who demonstrated that radio radiation has all the properties of waves
Radio wave Radio waves were first predicted by mathematical work done in 1867 by Scottish mathematical physicist James Clerk Maxwell.[2] Maxwell noticed wavelike properties of light and similarities in electrical and magnetic observations. His mathematical theory, now called Maxwell's equations, described light waves and radio waves as waves of electromagnetism that travel in space, radiated by a charged particle as it undergoes acceleration. In 1887, Heinrich Hertz demonstrated the reality of Maxwell's electromagnetic waves by experimentally generating radio waves in his laboratory,[3] showing that they exhibited the same wave properties as light: standing waves, refraction, diffraction, and polarization. Radio waves, originally called "Hertzian waves",[4] were first used for communication in the mid 1890s by Guglielmo Marconi, who developed the first practical radio transmitters and receivers.
Ernest Rutherford At Cambridge, Rutherford started to work with J. J. Thomson on the conductive effects of X-rays on gases, work which led to the discovery of the electron which Thomson presented to the world in 1897. Hearing of Becquerel's experience with uranium, Rutherford started to explore its radioactivity, discovering two types that differed from X-rays in their penetrating power. Continuing his research in Canada, he coined the terms alpha ray and beta ray in 1899 to describe the two distinct types of radiation. He then discovered that thorium gave off a gas which produced an emanation which was itself radioactive and would coat other substances. He found that a sample of this radioactive material of any size invariably took the same amount of time for half the sample to decay – its "half-life" (11½ minutes in this case).