History of wirelless comunications
James Clerk Maxwell is best known for his formulation of electromagnetic theory. In 1864 Maxwell released his paper "Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field" which concluded that light, electricity, and magnetism, were all related, all worked hand in hand, and that these electromagnetic phenomena all traveled in waves. Scientists knew that light was a wave but they didn't know what made it up. Maxwell figured it out. Maxwells' 1864 conclusions were distributed around the world and created a sensation. But it was not until 1888 that Professor Heinrich Hertz of Bonn, Germany, could reliably produce and detect radio waves. Before that many brushed close to detecting radio waves but did not pursue the elusive goal. The most notable were Edison and David Edward Hughes, who became the first person to take a call on a mobile telephone. In 1890, Edouard Branly, Physics Professor at the Catholic University of Paris, (good reference) found that a nearby electromagnetic disturbance (spark) can lower the resistance of a thin layer of platinum deposited upon glass and he is, thus, credited as the inventor of the coherer wireless detector.