37:04throughout his life,
37:22Tesla struggles
37:23with bouts of depression.
37:26He discovers
37:27that if he takes
37:28a fairly powerful shock
37:29from his Tesla coil,
37:31it will change his mood.
37:32There's always this undercurrent
37:34with Tesla.
37:35Here's a man skating
37:36right on the edge of sanity,
37:38and he's going to skate off one day.
37:48The once legendary innovator
37:50is now known
37:51for an incomplete tower
37:53rusting away in Long Island.
37:55The ideas were far more advanced
37:59than the actual technology
38:01to achieve them
38:02had reached at the time.
38:07His rival, Marconi,
38:09is trying to get
38:09his wireless radio systems
38:11onto ships,
38:12both military and commercial.
38:14One of those
38:15is the Titanic.
38:16It's late at night
38:20that the ship
38:21actually hits an iceberg,
38:22and the captain
38:23tells the radio operator
38:25to start sending out
38:27a distress signal
38:28which other ships hear
38:30and come to rescue
38:32the passengers
38:33that are in the light boats.
38:36All of a sudden,
38:37this very mysterious thing
38:38that isn't very well known
38:39by the public,
38:41the radio's role in that
38:42builds this broader awareness
38:44of its potential.
38:45The Titanic disaster
38:48woke the American population
38:50and the American government
38:51to the importance
38:51of having rules for radio.
38:53They said every ship
38:54has to have a radio operator.
38:56The new rules
38:58are a boon
38:59for Marconi's business
39:00and for Marconi.
39:02He becomes
39:03the first entrepreneur
39:04to win the Nobel Prize
39:06for physics.
39:08By 1920,
39:09advancements
39:10to Marconi's transmitter
39:11allow for commercial broadcasts
39:13of voices and music.
39:15What we think of
39:16as radio today.
39:18Folks like Marconi,
39:19some folks out there
39:20might not think
39:21they're the classic inventor
39:22because they took something
39:23that was already in existence
39:24and wrapped it into a package
39:26that was commercializable.
39:28But I think that couldn't be
39:29further from the truth.
39:31I feel like Marconi
39:31should be seen
39:32as an inventor
39:33and folks like Marconi
39:34are actually very important
39:36inventors for the world.
39:38To remotely broadcast
39:40from ships at sea
39:41to land
39:42across continents
39:44to take a symphony
39:45and broadcast it
39:45to thousands
39:47listening on their radio sets.
39:48This is another extraordinary novelty
39:52in an era
39:53that is full of them.
39:57Celebrated and wealthy,
39:59Marconi is eventually worth
40:00over $400 million
40:02in today's dollars.
40:03He's considered
40:04the father of the radio
40:05and people really look up to him
40:08and respect him
40:08for the work that he does,
40:10the empire that he built.
40:11In the decade
40:14after the First World War,
40:16Marconi's company
40:17is bought by General Electric
40:18and rebranded as RCA,
40:21the Radio Corporation of America.
40:24It will become
40:25one of the most recognized
40:26brand names in the world.
40:29In 1929,
40:31RCA sells $366 million in radios,
40:36over $5.5 billion today.
40:38Hello, friends of Radio Land.
40:40This is station.
40:42With radio,
40:43you actually had
40:44the creation
40:45of a national culture,
40:46a true popular culture
40:48that would spread
40:50all over the country.
40:57By 1930,
40:59Nikola Tesla
40:59has given up his dreams
41:01of connecting the world
41:02wirelessly
41:02and lives his remaining years
41:05in near isolation.
41:07He has to keep moving
41:08from hotel to hotel
41:10because he can't pay the bills.
41:12He also becomes
41:13more and more
41:14of a recluse.
41:15His favorite pastime
41:17is feeding the pigeons
41:19in New York City.
41:20When we look at him now,
41:21you know,
41:22if Tesla were in the world today,
41:24he might have been diagnosed
41:25and treated quite differently,
41:27and maybe his life
41:29would have turned out
41:30and ended in different ways.
41:3314 years after Marconi admits
41:35to stealing the Tesla coil technology,
41:38Tesla sues him
41:39for violating his patents.
41:41Tesla realizes
41:42that more and more people
41:43are recognizing Marconi
41:44as the developer
41:46of these innovations,
41:47unaware of Tesla's role in it.
41:50And he begins
41:51to become a little bit bitter.
41:54It isn't until 1943
41:56that the Supreme Court
41:58will rule on the case.
42:00Tesla wins.
42:02But it's too late.
42:04He died just six months earlier.
42:07Tesla was a brilliant
42:09scientific failure.
42:11And the other guy, Marconi,
42:12is this sort of showman
42:14who risks it all
42:15and succeeds.
42:17And it's kind of a tragic irony.
42:21Had both of them not been there,
42:23there wouldn't have been
42:24this competition and rivalry
42:25to generate the technology
42:27and we might not have
42:29the same kinds of technology
42:30that we have today.
42:35Radio would become
42:36the backbone
42:37of modern communication
42:38and entertainment.
42:40Television,
42:41Internet,
42:42smartphones,
42:43all born from the idea
42:45of messages being transmitted
42:47through the air.
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