![]() Many other inventions marked Bell’s later life, including groundbreaking work in optical telecommunications, hydrofoils, and aeronautics. His research on hearing and speech led him to experiment with hearing devices, culminating in his first U.S. He also co-founded the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) in 1885.īoth his mother and wife were deaf, which profoundly influencing Bell’s life’s work. Alexander Graham BellĪlexander Graham Bell (1847 – 1922) was a Scottish-born inventor, scientist, and engineer who invented and patented the first practical telephone. Their invention’s scientific principles would not be utilized for several decades when they were first deployed in military and fiber-optic communications. In 1880, Bell and co-inventor Charles Sumner Tainter conducted the world’s first wireless telephone call via modulated light beams projected by photophones. ![]() However, no cross-Atlantic cable connection existed until 1956, providing 36 telephone circuits. ![]() The technology grew quickly from this point, with inter-city lines being built and telephone exchanges in every major city of the United States by the mid-1880s.ĭespite this, transatlantic voice communication remained impossible until 1927, when a connection was established using radio. Alexander Graham Bell held the master patent for the telephone needed for such services in both countries. The first commercial telephone services were set up in 18 on both sides of the Atlantic in New Haven and London. Bell’s laboratory notes and family letters were the keys to establishing a long lineage to his experiments. None was successful, and the Bell Telephone Company never lost a case that had proceeded to a final trial stage. Supreme Court.īox telephone, 1877 – used interchangeably as a transmitter and receiver Over a period of 18 years, the Bell Telephone Company faced 587 court challenges to its patents, including five that went to the U.S. There are also accusations of bias in the Patent Office. There is much debate by historians about various other people’s contributions to the inventor of the telephone, but over 100 years later, Alexander Graham Bell is recognized as the inventor. “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.” What followed was a race to the patent office as other inventors were also experimenting with acoustic telegraphy.īell’s patent 174,465 was issued to Bell on March 7, 1876, by the U.S. That accident demonstrated to Bell that only one reed or armature was necessary, not multiple reeds. In 1875, Watson accidentally plucked one of the reeds, and Bell heard the reed’s overtones at the receiving end of the wire. Watson, an experienced electrical designer and mechanic, changed all that.īell hired Thomas Watson as his assistant, and the two of them experimented with acoustic telegraphy. ![]() However, a chance meeting that year between Bell and Thomas A. But he had no working model to demonstrate the feasibility of these ideas. He thought that multiple metal reeds tuned to different frequencies would convert the undulating currents back into sound. Inventing the Telephoneīy 1874, Alexander Graham Bell thought it might be possible to generate electrical currents that corresponded to sound waves. At the receiver, fluctuating current in the electromagnets causes the diaphragm to move, producing vibrations that can be heard. This current was conducted over wires to a similar instrument, acting as a receiver. When used as a transmitter, sound waves at the mouthpiece cause the diaphragm to move, creating a fluctuating current in the electromagnets. Both transmitter and receiver were similar. Alexander Graham Bell produced two telephones for a demonstration between Boston and Salem, Massachusetts, in 1876.īell’s first telephone included an iron diaphragm, two electromagnets, and a horseshoe permanent magnet pressed against the electromagnets. Alexander Graham Bell’s Large Box telephone was one of the first available telephones in 1876.
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