You may not have the Wi-Fi that you have today without radio astronomy. One of the Australian patents used in Wi-Fi came about due to a 'failed experiment'.
Quote:John O'Sullivan, an astronomy and space science fellow at Melbourne's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, is seen in his home country as the father of wi-fi.
"Some of the original seeds were sown in radio astronomy," says O'Sullivan. "Curiously, it was a failed experiment to detect exploding mini black holes the size of an atomic particle.
"I certainly had no idea where things would lead. Back then, we set out to do a wireless network at 100 megabits per second.
"Many people thought we had rocks in our head to try do such a thing. We thought it really would be big, but now I look back and I'm just blown away at how big it has become."
