Jozef Murgaš
Encyclopedia
Slovaks
The Slovaks, Slovak people, or Slovakians are a West Slavic people that primarily inhabit Slovakia and speak the Slovak language, which is closely related to the Czech language.Most Slovaks today live within the borders of the independent Slovakia...
inventor, architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...
, botanist, painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, patriot
Patriotism
Patriotism is a devotion to one's country, excluding differences caused by the dependencies of the term's meaning upon context, geography and philosophy...
, and Roman Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
priest
Priest
A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...
. He contributed to wireless telegraphy
Wireless telegraphy
Wireless telegraphy is a historical term used today to apply to early radio telegraph communications techniques and practices, particularly those used during the first three decades of radio before the term radio came into use....
and help develop mobile communications and wireless transmission of information and human voice.
Murgaš was nicknamed the Radio Priest and deemed a Renaissance man
Polymath
A polymath is a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas. In less formal terms, a polymath may simply be someone who is very knowledgeable...
.
Europe
Murgaš was born in TajovTajov
Tajov is a village and municipality in Banská Bystrica District in the Banská Bystrica Region of central Slovakia.-History:In historical records the village was first mentioned in 1495.-Geography:...
(Tajó), Kingdom of Hungary
Kingdom of Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary comprised present-day Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia , Transylvania , Carpatho Ruthenia , Vojvodina , Burgenland , and other smaller territories surrounding present-day Hungary's borders...
, Austrian Empire
Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...
(now Slovakia
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
). He studied theology in Prešporok
Bratislava
Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...
(Pressburg, present Bratislava
Bratislava
Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...
) (1880–82), Esztergom
Esztergom
Esztergom , is a city in northern Hungary, 46 km north-west of the capital Budapest. It lies in Komárom-Esztergom county, on the right bank of the river Danube, which forms the border with Slovakia there....
(1882–84), and in Banská Bystrica
Banská Bystrica
Banská Bystrica is a key city in central Slovakia located on the Hron River in a long and wide valley encircled by the mountain chains of the Low Tatras, the Veľká Fatra, and the Kremnica Mountains. With 81,281 inhabitants, Banská Bystrica is the sixth most populous municipality in Slovakia...
(Besztercebánya), where he graduated in 1888. From his youth he was bright, skillful and good at painting and electrotechnology: The vice-head of the school in Esztergom allowed him to use the physics room for experiments, and the Slovak painters B. Klemens and Dominik Skutecký noticed his talent for painting.
After priestly ordination
Ordination
In general religious use, ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart as clergy to perform various religious rites and ceremonies. The process and ceremonies of ordination itself varies by religion and denomination. One who is in preparation for, or who is...
in 1888, Murgaš worked as a curate
Curate
A curate is a person who is invested with the care or cure of souls of a parish. In this sense "curate" correctly means a parish priest but in English-speaking countries a curate is an assistant to the parish priest...
. On Skutecký's initiative, Murgaš was accepted at a painting school in Budapest, where he studied from 1889-90. He also studied painting in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
from 1890-93. He attended both schools while working. He painted sacral pieces and Slovak landscapes and Slovak personalities. It was due to his strong patriotism he exhibited during holidays in the 1890s that he was not allowed to finish his painting studies and had to work as a curate in changing places in the Kingdom of Hungary: in Chrenovec (Nyitratormás), Slovenská Ľupča
Slovenská Lupca
Slovenská Ľupča is the largest village in the Banská Bystrica District of central Slovakia.-Geography:The altitude of Slovenská Ľupča ranges from 370 to 699 metres, with the centre of the village lying at 378 metres. The municipality covers an area of 33.325km². It is situated about 10 km east of...
(Zólyomlipcse), Dubová
Dubová
Dubová may refer to:* Dubová, Pezinok District in the Pezinok District, Slovakia* Dubová, Svidník District in the Svidník District, Slovakia...
(Cseres) and in Lopej (Lopér). In Lopej, he painted a large sacral picture of St. George, which is still on the church altar of the village.
United States
Due to permanent conflicts with the bishop's secretary, Murgaš had to emigrate to the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in 1896, where he was assigned a Slovak parish in the city of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
Wilkes-Barre is a city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, the county seat of Luzerne County. It is at the center of the Wyoming Valley area and is one of the principal cities in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre metropolitan area, which had a population of 563,631 as of the 2010 Census...
. Having no possibility for painting, he started to deal with natural sciences again, especially electrotechnology. He established a laboratory in Wilkes-Barre, in which he primarily investigated radiotelegraphy. His article in the Tovaryšstvo magazine of 1900 shows that his radiotelegraphy studies had achieved a high level. In 1904, he received his first two US patents: the Apparatus for wireless telegraphy and The way of transmitted messages by wireless telegraphy. Further 11 patents followed between 1907 and 1911 (see below). Based on the first two patents, he created the Universal Aether Telegraph Co., which organized a public test of Murgaš's transmitting and receiving facilities in September 1905 (see below). The test was successful, but a storm destroyed the antenna masts three month later, which led to a dissolution of the company.
Murgaš's primary concern in Wilkes-Barre, however, were the local Slovaks. He took care of Slovak immigrants, had a new church, library, cemetery, several schools, gymnasium and playgrounds built, all of which are still used by American Slovaks. He was also one of the founders of the St. Cyril
Saints Cyril and Methodius
Saints Cyril and Methodius were two Byzantine Greek brothers born in Thessaloniki in the 9th century. They became missionaries of Christianity among the Slavic peoples of Bulgaria, Great Moravia and Pannonia. Through their work they influenced the cultural development of all Slavs, for which they...
and Methodius community and took care of children and youth. He was very popular among religious people because of his emotional relation to them. He also published a newspaper, in which he published some popular-science articles and verses.
Murgaš was active in the Slovak expatriates movement, wrote articles for their press, was one of the founders of the Slovak League in America, actively supported the creation of the state of Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
, organized a money collection (a fund) of American Slovaks for the creation of Czechoslovakia (1,000,000 USD), and was also a writer and a signatory of the Pittsburgh Agreement
Pittsburgh Agreement
The Pittsburgh Agreement paved the way for the creation of the state of Czechoslovakia and was signed by a group of 20 Czechs, Slovaks, and Rusyns on May 31, 1918...
(1918) between Czechs and Slovaks on establishing Czechoslovakia. As a respected personality, he gained trust and support of the highest authorities in the USA for the establishment of Czechoslovakia.
Murgaš continued to study physics and to do many experiments. He financed his activities by selling his paintings. He also collected mushrooms, plants, minerals and insects. His butterfly collection comprised 9000 pieces from all over the world.
When the United States entered World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, private radiotelegraphy stations were prohibited, which put an end to Murgaš's pioneer work in this field. After the creation of Czechoslovakia, he returned to Slovakia in 1920, where he taught electrotechnology at a high school, but since he did not find appropriate understanding by the Ministry of Education in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, he returned to Wilkes-Barre four months later. He was nominated to be a member of the Federal Radio Commission
Federal Radio Commission
The Federal Radio Commission was a government body that regulated radio use in the United States from its creation in 1926 until its replacement by the Federal Communications Commission in 1934...
of the United States in 1925. Murgaš died in Wilkes-Barre four years later.
Importance and primacy conflicts
The most dynamic segments in the area of communications services today are internet services, mobile telephony and convergence of voice and data process. If we go back one hundred years to history we can see that development in this area began with wireless information transmission encoded in telegraphyTelegraphy
Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages via some form of signalling technology. Telegraphy requires messages to be converted to a code which is known to both sender and receiver...
marks and wireless voice transmission which was made by frequency modulation.
On 7 January 1916, a US county court gave the primacy of wireless information transmission via electromagnetic waves to Murgaš. In 1905, Murgaš achieved radio transmission between Wilkes-Barre and Scranton, Pennsylvania
Scranton, Pennsylvania
Scranton is a city in the northeastern part of Pennsylvania, United States. It is the county seat of Lackawanna County and the largest principal city in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre metropolitan area. Scranton had a population of 76,089 in 2010, according to the U.S...
, or a distance of 20 miles (30 km).
Other important specialists also attempted to carry out such transmissions at that time. Guglielmo Marconi
Guglielmo Marconi
Guglielmo Marconi was an Italian inventor, known as the father of long distance radio transmission and for his development of Marconi's law and a radio telegraph system. Marconi is often credited as the inventor of radio, and indeed he shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand...
and other researchers (for example Reginald Fessenden
Reginald Fessenden
Reginald Aubrey Fessenden , a naturalized American citizen born in Canada, was an inventor who performed pioneering experiments in radio, including early—and possibly the first—radio transmissions of voice and music...
), however, were not able to perform satisfactory wireless information transmission above Earth's surface. The reason why Murgaš was more successful then the others was that he invented the so-called tone system
Frequency-shift keying
Frequency-shift keying is a frequency modulation scheme in which digital information is transmitted through discrete frequency changes of a carrier wave. The simplest FSK is binary FSK . BFSK uses a pair of discrete frequencies to transmit binary information. With this scheme, the "1" is called...
which diminished the time needed to deliver a signal and thus considerably improved the system of wireless telegraphy used until then. The tone system is the use of two signals of different frequencies, i.e. Murgaš substituted the "dot" of the Morse code
Morse code
Morse code is a method of transmitting textual information as a series of on-off tones, lights, or clicks that can be directly understood by a skilled listener or observer without special equipment...
with a higher tone and the "dash" with a lower tone (this is the 1904 patent "The way of transmitted messages by wireless telegraphy").
Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial...
paid remarkable attention to Murgaš's experiments and he is said to have informed G. Marconi of Murgaš's success. Murgaš's lab in Wilkes-Barre was visited by President Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
in 1905.
Patents 1904 - 1911
"Wireless-telegraph apparatus" (1904) – content: adaptation of a Wahnelt type interruptor and construction of an electromagnetic waves detector, in which a rotating carbon lug replaces a coherer with metallic swarf "The way of transmitted messages by wireless telegraphy" (1904) – content: tone system for the transmission of Morse code signs (as described above) "Constructing Antennas for Wireless Telegraphy" (July 16, 1907). "Apparatus for making electromagnetic waves" (1908) "Wave meter" (1907) "Electrical transformer" [1907) "Underground wireless telegraphy" "Wireless telegraphy"(1909) "Making of sparkles frequency from power supply without interrupter"(1909) "Magnetic waves detector"(1909) "Magnetic detector" (1909) Improved invention in the United States; given in EnglandEngland
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
GB9726 in 1907 "The way and apparatus for making electrical alternating current oscillations" (1916) "Apparatus for making electrical oscillations" (1911) "Spinning reel for fishing rod" (1912)
- Co-author of 2 inventions concerned electrical arc lamps (1910)
Memorials and honors
In TajovTajov
Tajov is a village and municipality in Banská Bystrica District in the Banská Bystrica Region of central Slovakia.-History:In historical records the village was first mentioned in 1495.-Geography:...
, there is Murgaš's house where he was born, a memorial room, and a symbolic grave with a sepulchral monument of Murgaš at the local cemetery. Jozef Šebo, the founder of the room and monument (now a retired teacher) looks after them very carefully. The memorial room also features originals of pictures, paintings, some unique pieces from his butterfly collection, models of inventions in wireless telegraphy and documents. One can also see there a minimodel of Murgaš's original antenna masts built by company Universal Aether Telegraph Co. in Wilkes-Barre in 1905.
Further objects include:
- Jozef Murgaš Monument in BratislavaBratislavaBratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...
, Slovakia – the Slovak Telecom building in the Jarošova Street - Jozef Murgaš street in PodbrezováPodbrezováPodbrezová is a large village and municipality in Brezno District, in the Banská Bystrica Region of central Slovakia, around 10 km west of the district seat town, Brezno.-History:...
-Lopej, Slovakia - Joseph Murgas Monument in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
- Paintings in a church in Wilkes-Barre in Pennsylvania
- Paintings in the Memorial room in Tajov, in some churches in Lopej and Banská BystricaBanská BystricaBanská Bystrica is a key city in central Slovakia located on the Hron River in a long and wide valley encircled by the mountain chains of the Low Tatras, the Veľká Fatra, and the Kremnica Mountains. With 81,281 inhabitants, Banská Bystrica is the sixth most populous municipality in Slovakia...
- Murgas Amateur Radio Club of Wilkes-Barre, PA named after Fr. Murgas in 1975.
- Model of Murgas' transmitting station in Wilkes-Barre
- Collection of butterflies (9,000 pieces) from all over the world
- Liberty shipLiberty shipLiberty ships were cargo ships built in the United States during World War II. Though British in conception, they were adapted by the U.S. as they were cheap and quick to build, and came to symbolize U.S. wartime industrial output. Based on vessels ordered by Britain to replace ships torpedoed by...
SS Joseph Murgas in the U.S. state GeorgiaGeorgia (U.S. state)Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
in 1944 - Jozef Murgaš Secondary School of Electrical Engineering in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia
- Jozef Murgaš stamp issued by the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Public Works of the Slovak Republic in 1994 (400,000 pieces) on the occasion of 130th birth anniversary (1864) of Jozef Murgaš.
To the memory of Murgaš and to support the development of telecommunications in Slovakia , the Jozef Murgaš Award is awarded annually by the Slovak Electrotechnical Society and Ministry of Transport, Posts and Telecommunications of the Slovak Republic
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
for:
- publication of original theoretical contribution supporting development of telecommunication in Slovakia,
- utilization of original or foreign theoretical contribution to development of telecommunications and telecommunication industry in Slovakia.
External links
- Jozef Murgas - The Forgotten Radio Genius
- Slovak Academy of Sciences - Mathematical Institute - Jozef Murgas - The source for this article. (Slovak)
- Early radio history - The Murgas System of Wireless Telegraphy. Orig. from Electrical World and Engineer
- Early radio history - The Murgas System of Wireless Telegraphy. Orig. from Electrical Review
- Communication Technology Forum's article on Murgaš
- Murgas Amateur Radio Club, Wilkes-Barre, PA