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family for dinner. It was a generous meal at one of many regular gatherings with his parents and sisters and most of his uncles and aunts and cousins. As the food was passed around the table, his relatives quizzed him about his latest experiments, and then listened intently as if his words were the most important ever spoken.
    Though his mom was still a little miffed at his earlier high-wire act, Howard could tell she’d forgiven him yet again. She believed in him, they all did, and there was never a doubt in his mind that within the comforting walls of this big, beautiful home, he was loved.
    Howard never blamed his mother for being overly protective. She’d almost lost him when he was eight and came down with rheumatic fever. There were complications—he’d missed two years of school, and the disease had left him with a tremor and a tic in his face that still dogged him to this day, especially when he was nervous. That’s why they’d moved from their beloved Manhattan to this spacious home in tranquil Yonkers. His parents wanted the best for their only son, and his entire family had been there to nurse him through his long recovery.
    In addition to his fascination with great heights and his love of all things electrical, Howard had also learned to treasure solitude. In the quiet and safety of his attic laboratory, his mind was free to explore. Although he was humble to a fault, he also understood that he was gifted. When a family friend had seen his first crystal set—a cobbled-together little wonder that he’d created from scratch—the friend had declared him to be a true prodigy. Though he’d had to look up that word prodigy in the dictionary, something told Howard that what this visiting engineer had whispered to his dad might really be true.
    Where others saw just a tangled box of components and wires, Howard couldn’t help but visualize the myriad ways they might be connected. As he read through The Boy’s Book of Inventions the concepts came alive before his eyes. He could see within the black-and-white circuits and schematics the interplay of flowing currents, the ebb andflow of resistance, impedance, reactance, capacitance, and induction. He could see in these forces the seeds of great discoveries—a world-changing treasure just waiting to be found.
    Then there was radio—which was currently nothing more than a curiosity, a hobbyist’s toy beyond the means of most laymen. An elaborate antenna, a pair of sensitive headphones, and an expensive receiver were required just to pull in a weak, scratchy signal from any distance at all. But in those waves of airborne electricity and magnetism, young Howard Armstrong saw an amazing untapped potential.
    It was an idea that consumed him. To bring the wonders of radio—not just simple code, but voice, and someday even music—loud and clear into every American home. Just the thought of it made his heart race.
    Howard’s prized possession was a strange glass tube, placed in a position of honor on his attic workbench. He’d saved his pennies and sent away for it by mail, after reading all about it in the back pages of an inventors’ magazine.
    The thing was called an Audion—and while the flashy ad had promised miracles, in retrospect, Howard had to admit that the copy had been very short on actual facts. Even its inventor—a man named Lee de Forest—seemed to have very little concept of the Audion’s practical use.
    But Howard knew his savings hadn’t gone to waste. Like Jack with his magic beans, he sensed a mystic potential in this odd glass tube and believed with all his heart that it was the pathway to an undiscovered realm—one that Edwin Howard Armstrong knew he was born to explore.
    Six Years Later
    October 1912
    In the closing months of his twenty-second year, Armstrong still sat in that same chair in his attic lab, but many things had changed. He was now a student at Columbia, excelling in the engineering programunder the tutelage of the great