A Century and a Half of Human Ingenuity (1840–1979)
Follow how telegraphy, materials science, electricity, telecommunications, aerodynamics, microwave engineering, monolithic silicon, and molecular polymers built the modern world.
Morse Electro-Magnetic Telegraph
Binary Pulse Signaling, Variable-Duration Code, and Electro-Magnetic Relay Repeaters
In 1825 Morse, painting in Washington, learned by letter that his wife Lucretia had died in New Haven and been buried before he could start home. News moved at horse or packet speed. Chappe's optical towers were faster in clear French weather and useless at night or in fog.
“On the packet Sully in 1832, chemist Charles Jackson talked about Faraday. Morse, a painter, not an electrician, jumped to a practical picture: break a circuit in a pattern, mark paper at the other end. Alfred Vail later rebuilt the apparatus and the code. Joseph Henry's intensity magnet and relay made the long line possible. The patent issued in Morse's name; the shop was a trio.”
Single-track railroads could be dispatched without collisions. Prices in New York and Chicago began to move on the same afternoon. The 1866 Atlantic cable carried the same code.