In 1909, Nikola Tesla predicted that there would be wireless communications and individual computing devices that individuals could carry to transmit information wirelessly. The famous inventor and master of electricity envisioned a world where a “wireless system” could transmit energy wirelessly around the world (Nikola Tesla Museum, n.d.). He was obsessed with the creation of wireless technology that focused on the transmission of data without the need to traverse wiring. Tesla predicted that it would be a possibility in the future for people to transmit telephonic signals, files, audio, and video anywhere around the globe using this technology. Unfortunately, he was unable to achieve this prediction which came to mainstream fruition in the 1990s (BBC, n.d.). In 1926, during an interview, Tesla also predicted that people would communicate “instantly by simple vest-pocket equipment.” This was an envisioning of the modern smartphone, a device whose complexity far exceeds that of telephones that existed during Tesla’s time (Jones, 2019).
Wi-Fi, or wireless fidelity, was an invention that allowed radio waves to propagate between differing radio frequencies. Initially, the theoretical premise was to mitigate U.S. Navy radio transmissions from being intercepted and jammed by the Imperial Japanese Empire and Nazi Germany militaries during World War II. Radio frequency hopping technology was a precursor to Wi-Fi development (Vanstone, 2022).
Smartphones have been around since 1992 when they were first developed by IBM. The first mobile phone ever developed was made in 1983, by Motorola, with a battery life of just 30 minutes. When IBM announced their smartphone in 1992, they subsequently release the Simon Personal Communicator in 1994. This was the first touchscreen phone in existence. Email, fax, calendar, address book, scheduler, and stylus-compatible keyboards were some of the initial first features (Tocci, 2019).
Both Wi-Fi and smartphone technologies have been and continue to be crucial inventions that enable modern society to function and continue to evolve to the next technological level. Wireless communications and smartphones are critical to basic communication across long distances, important for emergency first response, keeping families closer together, and ushers in even more technological innovation. If it were not for pioneers and inventors such as Nikola Tesla, whose ideas and theories paved the way for the future invention of these technologies that modern society could not envision being without. The loss of wireless or smartphone tech is paramount to going back to the “dark ages”. It is a shame that Nikola Tesla could not live long enough to witness these wonderful inventions.
References
BBC. (n.d.). Five Nikola Tesla Predictions That Came True. British Broadcasting Center. Radio 4.
Jones, J. (2019, November 19). Nikola Tesla Accurately Predicted the Rise of the Internet & Smart Phone
in 1926. Open Culture. https://www.openculture.com/2019/11/nikola-tesla-accurately-predicted-the-rise-of-the-internet-smart-phone-in-1926.html
Nikola Tesla Museum. (n.d.). Tesla’s Vision of Wireless Energy. Google Arts & Culture.
Tocci, M. (2019, August 19). Smartphone History and Evolution. Simple Texting.
https://simpletexting.com/where-have-we-come-since-the-first-smartphone/
Vanstone, E. (2022, May 11). Who Invented Wi-Fi?. Science Sparks.
https://www.science-sparks.com/who-invented-wi-fi/
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