Branly, Edouard Eugène Désiré (1844–1940)

French physicist and inventor. In 1890 he demonstrated the possibility of detecting radio waves; the apparatus he devised (the coherer) was soon used in the invention of wireless telegraphy and radio.

Branly was born in Amiens and studied in Paris at the Ecole Normale Supérieure and the Sorbonne. In 1876 he was appointed professor of physics at the Ecole Supérieure de Sciences of the Catholic Institute in Paris, then worked as a medical professor of electrotherapy 1897–1916.

Branly researched in various subjects, notably electricity, electrostatics, magnetism, and electrical dynamics. His most important work – on wireless telegraphy – was performed 1890, when he demonstrated the coherer, an invention of his that enabled radio waves from a distant transmitter to be detected. Once he had established the principle, however, he did not develop it further and the practical points were later taken up by Italian engineer Guglielmo Marconi.