Thunderstruck

Imagine a young man in a small attic laboratory in Italy, surrounded by coils of wire, Leyden jars crackling with static electricity, and a fragile glass tube filled with tiny metal filings. This man, driven by an unshakable conviction, is about to change the world. The device he tinkers with, known as the coherer, responds to invisible waves of energy that had baffled scientists for decades. The coherer’s filings would suddenly conduct electricity when struck by electromagnetic waves, allowing signals to be detected without wires. Yet, this simple idea was far from easy to realize. It took thousands of hours of painstaking trial and error to perfect the mixture of metals, the size of the tube, and the mechanism to reset it after each signal.

One day, through a combination of intuition and stubborn experimentation, he raises a wire antenna on a tall pole—something no one had tried before. This simple act causes the signal’s reach to leap from a mere sixty feet to hundreds of feet, and eventually over miles. What seemed like an arbitrary adjustment revealed a profound physical truth: the height of the antenna had an exponential effect on the distance the waves could travel. This discovery was the gateway to wireless communication, a concept that until then had belonged only to the realm of science fiction and spiritual séances.

Before this moment, the scientific community had been silent on the practical use of Hertzian waves, dismissing them as incapable of long-distance travel. The world was in a great hush, unaware that these invisible waves could carry messages across vast distances without wires. But the young inventor’s obsession and focus broke this silence, lighting a spark that would soon ignite a revolution in communication.

This story is not just about technology; it is about vision and persistence. It reminds us that sometimes the simplest ideas, when pursued relentlessly, can change the course of history. As we move forward, we will see how this spark of wireless technology intersects with a darker tale of crime and human frailty, illuminating the dawn of a new era.

Let us now step into the bustling streets of Edwardian London, where science, society, and secrets intertwine.