Julius Wilhelm Gintl (November 12, 1804 – December 22, 1883) was an Austrian physicist. He was notable as the developer of an early form of duplex
electrical telegraph
Electrical telegraphs were point-to-point text messaging systems, primarily used from the 1840s until the late 20th century. It was the first electrical telecommunications system and the most widely used of a number of early messaging systems ...
, which allowed two messages to be transmitted on a single wire, in opposite directions. This
duplex communication was an early specific case of the general practice of
multiplexing
In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource - a ...
.
Gintl's method would be developed to economic viability by
J. B. Stearns, and the refined method used in Edison's implementation of a
quadruplex telegraph
The Quadruplex telegraph is a type of electrical telegraph which allows a total of four separate signals to be transmitted and received on a single wire at the same time (two signals in each direction). Quadruplex telegraphy thus implements a fo ...
.
19th-century Austrian physicists
1804 births
1883 deaths
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