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Over in Philadelphia on Sunday, June 25, 1876, Alexander
Graham Bell was demonstrating his new invention, the telephone, at the
Centennial Exhibition. Bell was born into a family of learning and scholastic
achievement. His whole family was excited with the idea of sound and its
possibilities. Young Bell’s first Before the 20th century, people could not communicate or call, as we do today, people who live or are visiting a far off place without going there. This all changed because of Alexander Graham Bell. Thanks to him, we can stay in touch with people all over the world a lot easier than before. Bell knew that telegraphs sent messages at the same time. From knowing this, it gave Bell a bit of an idea of how to do the same on the telephone. Bell was attempting to show that he could have several messages at the same time and each at their own pitch. Bell could not see a way to make and break the current at the exact pitch required. "How could pitch be shown along a wire?" Bell wondered. Bell had previous knowledge that speech was made up of many complex sound vibrations. While on vacation in 1847, Bell constructed an "ear phonoautograph" made from a stalk of hay and a dead man's ear. Once Bell spoke into the ear, the hay traced the sound waves on a piece of smoked glass. Bell began to wonder whether this wave could be changed into
an electrical This was not the telephone. Bell did not yet realize that a single reed could change all the elements of the human speech into vibrations. But, the breakthrough did come, one day on June, 1875. Bell asked Thomas Watson to pluck at a steel receiver reed with his finger to be certain that it was not stuck. When Watson vibrated the reed, the receiver in Bell's room also vibrated, even though the current was off. Bell now realized that the vibration had generated an electric current by its self on the strength of a slight magnetic field. In that exact moment, the telephone was born. The telephone patent was one of the most valuable patents ever
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Because of Bell’s late entry, he was located far
from the electrical section and in a corner of the educational exhibit. It
was fairly hot that day, so the judges did not like the idea of the long trip
down the corridor and up a flight of stairs. But, when the first words
came crackling over the telephone, the judges forgot all about being tired and
came rushing to the exhibit. Did Bell’s voice really produce the sounds
in another room? Indeed it did! At this time, Bell had no doubts
about the importance of his new invention. For Bell, it was the first of
many peeks into the future world. Each step on the path of Bell’s early
life seemed closer to the telephone.
memory was of sitting in a wheat field,
trying to hear the wheat grow. Bell was a gifted pianist. As a teenager, Bell
noticed that a chord struck on one piano could be echoed by a piano in another
room. Bell realized that whole chords could be transmitted through air, which
would allow it to vibrate at the other end at exactly the same pitch. In years to
come, this simple observation would lead Bell to the invention of the telephone.
Bell's father encouraged both his sons, Melly and Alex, to build a speaking
machine. After they did, visitors to the Bell house were surprised to hear
"mama" coming from the upper floor when knowing the Bells had no baby.
At the same time, an understanding of another scientist's experiments would also
lead him to the telephone.
transmission. Suddenly, all his work with pitch, electricity and
speaking machines had combined in one sudden flash of inspiration. The sound
waves, Bell realized, could be reproduced in continuous current. This continuous
current was the missing link to the telephone. At this point, Bell designed a
series of reeds arranged over a long magnet. A person's voice moved to make the
reed vibrate back and forth toward and away from the magnet, which was creating
the electric current.
received it on March 7, 1876, four days after his 29th birthday.
However, speech had not yet been sent through the telephone. Speech was sent
over the telephone five days later, on March 12. The first words to come out of
the telephone were "Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you." Those
famous words were heard by Mr. Thomas Watson.
