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http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2006/03/06/1432526.htm
Has there been any invention that has revolutionised the lives of ordinary people as much as the telephone?
Alexander Graham Bell had no idea his brainchild would have such a lasting impact when he made his first call on March 10, 1876 - 130 years ago this week. If he were alive today, he would be amazed at how far telecommunications have come, with the advent of the mobile telephone, text and video messaging.
CAMILLA TOMINEY pays tribute to Professor Bell with 20 facts you probably never knew about him and his greatest invention
Born Alexander Bell in Edinburgh on March 3, 1847, he later adopted the middle name Graham out of admiration for Alexander Graham, a family friend.
He became obsessed with inventing the telephone as a means of communicating with his mother, who was a deaf painter and musician.
His entire education and upbringing revolved around the mechanics of speech and sound. His grandfather in London, his uncle in Dublin and his father, Alexander Melville Bell, in Edinburgh, were all professed elocutionists. The latter created a system called visible speech that helped the deaf to speak. Bell's college courses included lectures on anatomy and physiology.
He attended the Royal High School in Edinburgh and Edinburgh University, where he worked on his father's system. He moved to London in 1867 and entered University there, but left due to ill-health and went to Canada with his father in 1870. In 1872 he took up residence in the United States, introducing with success his father's system of deaf-mute instruction.
He became professor of vocal physiology at Boston University.
The first fully intelligible telephone call occurred in Boston, Massachusetts, when Bell called his assistant in another room, saying: "Come here, Watson, I want y ou." Thomas A Watson had fashioned the device, which was made up of a wooden stand, a funnel, a cup of acid and some copper wire.
Bell patented the telephone just hours before his competitor, Elisha Gray. Patent Number 174,465 covered "the method of, and apparatus for, transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically by causing electrical undulations, similar in form to the vibrations of the air accompanying the said vocal or other sound". Bell had to go to court many times to prove he came up with the idea first. He won all 587 lawsuits, five in the Supreme Court.
The Bell Telephone Company later became AT&T, the world's biggest telephone company, and installed the first telephone exchange in H artford, Connecticut in 1877. The f irst exchange linking two major cities was between New York and B oston in 1883. London's exchange, the first outside the United States, was built in 1879. A group of operators worked at a large switchboard, answering incoming calls and connecting them manually. Almon Strowger of Kansas City installed the first automatic exchange in 1892, but manual switchboards remained common until the mid-20th century.
The coin-operated telephone was patented by William Gray of Hartford in 1889. The first rotary dial telephone was developed in 1923 by Antoine Barnay in France.
The mobile telephone was invented by Bell Telephone Company and introduced into New York City police cars in 1924. Although the first commercial mobile telephone service became available in St Louis, Missouri, in 1946, the mobile phone would not become common for another four decades.
Bell's dream was that "a man in one part of the country may communicate by word of mouth with another in a distant place".
This was not his only invention.
When he was 11, he invented a device for cleaning wheat. As President James Garfield lay dying of an assassin's bullet in 1881, Bell invented a metal detector in an unsuccessful attempt to locate it. At the age of 75, a year before his death, he received a patent on the fastest water craft in the world: the HD-4.
Bell had many ideas that have now been invented. He tried to reproduce sound by impressing a magnetic field on a record but was unable to develop a workable prototype. His basic principle would one day find its application in the tape recorder, the computer and the CD-ROM.
The inventor was described as "an inspired, black-haired Scotsman of 28, on the eve of marriage, vibrant and alive to new ideas" in Alexander Graham Bell: The Life And Times Of The Man Who Invented The Telephone. In 1877, he married Mabel Hubbard, one of his pupils at Boston University and a deaf-mute.
They had four children.
Bell succeeded because he understood acoustics, the study of sound, and electricity. Other inventors knew electricity well but little of acoustics. Bell may well have had a deeper understanding of acoustics than his rivals because he was an accomplished pianist.
When he was in his 20s he designed a piano that could transmit its music to a distance by means of electricity.
The word telephone comes from the Greeks word tele, meaning from afar, and phone, meaning voice or voiced sound.
Speaking into the handset's transmitter or microphone makes its diaphragm vibrate. This varies the electric current, causing the receiver's diaphragm to vibrate.
This duplicates the original sound.
Some say Francis Bacon predicted the telephone in 1627. However, his book New Utopia only described a long-speaking tube. A real telephone could not be invented until the electrical age.
It is ironic that many called Bell "the father of the deaf ", since he advocated the sterilisation of deaf people. He believed deaf teachers should be banned from teaching in schools for the deaf, and worked to outlaw the marriage of deaf individuals to one another. His goal was to integrate the deaf into the hearing culture. He was a personal friend of Helen Keller, the deaf and blind American author and activist.
Many years after inventing the telephone, Bell remarked: "I now realise that I should never have invented the telephone if I had been an electrician. What electrician would have been so foolish as to try any such thing?
The advantage I had was that sound had been the study of my life - the study of vibrations."
Bell founded the magazine Science in 1880, and the National Geographic Society in 1888.
He was president of the National Geographic Society from 1896 to 1904.
Bell was the recipient of many honours. The French government conferred on him the decoration of the Legion d'Honneur (Legion of Honour), the Academie Francaise bestowed on him the Volta Prize of 50,000 francs, the Royal Society of Arts in London awarded him the Albert medal in 1902, and the University of Wurzburg, Bavaria, granted him a PhD.
When Bell died on August 2, 1922 in Nova Scotia, Canada, the nation paid tribute by refraining from using the phone for one minute.
Since his death, the telecommunications industry has undergone an amazing revolution.
Today, non-hearing people are able to use a special display telephone to communicate. The "electrical speech machine" paved the way for the Information Superhighway.
Has there been any invention that has revolutionised the lives of ordinary people as much as the telephone?
Alexander Graham Bell had no idea his brainchild would have such a lasting impact when he made his first call on March 10, 1876 - 130 years ago this week. If he were alive today, he would be amazed at how far telecommunications have come, with the advent of the mobile telephone, text and video messaging.
CAMILLA TOMINEY pays tribute to Professor Bell with 20 facts you probably never knew about him and his greatest invention
Born Alexander Bell in Edinburgh on March 3, 1847, he later adopted the middle name Graham out of admiration for Alexander Graham, a family friend.
He became obsessed with inventing the telephone as a means of communicating with his mother, who was a deaf painter and musician.
His entire education and upbringing revolved around the mechanics of speech and sound. His grandfather in London, his uncle in Dublin and his father, Alexander Melville Bell, in Edinburgh, were all professed elocutionists. The latter created a system called visible speech that helped the deaf to speak. Bell's college courses included lectures on anatomy and physiology.
He attended the Royal High School in Edinburgh and Edinburgh University, where he worked on his father's system. He moved to London in 1867 and entered University there, but left due to ill-health and went to Canada with his father in 1870. In 1872 he took up residence in the United States, introducing with success his father's system of deaf-mute instruction.
He became professor of vocal physiology at Boston University.
The first fully intelligible telephone call occurred in Boston, Massachusetts, when Bell called his assistant in another room, saying: "Come here, Watson, I want y ou." Thomas A Watson had fashioned the device, which was made up of a wooden stand, a funnel, a cup of acid and some copper wire.
Bell patented the telephone just hours before his competitor, Elisha Gray. Patent Number 174,465 covered "the method of, and apparatus for, transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically by causing electrical undulations, similar in form to the vibrations of the air accompanying the said vocal or other sound". Bell had to go to court many times to prove he came up with the idea first. He won all 587 lawsuits, five in the Supreme Court.
The Bell Telephone Company later became AT&T, the world's biggest telephone company, and installed the first telephone exchange in H artford, Connecticut in 1877. The f irst exchange linking two major cities was between New York and B oston in 1883. London's exchange, the first outside the United States, was built in 1879. A group of operators worked at a large switchboard, answering incoming calls and connecting them manually. Almon Strowger of Kansas City installed the first automatic exchange in 1892, but manual switchboards remained common until the mid-20th century.
The coin-operated telephone was patented by William Gray of Hartford in 1889. The first rotary dial telephone was developed in 1923 by Antoine Barnay in France.
The mobile telephone was invented by Bell Telephone Company and introduced into New York City police cars in 1924. Although the first commercial mobile telephone service became available in St Louis, Missouri, in 1946, the mobile phone would not become common for another four decades.
Bell's dream was that "a man in one part of the country may communicate by word of mouth with another in a distant place".
This was not his only invention.
When he was 11, he invented a device for cleaning wheat. As President James Garfield lay dying of an assassin's bullet in 1881, Bell invented a metal detector in an unsuccessful attempt to locate it. At the age of 75, a year before his death, he received a patent on the fastest water craft in the world: the HD-4.
Bell had many ideas that have now been invented. He tried to reproduce sound by impressing a magnetic field on a record but was unable to develop a workable prototype. His basic principle would one day find its application in the tape recorder, the computer and the CD-ROM.
The inventor was described as "an inspired, black-haired Scotsman of 28, on the eve of marriage, vibrant and alive to new ideas" in Alexander Graham Bell: The Life And Times Of The Man Who Invented The Telephone. In 1877, he married Mabel Hubbard, one of his pupils at Boston University and a deaf-mute.
They had four children.
Bell succeeded because he understood acoustics, the study of sound, and electricity. Other inventors knew electricity well but little of acoustics. Bell may well have had a deeper understanding of acoustics than his rivals because he was an accomplished pianist.
When he was in his 20s he designed a piano that could transmit its music to a distance by means of electricity.
The word telephone comes from the Greeks word tele, meaning from afar, and phone, meaning voice or voiced sound.
Speaking into the handset's transmitter or microphone makes its diaphragm vibrate. This varies the electric current, causing the receiver's diaphragm to vibrate.
This duplicates the original sound.
Some say Francis Bacon predicted the telephone in 1627. However, his book New Utopia only described a long-speaking tube. A real telephone could not be invented until the electrical age.
It is ironic that many called Bell "the father of the deaf ", since he advocated the sterilisation of deaf people. He believed deaf teachers should be banned from teaching in schools for the deaf, and worked to outlaw the marriage of deaf individuals to one another. His goal was to integrate the deaf into the hearing culture. He was a personal friend of Helen Keller, the deaf and blind American author and activist.
Many years after inventing the telephone, Bell remarked: "I now realise that I should never have invented the telephone if I had been an electrician. What electrician would have been so foolish as to try any such thing?
The advantage I had was that sound had been the study of my life - the study of vibrations."
Bell founded the magazine Science in 1880, and the National Geographic Society in 1888.
He was president of the National Geographic Society from 1896 to 1904.
Bell was the recipient of many honours. The French government conferred on him the decoration of the Legion d'Honneur (Legion of Honour), the Academie Francaise bestowed on him the Volta Prize of 50,000 francs, the Royal Society of Arts in London awarded him the Albert medal in 1902, and the University of Wurzburg, Bavaria, granted him a PhD.
When Bell died on August 2, 1922 in Nova Scotia, Canada, the nation paid tribute by refraining from using the phone for one minute.
Since his death, the telecommunications industry has undergone an amazing revolution.
Today, non-hearing people are able to use a special display telephone to communicate. The "electrical speech machine" paved the way for the Information Superhighway.