Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that can help answer the question.
Query: When was Mahlon Loomis born?
Mahlon Loomis (21 July 1826 – 13 October 1886) was an American dentist and inventor. He is best known for promoting the idea that the Earth's upper atmosphere was divided into discrete concentric layers, and these layers could be tapped by metallic conductors on hills and mountain tops, in order to provide long-distance wireless telegraph and telephone communication, as well as draw electricity down to the Earth's surface.
Skepticism about Loomis' ideas date back to his earliest work. In 1869, the year he petitioned the U.S. Congress for financial support, and from 1870 to 1873, when he was endeavoring to receive the charter for the Loomis Aerial Telegraph Company, newspaper commentary was often very negative. An editorial comment in the January 15, 1869 Paterson Daily Gardian stated "We incline to think that Mr. Summer is both sound and safe in saying of Mahon Loomis, M.D.'s new mode of 'telegraphing without the use of wires,' that it is either a great case of moonshine or else it marks an epoch in the progress of invention.' But before that 'appropriation of $50,000' is passed, it may be well to find out which."[35]
Fifteen years after Mahlon Loomis' death, his older brother George wrote an account about his brother's activities. George Loomis reported that a series of financial setbacks had hindered development. A plan to raise $20,000 to finance a demonstration of the system in the U.S. Rocky Mountains, spanning the 100 miles (160 kilometers) between Mount Hood, Oregon and Mount Shasta, California had to be canceled due to losses encountered by the backers in the September 1869 Black Friday stock market crash. Alternate financing for this test was then arranged from a group located in Chicago, but this support also was blocked, due to the aftereffects of the October 1871 Great Chicago Fire.[15]
Another electrical phenomenon that greatly influenced Loomis' theories was the aurora borealis or "Northern Lights". As early as 1839 the German mathematician and physicist Carl Friedrich Gauss had correctly speculated that its luminescence was originating in an electrically conducting region of the upper atmosphere, which later became known as ionosphere. Loomis was familiar with the solar storm of 1859, which in addition to a major aurora display produced widespread surging electrical currents which disrupted telegraph lines. However, at this time the exact height of the phenomenon was uncertain. Although it is now known to be located hundreds of kilometers above sea level, Loomis believed it was actually only a few kilometers above the Earth's surface, thus well within the range of the highest mountain summits.
Loomis now held a patent, and the Loomis Aerial Telegraph Company had a federal charter, but there appears to have been liitle corporate activity beyond an organizational meeting. Ernest Newton Boog placed much of the blame on the inactivity on the Panic of 1873, which occurred in September of that year, and "ruined most of the very capitalists who had agreed to back him".[27]
by S. R. Winters, Radio News, November 1922, pages 836-837, 966-982. Appleby, Thomas, Mahlon Loomis: Inventor of Radio, 1967. , Smithsonian Institution: National Museum of American History, Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation (si.edu)
An historical review of Loomis' patent concluded that he "had great confidence in the ultimate success of his process, and regarded it as easy of manipulation and adaptation. But the profession encountered very great difficulties with it in these directions, principal among them being the almost impossibility of properly governing the shrinkage of the material in firing; and Mr. Loomis's process, although experimented with to some extent, never attained too much importance."[6]
The October 1965 issue of Popular Electronics printed an article, "The Real Inventor of Wireless", authored by Thomas Appleby[48] and on March 15, 1967 Appleby founded the non-profit "Mahlon Loomis Scientific Foundation, Inc." in Washington, D.C., "dedicated to scientific research in the name of Mahlon Loomis".[49] He also prepared a more extensive review of Loomis' life, Mahlon Loomis: Inventor of Radio, which was published in 1967.
Others, however, considered Loomis to be a misunderstood prophet who was thirty years before his time, and who should be credited with having invented wireless telegraphy "two years before the birth of Marconi".[43]
Reflecting his belief in the tremendous untapped potential of atmospheric electricity, Loomis declared in a January 1868 letter to his brother Joseph: "Telegraph! That's the least important result I expect to attain..."[11] However, virtually all his reported ensuing efforts dealt with attempts to establish long-distance signalling.
Loomis believed that, in the absence of disrupting influences like thunderstorms, the atmosphere normally arranged itself into discrete concentric layers, which could be individually accessed in order to provide distant wireless communication. Therefore, transmissions would only be possible when the both the sending and receiving conductors were at same altitude above sea level. There were a number of instances in the years between 1866 and 1879 where Loomis was reported making successful experimental transmissions, ranging from 11 to 400 miles (18 to 645 kilometers). However, in most cases the details provided were very limited.
Despite the existence of the earlier Ward patent, most historical reviews still credit Loomis as being the first individual to receive a patent for wireless electronic communication.
However, in late 1877 it was reported that Loomis was now conducting successful experiments in West Virginia, and also had the financing needed to test a bold plan to connect the western United States with Switzerland. According to this report, carried in numerous papers: "Information has reached here recently that Professor Loomis, who has been in the mountainous regions of West Virginia for some months conducting a series of experiments with his proposed aerial telegraphy, has demonstrated finally that telegraphing without wires is practical." Furthermore, "Professor Loomis has a scheme now on foot for a series of experiments from a point on one of the highest peaks on the Alps, in Switzerland, to a similarly situated place in the Rocky Mountains, on this side of the world. If this succeeds, of course, the invention will rank in importance with that of the electric telegraph itself, and be even greater than that of the telephone. All of the money necessary to carry on the experiments has already been promised, and it will not be many years, if it turns out to be a success, before ocean cables will be one of the lost arts, as having played its part, it will be laid aside. The cost of aerial telegraphy will not be over one cent when the other is $1,000."[29]
For the "Telegraphy" entry in the 1903 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, contributor John Ambrose Fleming wrote that: "Many other more or less imperfect devices—such as those of Mahlon Loomis, put forward in 1872 and 1877, and Kitsee in 1895—for wireless telegraphy were not within the region of practically realizable schemes."[36] In 1904, A. T. Story surveyed the available information, and felt the need to include the qualifier "if we are to believe the reports", before stating that then "the attempt to communicate between the two summits was successful".[37] In 1907 Lucien Poincaré authored a comprehensive overview of "modern physics" which flatly dismissed Loomis' self-reported successes as not even being worthy of review,[38] and the English translation of this book added the pejorative description of Loomis as "an American quack".[39]
In 1922, the authors of The Complete Book of Radio were intrigued by Loomis' work, although they prefaced their review with the comment that they were "by no means asserting that Loomis discovered radio telegraphy, as we understand it today". After analyzing Loomis' papers, they concluded that "it is very difficult to give Loomis's notes the proper interpretation", and "even the most thoughtful consideration does not seem to reveal the facts that he had in mind". In addition, they found that his patent "specifications, in the light of our present-day knowledge, are so ambiguous that it is difficult to get their real meaning". Given the lack of information, they concluded it was unclear whether he had employed the high-frequency electrical currents later determined to be necessary to generate radio signals, on the other hand, "It cannot be said with certainty that he did not use such currents."[42]
"I also dispense with all artificial batteries, but use the free electricity of the atmosphere, co-operating with that of the earth... for telegraphing and for other purposes, such as light, heat, and motive power." (Loomis)
George Loomis reported that near the end of his life, Mahlon recounted that "an impulse has driven me that I could not resist" and "I know that I am by some, even many, regarded as a crank—by some perhaps as a fool—for allowing myself to the sacrifice of material advantages to abandon a lucrative profession and pursue this ignus fatuus, but I know that I am right, and if the present generation lives long enough their opinions will be changed—and their wonder will be that they did not perceive it before. I shall never see it perfected—but it will be, and others will have the honor of the discovery. Still, I do not care for that—except it would be gratifying I confess, to live to see the world acknowledge that I am at least sane; or at least such a crank as God employs to move the world."[59]
In the mid-1800s it had been well established that the Earth was surrounded by a significant electrical field, and Loomis felt passionately that this was an overlooked resource of vast potential, both for generating electrical power, and as a conduit that would support worldwide wireless communication.
With the approach of the centennial of his reported October 1866 demonstration, a group of supporters worked to commemorate Loomis. A short article by Otis B. Young of Southern Illinois University, "The Real Beginning of Radio: the Neglected Story of Mahlon Loomis", appeared in the March 7, 1964 issue of Saturday Review.[44] Young produced a longer review in 1967, whose open sentence asserted that "Mahlon Loomis was beyond reasonable doubt the discoverer and inventor of wireless communication in the world."[45] Congressional acknowledgement of Loomis was proposed through Senate Joint Resolution 111, submitted September 20, 1965 by Senator Robert Byrd,[46] and House Joint Resolution 685, submitted October 7, 1965 by Representative Howard W. Smith,[47] both of Virginia, which sought to recognize Loomis as being "the first person to invent and demonstrate a system of wireless communication". However, neither resolution was passed.
While the attempts to have the incorporation bill approved were ongoing, Loomis, at the suggestion of representative Bingham, applied for a patent covering his idea. On July 30, 1872, he was issued for "Improvement in Telegraphing". This one-page patent makes a vague claim about using atmospheric electricity to eliminate the overhead wire used by the existing telegraph systems, but it contains no schematic diagram of how to build it, and no theory of how it might function. Loomis envisioned towers "on the tops of high mountains, and thus penetrate or establish electrical connection with the atmospheric stratum ... to form the electrical circuit."
The lack of independent witnesses or detailed technical descriptions has made it difficult to make a conclusive analysis of Loomis' various assertions and ideas. During this era the common practice for verifying that a system was working as advertised was to post observers at each end of a communication link, sending their own messages and making public reports.[33] Although Loomis claimed that "eminent scientists and engineers" observed his experiments, he never provided their names or those of his assistants, and extensive research has not uncovered any independent reports by eyewitnesses.[34]
On January 13, 1869, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts submitted a petition prepared by Loomis that requested that the U.S. Congress appropriate $50,000 for financing for developing his ideas "during the next year".[17] This petition was initially referred to the Committee on Patents, then at Loomis' request was rereferred on March 11, 1870 to the Committee on Appropriations.[18] Twenty days later the petition was again transferred, to the Committee on Commerce.[19]
The roots of Loomis Chaffee run as far back as 1639, when Joseph Loomis and his family first settled at the confluence of the Farmington and Connecticut River. Several generations later, the inspiration for the school was born out of family tragedy, when, in the early 1870s, four Loomis brothers and their sister had outlived all their children.
In contrast, there was little beyond Loomis' enthusiasm to support his assertion that it was possible to construct working aerial telegraph stations on mountaintops. Senator Sumner, when submitting Loomis' request, explained that: "In presenting this petition I desire to say that I perform a duty, and I content myself with remarking that it is certainly a great case of moonshine or it marks a great epoch in the progress of invention. I do not undertake to express an opinion upon it." Kansas senator Samuel Pomeroy did state that "I hope Senators will not think from any remarks I have made that I sneered at this improvement. I believe in it. I have seen two or three experiments, and I think there is something in it. I have seen it tested in a small way, and I am inclined to think it will succeed." However he did not provide any additional details as to what he meant by "tested in a small way".[17] Ultimately Loomis's petition for financial support was not approved.
In the 2003 issue of Invention & Technology, the article "Through The Air In 1866" by Malvin E. Ring was sub-titled "Virginia dentist demonstrated wireless telegraphy decades before Marconi". This review accepted Loomis' claims of making long-distance wireless telegraphy transmissions, although the author had outstanding questions about the technical details, stating "How exactly this happened is not clear."[54]