Interview

After completing such a focused exploration of his life and works, I felt the last step to knowing the man was to sit down with him for an interview. Fortunately, after spending over 95 years being dead, Karl Braun agreed to do this with me.

What’s his reaction to the world in 2013? How does he feel about the usage of his life works? It’s all answered in this interview, so without further ado, let’s find out!

Me: Hi, Mr. Braun. How are you today?

Braun: Good day to you, sir.

M: Thanks for joining me today. You mind answering a few questions?

B: Not at all. Let’s begin.

M: Alright. Now, before we discuss the present day, I want to focus on what occurred while you were alive. What interested you in physics that brought you to study it?

B: One topic that entails both the unfathomably large and the invisibly small… The study of how our very universe works… Nothing seemed as fascinating to me as that.

M: As you dove into the field, what particular discoveries interested you the most?

B: I was fascinated by the idea of particles so small that we couldn’t see them. These building blocks for our universe — the very composition of our bodies — were beyond our knowledge. I don’t know what progress has been made since my death, but I’d hope we’ve learned very much in the past century. And I’d like to think my contributions helped.

M: They certainly did. As you know, the electron was discovered by Joseph John Thomson using your cathode ray tube!

B: Yes, I’m very aware of that. By the time he discovered the actual charged particle, its existence was already widely-hypothesized. I was among those who suspected such a particle existed, and this curiosity is what brought me to design the cathode ray tube.

M: Of course. Now, since you’ve come for this interview, you may have noticed how vastly different the world is since you were alive. Have you noticed the screens that display light?

B: I have. I’ve seen several. They project very clear images that people seem to watch. What a fascinating device! I assume it’s a progression of the technology involving the cathode ray tube? I recall Russian physicist Boris Rosing working on a method to display images with my device, several years after I’d invented it. I now imagine his work was a success.

M: Well, the screens you saw most likely did not have cathode ray tubes inside them; a new age of digital technology has boomed in the past decade or so, and these digital images have replaced the cathode ray tube screens.

B: So you’re saying that Rosing did succeed?

M: To an extent. He wasn’t able to perfect the technology, but later inventors such as Peter Nipkow were able to create very clear images with your cathode ray tube. Throughout the rest of the twentieth century, the technology was improved upon repeatedly to the point that very clear, colored, fast-moving images were being projected into the homes of people all over the world.

B: Fascinating. I’m glad that my invention was able to change lives. The physicists that have lived since my death definitely seem to have mastered the realm of electricity. Now, what is this you’re saying about projecting images into people’s homes?

M: I’m glad you asked. Long-distance communication technologies have grown to the point that information can very easily be sent to homes all over the world.

B: Is this only true for images on a screen?

M: Certainly not. Sound can be sent too, as well as any other form of digital information.

B: It seems there has been a vast improvement in communication technology since my death. I created a crystal diode rectifier to improve telegraphy with the intention of increasing long-distance communications. My goal was to make wireless communication possible through my works. I succeeded, and by the time of my death, wireless telegraphy had become a very valid means of communication. I’d be pleased to know that it was my technology that was expanded upon to improve telecommunications in the years after my death.

M: Indeed it was. Your use of radio waves for communication changed the world. Communication across continents became very convenient; communication across oceans even became possible. Eventually, the masses owned radio wave receivers and were able to receive communications from throughout their country.

B: Incredible. I’d hoped so much would become the standard someday, but I wasn’t sure in what form it would occur.

M: Your invention and research were certainly vital to this reality.

B: Thank you, but there were many other scientists and inventors involved as well. I’m far from the most important, I’m sure. But I am curious to know, is my name still known in the present day?

M: Unfortunately, most people do not know you by name without specifically researching you. My goal is to spread the information of your life via this very website. A website is, of course, a form of telecommunication that allows people to see the images and sounds I make available for them here. People connect their computers to a worldwide chain of electronic communications, and that allows us to rapidly share information with each other, and to view it at our own will.

B: That’s fascinating! It sounds like a very deeply evolved form of what I’d hoped to do with my life. And to clarify, I didn’t enter the field of physics to earn fame, so I’m quite alright that my name is not popular in the present day. I explored what fascinated me in life and I have no regrets.

M: That’s good. But on top of that, you certainly did have a degree of fame in your day, having won the Nobel prize in physics in 1909.

B: Right you are. I shared the prize with Guglielmo Marconi for our work in wireless telegraphy. He was vital to my discoveries and research, but he openly admits that I was vital to his work as well.

M: Your works have been vitally important to the world in many ways. What you began in the late nineteenth century became the platform for technology that would last a century more, and is still being improved upon today. You were a great physicist, Mr. Braun.

B: Thank you. I certainly appreciate the praise.

M: Thank you for the interview. I’ll let you get back to your grave now.

B: Of course. Thank you for introducing me to the fascinating world to which I contributed.

Links:

Biography: https://karlferdinandbraun.wordpress.com/biography/

Inventions: https://karlferdinandbraun.wordpress.com/inventions

Return to Homepage: https://karlferdinandbraun.wordpress.com/