PROCEEDINGS OF THE I.R.E.

Who Is the True Inventor?*I. E. MOUROMTSEFFt, FELLOW, IRE

"Some men are born great,Some achieve greatness, andSome have greatness thrust upon them."

Shakespeare ('Twelfth Night")

T HE QUESTION, "who is the true in-ventor," is often asked about manymodern inventions and, perhaps more

often, about those cases which have alreadybecame past history. At first, this ratherideological question seems to be superfluous,if not ridiculous. Indeed, is it not the dutyof the law, before a patent can be granted, tofind out the whole truth about the inven-tion? Or to restore the truth, if some error

has crept into the original procedure? Largesums of money are sometimes spent on lawsuits in an effort to establish the "true"inventor.

And yet, one can hardly think of a singleimportant invention for which the fullcredit would be unequivocally given by vox

populi-and off the record, even by experts-to a single person, or to the same person.Moreover, the favored person is by far notalways the official patentee. A good illustra-tion of this apparently strange phenomenonis the case of radio.

Up to the most recent time, the averageAmerican and Western European, if asked,who invented radio, would unhesitatinglyanswer: "Of course, Guglielmo Marconri."However, to the confusion of many duringthe last few recent years, the idea was re-

peatedly advanced by the Soviet press andradio that the true inventor of radio was notMarconi but a Russian professor, AlexandrePopov.' The evidence given in support ofthis claim has apparently not been heeded bythe Westerners, as to the great majorityMarconi still remains the inventor of radio;yet some people begin to wonder if it was

really so. This controversy was conspicu-ously reflected in the fact that the fiftiethanniversary of radio was solemnly observedin Moscow on May 7, 1945, while the West-ern world celebrated it by an InternationalMarconi Radio Congress in the fall of1947.

Those, who are acquainted with thehistory of scientific events preceding theadvent of radio, know that Marconi andPopov are not the only names connectedwith it. Nearly a dozen other names ofrenown have been suggested by variousauthors, each one favoring his own hero as

being the most important contributor inoriginating radio.

Such lack of consensus amounting to anideological controversy is not new in thehistory of science and engineering. Thus, forexample, in 1676, bitter arguments were ex-

changed between Leibnitz and Newton andtheir friends as to who was the true inventorof calculus, the basis of modern mathe-

* Decimal classification: R.015. Original manu-script received by the Institute, December 27, 1949.

tUpsala College, East Orange, N. J.1 A. S. Popov, 1859-1905. Professor of Physics in

Navy Torpedo School, Cronstadt, 1884-1901, and inSt. Petersbourg Electrical Institute (also, its electedPresident), 1901-1905.

matics.2 The arguments continued for manyyears and were accompanied by outrightaccusations of plagiarism. But even now

the case remains unsettled.About the middle of the nineteenth cen-

tury, the discovery of the classical law ofConservation of Energy aroused a heateddiscussion among the supporters of JamesPrescott Joule, of Hermann Helmholtz andof Robert Mayer. Yet, even now, there isno full accord on the subject among scien-tific authors.3

Many more examples to the same pointcould be quoted from the history of science.It is enough to compare textbooks by differ-ent authors and books published in differentcountries in order to see a flagrant lackof agreement in evaluating the merits ofvarious contributors to scientific advance-ment.

If, then, lack of harmonious judgment isa common occurrence in the domain of purescience, where untainted truth should beparamount, can one wonder that there is nogeneral agreement in regard to those in-ventions which arouse the curiosity andadmiration of the general public who do notknow their true history. Steamboats, electro-magnetic telegraph, telephone, electric light,movies, radio, radio broadcasting, television,radar, and others,-practically all inven-tions of the industrial age have a multiplicityof names attached to each of them. Many ofthem have the 'true inventors" in severalcountries with memorial plaques adorningthe walls of their birthplace. Some countriescount two or more "true inventors" of thesame device within their own boundaries. Infact, there is hardly a single invention with a

single "true" inventor. What is the cause ofthis confusion?

The main fallacy of all such contro-versies, scientific or otherwise, undoubtedlylies in the attempt of the disputing partiesto offer an absolute answer. Indeed, underthe term "true" inventor or discoverer onetacitly understands a benefactor of human-ity such that, had he not been born, theparticular invention or discovery wouldhave never seen daylight. Yet, the wholehistory of science, pure and applied, clearlyshows that there are no such indispensablemen. The very fact that several names areusually attached to many significant dis-coveries proves the incorrectness of such an

assumption. Of course, in each case, therelative importance and merits of individualcontributors may and usually do differ invalue.

In an attempt to establish a criterion for

2W. W. R. Ball, "A Short History of Mathe-matics,' Macmillan and Co., New York, N. Y., pp.

362-367; 1893.8 I. E. Mouromtseff, 'Of what value is history?"

Elec. Eng., vol. 68, pp. 945-948; November, 1949.

ascertaining the true role of different con-

tributors to human progress, we must makeit clear to ourselves as to what factors are

usually involved in making great inventionsand discoveries. This subject is oftentouched upon in biographies of great men,

in books on history and philosophy ofscience, etc., but usually no definite or uni-formly general solution is given. First, one

may ask a natural question: Why is it thatfrom the multitude of students of scienceand engineering only an extremely fewsucceed in enriching humanity with reallyoutstanding novel ideas and revolutionaryinventions.

It seems that a satisfactory answer tothis query can be found by postulating thefollowing working hypothesis. Let us imagine,as Plato did, that all kinds of general ideas,when time is ripe, are found, so to say,

"floating in the air." How they get there isimmaterial to our present thesis. As generalprogress marches on, humanity reachesdifferent levels of intellectual and spiritualmaturity, at which it becomes capable ofassimilating certain ideas heretofore unre-

vealed to it, or revealed and long forgotten.In this general evolutionary movement a

few individuals, pioneers of the spirit, be-come attuned earlier than others to some ofthese ideas, more readily respond to themand perceive their manifestation in ob-servable phenomena, while other peoplepass them by without noticing them. His-tory shows that, in addition to some othernecessary qualities, the conditio sine qua

non (the condition without which the mattercannot be) for such an ability to perceiveand to discover seems to be a spirit full ofinterest and devotion to the subject and theabsence of prejudices. These people becomechannels through which humanity as a wholereceives new ideas. They are those who are

born great.The postulated hypothesis is not mo,-e

arbitrary than Newton's force of gravityjumping over the space separating materialbodies ;4 or Huyghens' luminiferous ether;6 orrelativistic independence of velocity oflight of the observer's motion. Similar toother practical hypotheses this one permitsa convenient explanation of several observ-able facts about the subject-discoveriesand inventions.

In the first place, it explains why many a

discovery was often made by several in-dividuals located in different quarters of theworld and knowing nothing about eachother's work. The postulated phenomenonis not unlike the reception of a broadcast

4 Evidence is available that Newton himselfviewed this idea absurd and incompatible with com-mon sense.

' Huyghens' ether was endowed with contradictoryproperties of a perfect elastic solid and of a perfectfluid.

1950 609

PROCEEDINGS OF THE I.R.E.

message by several independent, properlytuned receiving stations. Acceptance of thishypothesis immediately suggests the futilityof looking for a single "true" inventor to theexclusion of all others. It should also suggestthe fallacy, in many cases, of mutual ac-cusation of plagiarism.

Indeed, even the bare fact of an earlierpublication of a new idea by one of the dis-coverers, or an earlier patent application notalways can be taken as the undisputableproof of the lack of authenticity with someother contributor. Even right now, with allmodern means of exchange of information,very few individuals, if any, can claim thatthey are perfectly well informed about therecent achievements made in their fields inforeign countries. A lag of one or two, or evenmore years is quite common. Languagebarriers naturally augment the difficulties.As an interesting illustration, the case ofOliver Lodge can be given. As is known, thiseminent British scientist was working in thesame direction as Heinrich Hertz, that is, onthe path to discovery of electromagneticwaves. In a public lecture in July, 1888,Oliver Lodge demonstrated to the audiencestanding electric waves on wires and in air,he thought, discovered by him. He wasgenuinely disappointed when, shortly after,he learned about the ingenious and morecomplete work of Hertz on the same sub-ject, eight months before his lecture.6

The postulated hypothesis also makescomprehensible why in the achievements ofpioneers-the original discoverers, explorers,great inventors-there always is a pro-nounced element of what may be calledintuition or inspiration, or simply a mentaljump into unknown and unexplored do-mains not governed by laws of logic. Logiccomes into the picture later on after the dis-covery is made, when the discoverer (or theinventor) himself, or other persons begin toaccumulate new facts and to arrange themin logical harmony with the previous knowl-edge into a new theory. One commonly callsthis period of logical activity the developmentstage.

A new idea often comes to the discovererlike a flash of lightning, apparently un-warranted, often in the most inappropriatecircumstances (e.g., Archimedes in the bathtub). At that moment, the discoverer maynot even be in a position to prove the sound-ness of his idea, theoretically; he simplyknows it is true; he senses it.

Many an author bears witness to suchspontaneity and absence of logical assured-ness in the truth of his discovery. Thus, ittook Newton almost twenty years to provein detail the soundness of his law of Uni-versal Gravitation.7 It took natural phi-losophers more than a hundred years toprove the correctness of Huyghens' inspiredidea of undulatory theory of light. RobertMayer in his diary plainly states that theidea of Conservation of Energy flashedthrough his head as lightning when he was

6 Oliver Lodge, "On the theory of lightning con-ductors," Phil. Mag., vol. XXVI, pp. 217-230;August, 1888; especially the postscript.

7 William Cecil Dampier Dampier-Whetham," AHistory of Science," Macmillan Co.. New York, N. Y.,pp. 167-168; 1929.

performing a bleeding operation on a sailorat Java.8

The idea of inspirational discoveriesversus logical development (Edison's "in-spiration vs. perspiration") is stronglyemphasized by the most outstandingFrench mathematician, Henri Poincare, inhis excellent essay, "Mathematical Crea-tion."9 It is even said that he often madepublic his mathematical discoveries withouttheir logical proofs and had to supply theseon his friends' insistence.1"

One may remai k that with differentauthors the term inspiration used in thisarticle acquires different names, e.g., in-tuition, spontaneous revelation, subcon-scious mind, supersensory perception, hunch,accident, good luck, and what not. However,in every case it definitely means the same:a mental jump into the realm of new ideas,unaided by logic. The legal domain of logicis only the past with respect to the evermoving present." In the distinctive role ofinspiration versus logic lies also the as-surance that no inventing machine can everbe designed to replace the human mind.Also, in defiance of the popular scientificillustration of the significance of probability,humanity will always need for creativework the Shakespeares, Goethes, andTolstoys with their quills, not "the army ofmonkeys strumming on typewriters."'12

The dominant role of inspiration inbringing about novel ideas explains theknown fact that sometimes great contribu-tions to science, pure and applied, weremade by amateurs, men with no conven-tional schooling, or by men trained in anentirely different art. Enough to mentionBenjamin Thomson of Boston (Count Rum-ford), Sir Humphry Davy, Faraday, Joule,Robert Mayer,' Pasteur, and pleiads ofgreat inventors, such as Samuel Morse,Peter Cooper, Alexander Graham Bell,George Westinghouse, Thomas Edison,Marconi, etc. One cannot teach the art ofgreat discoveries or great inventions.'3

In this light, logic may even exert animpeding effect. Indeed, one may observethat a majority of revolutionary discoverieseven by the greatest scientists were madepreeminently in their prime, or at leastduring the first half of their manhood, whenthe ingrained habits of logical thinking werenot yet restricting the flight of their inspira-tion. A shining example of this was Newtonhimself. Practically all his great ideas were

Wilhelm Ostwald, 'Grosse Manner," AkadVerlagsgesellschaft m.b.H., Third and Fourth Ed., p65; 1910.

9 Poincare says: 'The ideas come to me with thesame characteristics of brevity, suddenness and im-mediate certainty."

10 W. W. R. Bell, "A Short History of Mathe-matics," Macmillan Co., pp. 536-537; 1893; Quota-tion from Poincare's biography by Gaston Darboux,his fellow mathematician.

11 "Heisenberg has recently pointed out that theprinciple of uncertainty implies that the past may becompletely deduced from the present, but the futurecannot." J. G. Crowther, "Men of Science," W. W.Norton and Co., Inc., New York, N. Y., p. 325;1936.

12 Emil Borel, 'Le hasard," Librairie Felix Alcan,Paris, Second Ed., p. 164; 1914.

A. S. Eddington, "Tlhe Nature of the PhysicalWorld," Macmillan Co., New York, N.Y., p. 164; 1929.

u 'Rules of discovery. The first rule of discovery isto have brains and good luck. The second rule of dis-covery is to sit tight and wait till you get a brightidea." (G. Polya, "How to Solve It?" Princeton Uni-versity Press, p. 158; 1948.)

conceived by him at the age of 23, when heretired to his farm, Woolsthorpe, during thegreat plague of 1665-1666.'4 The rest of hislife he was busy with the logical elaborationof his ideas; often, he did it reluctantly,urged by his friends and admirers.'5

The "odder" a novel idea, the greatermay be its potential value. Thus, Faraday'srevolutionary concept of "lines of force"was simply repulsive to the great mathe-matical physicists of his time. Many ofthem used all their mathematical skill tocircumvent Faraday's explanation of elec-tromagnetic induction as an effect of lines offorce propagating through space.'6 It tookanother genius, James Clark Maxwell, tograsp and assimilate Faraday's ideas and tounfold them into a great logical systemknown as "Maxwell's theory" of electro-magnetism. Again, when Marconi startedhis first experiments on wireless transmissionacross the ocean, his intent appeared odd,even ridiculous to those whose strictly logicalminds could not conceive how radio waves-in everything but their length similar to lightwaves could go around the earth's curva-ture. Therefore, the first news of Marconi'ssuccess (December 14, 1901) was met bymany a good scientist with great scep-ticism.'7 Logical justification of this un-predicted phenomenon took almost a quarterof a century.

Admitting the fact of illogical inspirationby no means deprives logic of its great valuein bringing discoveries and inventions downto earth and in interpreting them to man-kind at large. Just the opposite, if not sub-stantiated by a subsequent logical analysisand proper development, any novel idea, nomatter how good, may be rendered futile; ifunheeded, it may go back into oblivion.Such actually was the fate of the atomictheory of Lucretius. This also happened tothe amazing ideas of Roger Bacon.3 Again,lack of logical support postponed the adventof bacteriology and its medical implicationsby two centuries. Indeed, John Astruc,physician to Louis XIV, speaks with con-tempt and indignation of the "visionaryimagination" of some of his contemporaries(he exposes their names) who believed thatvarious contagious diseases were caused by"numerous schools of little, nimble, briskinvisible things of a very prolific naturewhich, once admitted (to the blood), increaseand multiply in abundance . .. and occasionall symptoms of diseases."'8

In order to emphasize the importance oflogical development, we may conjecture, for

14 In a memorandum in Newton's handwriting,preserved at the University of Cambridge, Newtonspeaks reminiscently of his past important work:". . . All this was in the two plague years of 1665 and1666, for in those days I was in the prime of my agefor invention, and minded Mathematics and Philoso-phy more that any time since.... " (William CecilDampier Dampier-Whetham, "A History of Science,"Macmillan Co., New York, N. Y., p. 165; 1929.)

15 Wm. Cecil Dampier Dampier-Whetham, "AHistory of Science," The Macmillan Co., New York,N. Y., p. 176; 1929.

16 James Clark Maxwell, "A Treatise on Electricityand Magnetism," Vol. II, Third Ed., Oxford Univ.Press, London: Humphry Milford, (First Ed.) 1872,(3rd Ed.), pp. 486-492; 1893.

17 Oliver Lodge, "Talks about Radio," George H.Doran Co., New York, N. Y. p. 61; 1925.

18 Howard W. Haggard, "Devils, Drugs andDoctors," Harper and Brothers, New York, N. Y., p.247; 1929.

610 Junte

Mouromtseff: Who Is the True Inventor?

example, that without Maxwell's suprememathematical logic, Faraday's inspirationalideas of gradual propagation of electromag-netic disturbances through space and timecould have lapsed into oblivion, or their fulldevelopment would have been postponed bysome period of time.

The great logical contributors are thosewho achieve greatness through their endeavor,knowledge, and skill.

It may be remarked that inspiration isnecessary not only for discovery of novelbasic ideas but also is needed at variousstages of their logical development. It isneeded each time the trodden path of logiccomes to a dead end in solving even minor

problems. The apparently simple idea ofdrilling a hole may come through inspira-tion. Thus, rows of holes along the edges of amovie film conceived by LePrince in 1890,19actually saved movies from being a failureat tlheir very inception.

The outlined hypothesis and its in-ferences, once accepted, surely can help onemore easily to untangle the existing am-

biguities, discrepancies, and outright errors

in historical information as often given intextbooks on science, historical essays andin so-called historical movies. However,even with the most sincere desire to givefull justice to various contributors to humanprogress, it often proves difficult to escapethe influence of certain biases. One of themis the "legal" bias.

The legal viewpoint is of course involvedthrough the patents pertaining to the basicidea under consideration. As already stated,the legal criteria of the true inventor do notalways coincide with the common under-standing of justice. To begin with, patentlaws are different in different countries: thisimmediately renders the legal truth multi-faced. Furthermore, from the legal view-

point a bare idea-no matter how brilliant-cannot be subject to a patent; it should beembodied in a useful device. Thus, for ex-ample, the law would refuse to view SirWilliam Crookes as the originator of radio,although he was actually the first to go onrecord in 189220 with the idea of utilizing thethen recently discovered electric waves forpractical communication. On the other

19 Roger Burlington, 'Inventors Behind the Inven-tions," Harcourt, Brace and Co., New York, N. Y.,p. 147; 1947.

20 Sir William Crookes, 'Some possibilities ofelectricity,' Fortnightly Rev., vol. 57, pp. 172-181;February, 1892.

hand, if a "legal" inventor, inspired by someone else's idea, made it serviceable to man-kind through his skill and ingenuity, onemust certainly admit that he contributed tohuman progress more than he who had con-ceived a wondrous idea but "hid it under a

bushel."1'2 21 The relative merits of all personsinvolved should be judged in each individualcase according to the fruits of their deeds,either directly or by inspiring other people.No general rule can be given for this.

In addition to the legal bias, the correctpronouncement about a certain inventionor a certain discovery is not infrequently in-fluenced by what one may call, "human re-lation" factors. These are: personal friend-ship, business connections, commercial andindustrial interests of organizations to whichthe inventor belongs or belonged even in theremote past all of these tend to exaggeratehis merits unduly and to minimize thevirtues of competitors. In evaluation of in-dividual inventors and scientists, such one-sided publicity is to be discounted.

Undoubtedly, the most damaging totruth in general picture of human progressseem to be national prejudices. Because ofthese, young generations are educated in thehabit of disregarding contribution to prog-ress by other nationals and of greatly ex-aggerating the merits of their own lands-men.3 Why, for example, is the well-knownBoyle's law of isothermal expansion of gases

not called Boyle-Mariotte's law? Mariotte,a Frenchman, discovered the same law quiteindependently of Boyle, although he did itseveral years later. Yet, it was Mariotte whofirst realized the prime importance of thislaw and immediately applied it to the cal-culation of the distribution of atmosphericpressure, while the same law, probably con-sidered unimportant, was not even includedin the first publication of Boyle's work.23

Again, why should the author of a text-book on physics in the chapter on light con-vey to the students the idea that velocity oflight was first measured by Michelson? Thenames of the previous workers in this realm,

21 A good example of this is represented by thediscovery of 'Edison Effect." After a feeble attempt tocommercialize this phenomenon, Th. Edison com-pletely forgot about it. It took 0. W. Richardson, A.Wehnelt, J. A. Fleming, and Lee DeForest to investi-gate the phenomenon scientifically and to put it towork.22

22 Clay H. Sharp, 'Edison effect and its modernapplications," Proc. AIEE, vol. 41, p. 69; 1922.

23 Philip Lenard, "Great Men of Science," Mac-millan Co., New York, N. Y., pp. 63-64; 1925.

Roemer, Bradley, Fizeau, and Foucault, arenot even mentioned. Michelson contributedenough to science not to live on borrowedglory.

Such "why's" could be extended over

many pages. There are indeed numberlesscases in which greatness is thrust upon certainmen while it is deliberately taken away fromthe others. It is not infrequently thrust uponthose who themselves have already achievedgreatness or were born great. (Edison andEinstein are good examples.) Why should notscience be completely impartial in the matterof recognition of the merits of its great menw-ithout regard to their nationalities? Onlymutual respect and justice may some daybecome a solid basis of pax per cultura(peace through culture), the dream of manyscientists. Why should not Alexandre Popovand Guglielmo Marconi be given justice andhonor, each according to his specific merits,without trying to disparage the other?

The factual material and official recordsof the dawn of the "wireless, " historicalliterature, also the vast evidence producedby friends and admirers on both sides-allcorroborate that Marconi and Popov ar-

rived at the solution of practical wirelesscommunication independently and, broadlyspeaking, simultaneously. Both inventorsstarted their work in this direction during1895. In that year Marconi developed hisfirst apparatus and experimented at hisfather's farm near Bologna, Italy. Popovdemonstrated to Russian scientists histhunderstorm recording station; this later onbecame his first radio receiving station. Afterfurther development, both inventors wereable to demonstrate, in 1897, practical com-munication over distances of several miles,Marconi in England and Italy, Popov inRussia. It is hardly possible to establishwith certainty on which particular day eitherinventor conceived his final idea of wirelesscommunication. Is it, however, necessary?Is it necessary in a matter of such greatcultural importance to apply horse-race logicin which a split-second may mean a totalgain or a total loss? From all evidence it isclear that Russia learned about wireless andobtained it in practical form through theknowledge and ingenuity of the sedate sci-entist professor Popov; the Western worldunquestionably received all that throughthe energy and ingenuity of the youngMarconi, and his unabatable faith in thegreat future of radio.

6111950