The dawn of amateur radio in the U.K. and Greece: a personal view
Norman F. Joly.
London : Joly, 1990. - 151p. - 0-9515628-0-0
8. PERSONAL REMINISCENCES & ANECDOTES
Prologue
Thales of Miletus.
Thales, who was born in 640 B.C., was a man of exceptional wisdomand one of the Seven Sages of Ancient Greece. He was the father ofGreek, and consequently of European philosophy and science. Hisspeculations embraced a wide range of subjects relating to politicalas well as to celestial matters. One must remember that even up tothe 18th century there was no clear distinction between philosophy andscience, both being products of the human mind in its attempts toexplain reality.
Thales had studied astronomy in Egypt so he was able to draw upaccurate tables forecasting when the River Nile would be in flood.But he first became widely known by anticipating an eclipse of the sunfor May 585 B.C., which happened to coincide with the final battle ofthe war between the Lydians and the Persians. He had used some tablesdrawn up by Babylonian astronomers, but he did not succeed inforecasting the exact day (May 28th) or the hour of the spectacularevent.
It can well be said that Thales was the first man ever recorded tohave cornered the market in a commodity: having foreseen a three-yeardrought he bought up large quantities of olive oil and stored it forsale at a later date.
But who could possibly have imagined that one of Thales' originalspeculations would affect the Radio Amateurs of the 20th Century? Hebelieved that certain inanimate substances, like lodestones (magneticrocks) and the resin amber, possessed psyche (a soul).
Many centuries had to elapse before this soul was identified asstatic electricity and magnetism and harnessed for the generation ofmains electricity which dramatically altered the pattern of life onour planet—and also led to the creation of our hobby of AmateurRadio.
About 400 years ago an English scientist called William Gilbert(1544-1603), who had read about the unexplained observation of Thales,also became interested in the intangible property and decided to callit electricity, from the classical Greek word for amber, which iselectron.
The phenomenon which Thales had observed and recorded fivecenturies before the birth of Christ aroused the interest of manyscientists through the ages. They made various practical experimentsin their efforts to identify the elusive force which Thales hadlikened to a 'soul' and which we now know to have been stat