The history of telecommunications probably goes back much further than you think. While the word has become synonymous with television broadcasting and telephone communications, it actually describes any remote communication system, even including smoke signals. These simple signals were used for many different purposes, from signaling that an “enemy was approaching” to signaling that a whale had washed ashore and could be cut off for food.
Although some ancient cultures changed smoke colors to convey more information, there’s only so much you can do with a big fire. One particularly impressive ancient version of telecommunication intended to convey more precise meaning was the hydraulic telegraph, used in Ancient Greece around 350 BC.
The idea, thought to have been invented by Aeneas of Stymphalos, who was writing at the time on military practices, was as beautiful as it was simple. In this method, everyone who would communicate with them was given a pot of the same size and filled with the same amount of water. Inside these pots, there was a stick with the same messages written on it.
According to a translation of an account by Polybius, who lived at the time, “In each part should be written the most obvious and ordinary events that took place in the war; for example, the first should read ‘Cavalry’ (arrived in the country), the second ‘Heavy infantry’, the third ‘Light infantry’, the next ‘Infantry and cavalry’, the next ‘Ships’, the next ‘Egypt’, and this is, at present, in time of war, the reasonable main “The main possibilities continue until all parts are entered,” he says.
When someone wanted to send a message, they used fire to signal the receiver. Then, starting at the same time as this signal, the tap in the pots was opened, allowing the water inside to flow into the basin below (so the water in the pot was not wasted). The taps were kept open throughout the signal, and as a result, the water level reached the same level in both pots, thus showing the same written message on the sticks.
Centuries later in Britain, civil engineer Francis Whishaw invented another, more complex system for transmitting information at a distance using water. This system connected two devices together through pipes and used changes in pressure to change water levels in the receiving device, again transmitting information through the water levels. However, although this system showed that it was successful, the idea did not succeed.
43492
