Alexander Graham Bell, a scientist and inventor, was born in March 1847. He invented the first usable telephone, patented in 1876. Bell was greatly influenced by his deaf mother, which led him to study acoustics. He became a full-time teacher of the deaf. In 1874 Bell quit work as a teacher and began working diligently on his “phonautograph”, a machine which could draw sound waves. Bell, however, did continue to tutor 2 deaf students. It was the parents of these students, wealthy business owners, who provided the necessary funding and representation for patents. Bell hired assistant Thomas Watson, and the two began diligent work on acoustic telegraphy, filing for patent in 1875. Ironically a woman named Elisha Gray filed for a patent of a very similar machine on the same day as Bell and Watson. No one knows for sure who filed first, but the patent was given to Bell on March 7, 1876. Three days later, Watson listened as the first words, “Mr. Watson — Come here — I want to see you” came through the line, and the invention was a success.
References:
Retrieved from: http://www.alexandergrahambell.org/ July 14, 2009
Retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Graham_Bell July 14, 2009
References:
Retrieved from: http://www.alexandergrahambell.org/ July 14, 2009
Retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Graham_Bell July 14, 2009
Can we move the telephone picture up here?
ReplyDeleteVery interesting about the lady filing the patent the same day. I wonder if it was because the product was inferior, or was it because she was a woman? A similar incident happened with the mapping of the human genome. A nurse discovered that the DNA strand was a double helix but was never credited. Lori Lucas
ReplyDeleteThe article is great. I like the picture of the telephone. Dennis LeBlanc
ReplyDelete