Study claims Spaniard invented radio

[Ferran]

The Spaniard Julio Cervera Baviera, and not Marconi, was the inventor of the radio, according to professor Ángel Faus

- An expert explains that Baviera created the radio in 1902 and patented it in England, Germany, Belgium and Spain


Ángel Faus has written a book about the history of Spanish radio. Photo: Manuel Castells

"The inventor of radio was not Marconi, nor John Ambrose Fleming, nor Lee de Forest, Fesseden or David Sarnoff, but rather the Spaniard Julio Cervera Baviera". This was the assertion of Ángel Faus, professor of the University of Navarra, author of a book on the history of Spanish radio which will be published shortly.

According to professor Faus, Marconi invented the wireless telegraph and demonstrated its effectiveness in December of 1901, but did not produce radios until 1913, as he himself indicated in a contemporary document. "It was Commander Cervera, who worked with Marconi and his assistant George Kemp in 1899, who resolved the difficulties of wireless telegraph and obtained his first patents prior to the end of that year. On the 22nd of March, 1902, he founded the Spanish Wireless Telegraph and Telephone Corporation in the presence of the Madrid notary Antonio Turón y Boscá", explained Ángel Faus, who is in possession of the plans and patents of the Spanish inventor.

In addition, he underlined that Julio Cervera brought to the corporation the patents he had obtained in Spain, Belgium, Germany and England: "The English patents are significant, insofar as they were obtained without opposition from Marconi and his business associates, which indicates that the latter were working on a different system". For professor Faus, this shows clearly that Cervera was the "indisputable pioneer of radiotelegraphy in Spain and radiotelephony in the entire world ".

Regular Emissions Between 1901 and 1902

In March of 1902 there was no scientist or technician anywhere in the world who was talking about wireless telephony. The patents obtained by Cervera are four years prior to Lee de Forest's Audion and to the functioning of the telegraphically-controlled robot of Leonardo Torres Quevedo in Paris. "His studies were applicable -explains Ángel Faus- to the remote detonation of mines and torpedoes, and to the remote control of terrestrial and marine machinery, etc". According to him, "in August of 1899 Cervera presented, in addition, a patent for remote control of equipment and systems, that remote control which has become so common in civil and military applications. Marconi only researched these aspects years later".

Julio Cervera Baviera was born in Segorbe (Castellón) on January 26, 1854. In Valencia he studied Physical and Natural Sciences and entered the Cavalry in Valladolid as a cadet. In 1878, he entered the School of Military Engineers of Guadalajara. He served as Military Attaché in the Embassy of Spain in Tangiers between 1888 and 1890, and also participated in the defense of Guamani, in Puerto Rico. In 1901 and 1902 he maintained regular transmissions between Tarifa and Ceuta for three consecutive months, and between Javea (Cabo de la Nao) and Ibiza (Cabo Pelado). In this way, he established the second and third regular radiotelegraph service in the history of the world, after Marconi had performed radiotelegraphic transmissions between the Isle of Wight and Bournemouth in January of 1898.

© 2005 University of Navarra | Campus Universitario. 31080 Pamplona. Navarra (Spain). Tfno: +34 948 42 56 00 | News


Source: http://www.unav.es/english/news/38.html

[Menydh]

Yet another case in a long list where the Spanish State neglects our inventors, like with Isaac Peral's submarine or De La Cierva's autogiro (proto-helicopter)?

[Gil]

I have no idea if the claims are real or not but let me just say that i've always found fascinating how some people kept claiming their nation discovered this and that, perhaps as leverage for a past without much to talk about in terms of recent discoveries.
All nations of Europe are rich in history and this type of bickering is counterproductive to say the least.

Having said that, let me just end by saying that everybody knows Columbus was portuguese...

[Milesian]

It was the Irish who invented the submarine anyway, giving it the slightly less catchy name of "Dirgible Torpedo". Who else would invent a ship intended to sink?

[Menydh]

Actually, the latest research points to Colombus being Catalan (Colom, a common Catalan surname which means "pidgeon"). The reason of the obscurity of his origins would lie in the hegemonic fights of the Iberian Peninsula to have a claim on the newly discovered territories by Castille.

Needless to say, he would have also gained much knowledge in the then greatest naval kingdom of that time, Portugal.

As for the claims for inventions, it is a sadly known fact that in the Iberian Peninsula we have long had inept and useless governments for a great people.

[Señor Malo]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

Actually, the latest research points to Colombus being Catalan (Colom, a common Catalan surname which means "pidgeon"). The reason of the obscurity of his origins would lie in the hegemonic fights of the Iberian Peninsula to have a claim on the newly discovered territories by Castille.

Needless to say, he would have also gained much knowledge in the then greatest naval kingdom of that time, Portugal.

As for the claims for inventions, it is a sadly known fact that in the Iberian Peninsula we have long had inept and useless governments for a great people.

I find it quite liable that a spaniard had invented the radio. I don't think that Marconi purposedly "stole" his invention but I think that the turn of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the XXth has been plenty of "parallel" discoveries and invention; this mean that at least two diffrent person working independently on a same matter without being connected at all comes to the same results or conclusion almost at the same time; The telephone is a good exemple as it has been invented almost at the same time by Alexander Graham Bell, Elisha Gray and an italian immigrant called Meucci ... well, about patents that's another story and I believe is more a matter of luck or being the first to rush and patent his discovery.

I'm sure that same has happened with marconi and spanish Doctor Julio Cervera Baviera.

Another exemple is the obtention of a method to preserve stocked blood which was discovery in 1916 by an argentine doctor in Buenos Aires and a belgian doctor in Bruxels, I think each one discovered the same method with just one or two days of difference. But what is funny in this is that none of them were connected and both made the same discovery independently from each other.


A similar story runs about the invention of the electric bulb. It seems that the electric bulb was first described by two canadian researchers by 1875, Matthew Evans & James Woodward. But the first durable electric bulb would have been patented by english researcher Sir Joseph Wilson Swan in 1878, this means one year before Edison...

source : http://www.mysteriesofcanada.com/Ont...light_bulb.htm

Originally Posted by Mynydd

As for the claims for inventions, it is a sadly known fact that in the Iberian Peninsula we have long had inept and useless governments for a great people.

Unfortunately the same thing is true for south american governments. Many scientific projetcs and potential inventors in Argentina has been precluded because of stupid gover,ments who had not granted the necessary funds for researhc and development....in spite of the great potential that spaniards have