Thomas Tommasina
Thomas Tommasina was a Swiss-Italian physicist and inventor. He invented a telephonic receiver system which he adapted as a weather forecasting system in 1901. Called the "Electro-radiophone" it picked up electric discharges in the atmosphere and transmitted them over wires to where it could be heard in the form of sound. The receiver made use of the Branly effect. It may have been one of the early ideas on using wireless telegraphy in meteorology.[1][2][3][4] He was a doctor of science and member of the National Institute of Geneva from 1902. He wrote a book on the "physics of gravitation and dynamic of the Universe" ("La Physique de la Gravitation et la Dynamique de l'Univers") in 1927. His work was founded on the idea of ether. He also wrote an introduction to a French translation of a book by Alfred Russel Wallace in 1907 - "La place de l'homme dans l'univers : études sur les résultats des recherches scientifiques, sur l'unité et la pluralité des mondes".
References
- ↑ Walker, Malcolm (2011). History of the Meteorological Office. Cambridge University Press. p. 147.
- ↑ "An electrical-storm prophet". The Literary Digest 23 (18): 534. 1901.
- ↑ A US 700161 A, Thomas Tommasina, "Telephonic receiver for wireless signal apparatus", published May 13, 1902
- ↑ Phillips, Vivian J. (1980). Early radio wave detectors. Peter Peregrinus. pp. 55–56.