UNDER THE GLARE OF 1000 SUNS - THE PIONEERING WORKS OF SIR BOSE,J.C

The origin of solid-state diode detectors of wireless waves has been t raced to Sir J. C. Bose's pioneering millimeter-wave propagation exper iments with certain polarizing crystals during 1896-1898. His seminal paper published in the January 1897 issue of the Proceedings of the Ro yal Society is reproduced in this issue to commemorate the one hundred th anniversary of the invention of the solid-state diode detector The world's first patent on the solid-state diode detector, invented by Bo se and taken out in the United States, is also reproduced in full in t his issue. Bose's further pioneering work with diode detectors, then k nown as ''self-restoring coherers,'' is discussed, in particular his i nvention of the ''iron-mercury-iron contact with a telephone '' detect or that received the first transatlantic wireless signal of Marconi on December 12, 1901.