The Telephone- 1876
The inner workings of communication devices have well advanced throughout history and especially into the 21st century. There well thought out designs and technology have astonished people in how complex it can really get. Just like many other inventors, Alexander Graham Bell was competing to invent the first Telephone, and finish it before anybody else, he wanted to make a revolutionary change in the history of Communication advances. The first few designs that Bell created of the Telephone were based on improving the Telegraph, and were quite simple. Alexander Graham Bell, did not make his first design the one to use, he wasn't even transmitting conversion through voice yet he was just trying to improve the Telegraph and go from there. His first improvement invention was the Harmonic Telegraph, which uses electromagnets and vibrations to send messages. This device worked with sending vibrations from a sender to a receiver, by using a metal reed and switching in on and off the Electromagnet which was on top of the wire. After working on improving the Telegraph, Bell decided to focus more on transmitting sound through wires and being able to have a conversation across the room. Learning about sound and speech and how sound waves move, has always been of his interest, and in his family. He had worked with speech impaired kids, and so had his father. So it just seemed like something that made sense in Bell's mind. He was determined to invent this history breaking invention. When Bell started working with Watson on the Telephone, they started working as a team and working for breakthroughs with the invention. One day in June 1875, as they were trying to improve the Harmonic Telegraph, Watson was messing with the metal reed on the receiver(which had gotten stuck), while Bell was in the other room sending signals through the sender, and one of the vibrations that was sent was loud enough to make a sound. That sound was sound being turned into electricity and made to sound again. With this discovery Bell was getting even closer to inventing the Telephone. The next thing Bell did was try and improve his discovery of multiple reed receivers and sound vibrating and turning into electricity and and then back to sound. he did this by making his next Telephone like an ear lobe. He took a thin flexible parchment sheet called a diaphragm, and had it act like a mechanical eardrum. He then attached an electromagnet to the diaphragm, which converted the pattern of vibrations into sound waves, and at the other end of the wire a similar device would turn the electrical signals back to sound. Bell and Watson now had their concept figured out and were very close to a working Telephone, but the sounds were still fuzzy and unclear, and sounds couldn't actually be made out. Bell finally kept with this concept and made things more precise and accurate, making the sound clearer. There became to be many different versions of the Telephone, which Bell constantly kept improving. But one of the very successful versions he had invented had an earpiece and a mouthpiece connected by wires to the control box which had the metal reeds. Now that he had the finished the Telephone he just had to send in his patent and hope to be the first one. He sent in his patent in Mid February, and it was finally accepted in early March, at the same time that day Elisha Gray's patent for a Telephone was also accepted. Both went through a constant battle of who was accepted first, but no matter who really turned it in first they new that they had both made a scientific revolution, and their invention would change the whole world dramatically in the world of communications. As time went by the Telephone was constantly changing and improving. Soon the sound was easier to hear, and then came the wireless Telephone, and then the portable phone, and the phones without antennas, and then smaller and smaller the phones got, and it just kept blossoming from there, yet it still is changing. The advancement from the time the Electric Telegraph was invented to today, the communication advances are amazing. But I think the biggest breakthrough was the Telephone invented in 1876, which was a thought could have never been dreamed of 150 years ago, the thought of talking in one country and hearing it in another country, it blew peoples minds, and was a turning point in not only America but the world.
This video is about how certain models of Telegraphs and Telephones worked. 2:00 to 2:58 is about how Alexander Graham Bell's Telephone worked.
This is Alexander Graham Bell's first patent to his improvement on the Telegraph, that transmitted sound, but was called the Telephone, it was the original patent accepted in March 1876.
This is Alexander Graham Bell's first patent to his improvement on the Telegraph, that transmitted sound, but was called the Telephone, it was the original patent accepted in March 1876.
This a diagram showing Alexander Graham Bell's design on the Telephone.