My Father, Marconi (Picas series)

Guglielmo Marconi was a boy genius who was unable to gain admittance to university. Instead he set up a laboratory in the attic of his father's house and unravelled one of the great mysteries of the universe. The result was the invention of wireless communication: the radio. At first only a few feet separated the transmitter from the receiver. In the days that followed, he carried his experiments into the garden, out to the fields, and behind a hill. Often disparaged by the scientific community of the day, he persisted - spanning the Atlantic, circling the world. At Signal Hill in Newfoundland, in 1901, he picked the first transatlantic communication: the three dots representing the letter S in Morse. The next year, from Table Head near Glace Bay in Nova Scotia, he transmitted the first message across the ocean by wireless. More than any other man, Marconi made the twentieth century possible. In My Father, Marconi his daughter, Degna, recounts his scientific achievements. More important, she gives an intimate portrait of his turbulent personal life.