Alexander Popov: Inventor of Radio

Alexander Stepanovich Popov (1859-1905) was a Russian physicist, inventor of communication equipment and lecturer. The best years of Popov’s short life were spent in a school that was destined to become the cradle of radio. Here he worked for eighteen years, from 1883 to 1901. He came a youth without a stable place in life, and left the Torpedo School a recognized scientist that had glorified Russian science with an epoch-making contribution. This period of Popov’s life is of extraordinary interest not only as it concerns the biography of the inventor of radio, but also it regards the history of the theory of electricity and its practical applications. The Popov Gold Medal is awarded annually by the Academy of Sciences of the USSR to Soviet and foreign scientists for outstanding scientific work and inventions in the field of radio.