Langmuir and Marconi in the General Electric Research Laboratory, New York, 1922. Irving Langmuir ( January 31, 1881 - August 16, 1957) was an American chemist and physicist. He advanced several basic fields of physics and chemistry, invented the gas-filled incandescent lamp, the hydrogen welding technique, and was awarded the 1932 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in surface chemistry. Guglielmo Marconi (April 25, 1874 - July 20 1937) was an Italian inventor, known as the father of long distance radio transmission and for his development of Marconi's law and a radio telegraph system. Marconi is often credited as the inventor of radio, and he shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand Braun.