Page from Bell's notebook
On a somewhat related note,click to listen to Thomas Edison,on the development of electricity.
Posted on 03/10/2005 8:56:28 AM PST by mdittmar
Intelligible human speech is heard over the telephone for the first time when Bell calls to Watson, "Mr. Watson -- Come here -- I want to see you."
On this day, the first discernible speech is transmitted over a telephone system when inventor Alexander Graham Bell summons his assistant in another room by saying, "Mr. Watson, come here; I want you." Bell had received a comprehensive telephone patent just three days before.
Alexander Graham Bell, born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1847, was the son of Alexander Melville Bell, a leading authority in public speaking and speech correction. The young Bell was trained to take over the family business, and while still a teenager he became a voice teacher and began to experiment in sound. In 1870, his family moved to Ontario, Canada, and in 1871 Bell went to Boston to demonstrate his father's method of teaching speech to the deaf. The next year, he opened his own school in Boston for training teachers of the deaf and in 1873 became professor of vocal physiology at Boston University.
In his free time, Bell experimented with sound waves and became convinced that it would be possible to transmit speech over a telegraph-like system. He enlisted the aid of a gifted mechanic, Thomas Watson, and together the two spent countless nights trying to convert Bell's ideas into practical form. In 1875, while working on his multiple harmonic telegraph, Bell developed the basic ideas for the telephone. He designed a device to transmit speech vibrations electrically between two receivers and in June 1875 tested his invention. No intelligible words were transmitted, but sounds resembling human speech were heard at the receiving end.
On February 14, 1876, he filed a U.S. patent application for his telephone. Just a few hours later, another American inventor, Elisha Gray, filed a caveat with the U.S. Patent Office about his intent to seek a similar patent on a telephone transmitter and receiver. Bell filed first, so on March 7 he was awarded U.S. patent 174,465, which granted him ownership over both his telephone instruments and the concept of a telephone system.
Three days later, on March 10, Bell successfully tested his telephone for the first time in his Boston home. In May, he publicly demonstrated the invention before the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston, and in June at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. In October, he successfully tested his telephone over a two-mile distance between Boston and Cambridgeport.
In 1877, he formed the Bell Telephone Company with two investors, and the first commercial applications of the telephone took place. Within a few months, the first of hundreds of legal challenges to Bell's telephone patent began. The U.S. Supreme Court eventually upheld Bell's claims, and the Bell Telephone Company enjoyed a monopoly on the telephone until the expiration of the patent in 1894. After 1878, however, the legal battles were out of Alexander Graham Bell's hands because he sold his company to a group of financiers. The company, which after 1899 was led by the parent American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), eventually grew into the largest corporation in the world.
Alexander Graham Bell continued his experiments in communication, inventing the photophone, which transmitted speech by light rays, and the graphophone, which recorded sound. He continued to work with the deaf, including the educator Helen Keller, and used the royalties from his inventions to finance several organizations dedicated to the oral education of the deaf. He later served as president of the National Geographic Society. Beginning in 1895, he experimented with the possibility of flight and built giant man-carrying kites and a hydrofoil craft. He died in 1922 at his summer home and laboratory on Cape Breton Island, Canada.
On a somewhat related note,click to listen to Thomas Edison,on the development of electricity.
And he got a busy signal...........
Watson! Can you hear me now?
And he heard:"Hi, this is Watson. I'm not in right now, but if you leave your name and number, I'll get right back to you."
I love FR,history and laughs in a 28k modem,thank you Mr.Bell and Edison,and Mr.Robinson.
"Please deposit 25-cents for the next five minutes...."
We once had a cockatiel that learned to mimic a 9600 baud modem handshake.
Undoubtedly the funniest sound I've ever heard emitted by a bird.
They don't write 'em like that any more.
Alex, your call is important to us. Please stay on the line and Watson will be with you shortly.
Anyway, it's good that his name wasn't Alexander Graham Siren.
... Mr. Watson: "Drat it! What's that racket coming from the lab?"
He then received 20 minutes of barbershop quartet music, recorded on a wax cylinder.
Here's a song, courtesy of Mr.Bell,Mr.Edison,Mr.Robinson and Bobby Goldsboro
Nice story, too bad Bell wasn't the inventor of the telephone! Antonio Meucci invented the phone. Even the US congress said so.
I was just reading that very page. Of course the Germans say that Reis of Frankfurt was the real inventor... and I believe that the Russians have a phone inventor as well.
The Czechs have a wonderful "urban legend" character called Jara Zimmerman who invented absolutely everything, from flea powder to the machine gun, but always showed up at the patent office 10 minutes late.
What an amazing period of human history!
Ciao
1 . Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives to honor the life and achievements of 19th Century Italian-American inventor Antonio Meucci, and his work in the invention of the... (Introduced in House)[H.RES.269.IH]
2 . Whereas Antonio Meucci, the great Italian inventor, had a career that was both extraordinary and tragic; (Engrossed as Agreed to or Passed by House)[H.RES.269.EH]
I learn something new every day on FR,a vast pool of knowledge,thanks Jim.
a) What Alexander Graham Bell said when he invented the telephone
b) What Sherlock Holmes said when he came out of the closet
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