Communications

Russell W. Burns graduated from the University of Durham in 1948 with a first class honours degree in physics. Following post-graduate research he joined the Royal Naval Scientific Service in 1952. Professor Burns subsequently held various appointments in higher education in the UK and abroad, obtaining his PhD from the University of Leicester in 1976, and retired in 1989. He has been researching and writing on the history of electrical engineering for more than 30 years. He was awarded the IEE's SET Divisional Board Premium in 1993 and shared the Maxwell Premium in 1994. An IET Fellow, Professor Burns is a past chairman of the IEE's History of Technology professional group, Archives Committee and Science Education and Technology Divisional Board.

Chapter 1: Communication among the ancients
Chapter 2: Semaphore signalling
Chapter 3: The development of electric telegraphy from c. 1750-1850
Chapter 4: Electric telegraphy - commercial and social considerations
Chapter 5: Submarine telegraphy
Chapter 6: The telephone
Chapter 7: Optical communications
Chapter 8: Images by wire, picture telegraphy (1843-c. 1900)
Chapter 9: Distant vision (c. 1880-1908)
Chapter 10: The early wireless pioneers
Chapter 11: Early experimental wireless telegraphy (1895-1898)
Chapter 12: Other wireless developments
Chapter 13: Maritime wireless telegraphy
Chapter 14: Point-to-point communications
Chapter 15: Television development, pre-1914
Chapter 16: The Great War years, 1914-1918
Chapter 17: The birth of sound broadcasting
Chapter 18: Some important developments in the 1920s
Chapter 19: The rise and fall of low definition television, c. 1920-c. 1930
Chapter 20: The birth of high definition television
Chapter 21: EMI and high definition television
Chapter 22: The emergence of new technologies
Chapter 23: Epilogue