In 1995 it was exactly 100 years since the very youg Guglielmo Marconi has given the birth to the wireless communication with his invention of the radio. All the human kind was deeply marked by this invention. Using the capital in writing the word radio has here the purpose of underlining that with this word we want to show all the consequences, direct and indirect, derived from when Marconi made his first experiments, from radiotelegraphy to radiotelephony, from television to radar, from radionavigation to the industrial and medical applications, from radioastronomy to the possibility to investigate the universe around us.
Today in the radio
are merged new interests for discover it again and new interests towards the technologies of the
past. This last aspect is part of a general new discovery of some traditional values of the
culture and the technological archeology. If the satellites and the space sounding objects
respond to the commands sent from Earth, if they send us information and images not only of the
Earth, but also of far celestial bodies, it's possible thanks to the extraordinary invention of
Guglielmo Marconi. The fact is that the ability of controlling radio waves has changed our
everyday life, our habits, our way of being informed and entertained. Through the radio, our
respect, our admiration and our interest for Marconi will last long in time and it will help us
to understand the dynamic, the greatness, but also the limits of a technological development
untied from the values of freedom, autonomy and humanity.