Russian Post 125th Anniversary on the Invention of Radio

 

RUSSIAN POST in 2015 issued a first day cover stamp marking the invention of radio by Alexander Stepanovich Popov. On 7 May 1895, during a meeting of the Russian Physicochemical Society in St. Petersburg,  Russian scientist-inventor, physicist and electrical engineer Alexander Stepanovich Popov demonstrated the operation of the world's first radio receiver.

The 1895 radio depicted on this stamp is on exhibit at the A.S. Popov Central Museum of Communications named after him. The maxi card is one of only 10 printed and shows the Russian Physicochemical Society meeting when Popov first presented his invention.

Popov was a contemporary of Guglielmo Marconi, but the two men developed their radio apparatuses independently and without knowledge of the other’s work. Making a definitive claim of who was first is complicated by inadequate documentation of events, conflicting definitions of what constitutes a radio, and national pride.

One of the reasons why Marconi gets the credit and Popov doesn’t is that Marconi was much more savvy about intellectual property. One of the best ways to preserve your place in history is to secure patents and publish your research findings in a timely way. Popov did neither. He never pursued a patent for his lightning detector, and there is no official record of his 24 March 1896 demonstration. He eventually abandoned radio to turn his attention to the newly discovered Röntgen waves, also known as X-rays.

Marconi, on the other hand, filed for a British patent on 2 June 1896, which became the first application for a patent in radiotelegraphy. He quickly raised capital to commercialize his system, built up a vast industrial enterprise, and went on to be known—outside of Russia—as the inventor of radio.