Thu, Jul 17
|Rockville Science Center
Numberphiles Math Club
Join our math club for this month's presentation, "A Brief Introduction to Radio Frequency Transmission Lines & the Smith Chart (Or, Did Queen Victoria Spur On Long-Distance Communications?)" with Dr. Bob Fontana
Time & Location
Jul 17, 2025, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Rockville Science Center, 36C Maryland Ave, Rockville, MD 20850, USA
About the event
The problem of long-distance communications over trans-Atlantic cables was a thorny one. Any signal sent across the cable was severely distorted and nearly unrecognizable at the end of its nearly 4000 mile voyage. But, Queen Victoria wanted to congratulate newly-elected President James Buchanan without taking the typical 14 days for a letter to reach him via steamship, and she believed that somehow the newly laid transatlantic cable must be able to get that message across. Her message to Buchanan consisted of 98 congratulatory words and took 16.5 hours to successfully transmit!
Bob Fontana is a retired electrical engineer with a BSEE degree from Illinois Institute of Technology, a SMEE degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. from Stanford University. Bob holds an Amateur Radio Extra Class license.
The Rockville Numberphiles is a club for math enthusiasts from middle school to adult. Under 18 must be accompanied by an…