Guglielmo Marconi (25.04.1874-20.07.1937) was an Italian physicist, engineer and entrepreneur and a member of the Accademia dei Lincei (1912), and from 1930 its president. He was born in Bologna. He was educated at home. Under the influence of the work of H. Hertz and A. Righi on electromagnetic waves he began experiments in this field and developed the instruments of the wireless telegraph. In 1896 he moved to England and filed an application, and in 1897 he received a patent for the use of electromagnetic waves for wireless communication (A. S. Popov, the inventor of radio, did not patent his discovery). The circuit of Marconi's receiver was the same as that of Popov's receiver. Thanks to his large material resources and his energy, Marconi achieved the wide practical application of the new means of communication. In 1901 he established radio communication across the Atlantic Ocean. His activity played a considerable part in the development of radio engineering, and in particular in the spread of radio as a means of communication (Nobel Prize, 1909).
In his political views he was an extreme reactionary.