| The Telephone |
The struggle for the amplification of the reach of the human voice has been hereditary. But not until the 17th century the only amplifier of the human voice were the palms put to the mouth. Since 1670 it was possible to amplify the voice with a speaking-trumpet. In the same century the English natural scientist, member of the Royal community, Robert Hooke (this is the Hooke after whom a physical law, that haunts all the students, has been named. This law explains the relation between the voltage and deformation caused by this voltage) found out, how well the metals radiate the sounds and he undertook some experiments. But he dwelt only upon these experiments.
But the so called speaking-trumpets were fancied a lot. This invention was first of all supplied in the ancient pubs. The joint was connected with the kitchen with a connection tube, which was corked with whistles. In the joint the waiter blew into the tube and the squeak could have been heard in the kitchen, then the order followed ”twice goulash with dumplings”. The same system was being used also on the ships, so that the captain could have fulminate his ”full steam ahead”. The improved machines had a more hygienic blowing - a plastic balloon and was called acustiphon. This was used also for different purposes, e.g. for passing the commands to the fiacre coachman.
The first telephone was most probably created by an Italian Antonio Meucci in Havana – Cuba. Since 1849 he has been using it for speaking with his disabled wife, who was on the third floor of the house, while he was in the basement. The German Johann Philip Reis from Friedrichsdorf transmitted a talk with the help of a wire. The distance was 91,4 metres and this happened in the Frankfurt Physical Association on 26th October 1861. Both these men took advantage of the principle, which is today well-known even among the small children: two small cans are connected with a cord, the sound vibration is transmitted with the cord and is amplified with the cans. The grateful natives built monuments for both these men.
On 14th February 1876 two men entered the building of a patent authority, to announce their invention, that should change the world: professor of language physiology in Boston Alexander Graham Bell and the employee of the Western Union company Elisha Gray. The time sequences of the critical hour when both the inventors opened the door of the competent office hasn’t ever been certainly proved. However a deponent ”remembered”, that Bell was the one who entered first, and so he became the officially accepted inventor of the telephone.
Alexander Graham Bell was a physician with a Scottish origin, who
specialised in working with death people and taught them how to speak. He was the
professor at the Boston university. He was working with his father who devised a visible
speech for the deaf and dumb.
Bell was not thinking of inventing a telephone. He was doing the experiments with transmission of the sound waves with electric stream. Doing this an idea occurred – it could be possible to telegraph several despatches at once, if they were transmitted with different frequency and the receiving machines were tuned each at different tone-height. So he invented the principal of the tones telegraphy. For doing these experiments he compiled an appliance, which consisted of a long electric magnet and a row of tongues. The length of each tongue corresponded with the height of the sound. Such sound then vibrated the appropriate tongue (or tongues). This ”harp-machine” as Bell nicknamed it – has not been a telephone yet, because it was not able to transmit all elements of the human speech. A breakthrough happened on 2nd June 1875. His lively assistant Thomas A. Watson was transmitting different tones and Bell was adjusting the tongues of receiver. At once one of the tongues stop moving and so Bell asked Watson to check it with his finger. Then the appropriate tongue started to vibrate, although the electric power was turned off! This was caused by the movement of the tongue of the Watson´s transmitter in the magnetic field, which caused the creation of the electric stream. This stream had a certain frequency, which then thrilled the appropriate tongue in Bell’s receiver. This was the moment when the telephone was born.
The equipment which was developed from the patent
(1876)After several experiments which Bell has been doing with Watson and which have lasted for about three quarters of a year Bell finally found the definite solution, on 7th March 1876 he received a US patent No. 174 465 (4 days after his 29th birthday. But the speech was first transmitted after 4 days, when Watson heard the memorable words: ”Mr. Watson – Come here – I want to see you.”
He presented his new invention to the public in the same year – on 25th June 1876 at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Though he enrolled in the last moment and received a stall in the corner of the exhibition area, his invention didn’t remain without a notice. He was visited also by a Brazilian emperor Pedro II. Being astonished he said a memorable sentence – ”Oh God, it can speak!”
Desktop and table telephone sets (1896 a 1897)
(Fig. overtaken from http://park.org/Japan/NTT/MUSEUM/html_f2/F2_10104_e.html
a http://park.org/Japan/NTT/MUSEUM/html_f2/F2_10105_e.html)
After about 20 year Bell was the richest inventor: his fortune was estimated to be about 100 millions of dollars. His name was connected also with other activity on the field of engineering (aviation). In 1898 he became the president of the National Geographic Association and started to publish the National Geographic magazine which has been issued up to now.
He died on 2nd August 1922 in Baddeck near Halifax and was tombed on 4th August at the sunset on the peak of the mountain Beinn Breagh in Canada. In proof of the honour all telephones in the country broke off …
Automatic telephone sets.
On the left model of 1927, on the right the new revolutionary
style of telephone of 1933 in one unit.
This basic style is produced up to date.
(Figs. overtaken from http://park.org/Japan/NTT/MUSEUM/html_f2/F2_10109_e.html
a http://park.org/Japan/NTT/MUSEUM/html_f2/F2_10110_e.html)
About that time the telephone gets its standard shape and function, which have actually survived up to now. If we plug in the appliance from the 20´s or 30´s it still will be working. At that time so called automatic telephones were born, these were equipped with the dials that allowed the automatic connection – this happened with the help of simple coding (different number of impulses created with the rotation of the dial). By then it was only possible to call just one place, usually the switchboard, where the extensions of individual partakers vented. The operated was sitting in front of the switchboard and was watching the lighting up of the little bulbs or falling-down of a ”shutter”. In the positive case the operator inserted the connector into the appropriate socket and asked the caller who he or she want to be connected with. Then the demanded person was called and both the partakers were connected. In the modern telephone system the operator has been replaced with the automatic or digital switching in the exchange.
About that time the telephone gets its standard shape and function, which have actually survived up to now. If we plug in the appliance from the 20´s or 30´s it still will be working. At that time so called automatic telephones were born, these were equipped with the dials that allowed the automatic connection – this happened with the help of simple coding (different number of impulses created with the rotation of the dial). By then it was only possible to call just one place, usually the switchboard, where the extensions of individual partakers vented. The operated was sitting in front of the switchboard and was watching the lighting up of the little bulbs or falling-down of a ”shutter”. In the positive case the operator inserted the connector into the appropriate socket and asked the caller who he or she want to be connected with. Then the demanded person was called and both the partakers were connected. In the modern telephone system the operator has been replaced with the automatic or digital switching in the exchange.
The manual telephone exchange (1896)
(Fig. overtaken from http://www.wctc.net/history/pictures1.html)
Originally the signal was transmitted with the cuprous line wires. These are today used only for short distances. While calling on the long distances, the voice is digitalized and combined with millions of other voices and is radiated with the optic fibres, satellite or in the microwave way.
Telephones with keyboards.
On the left of 1969, on the right cordless one of 1987.
(obr. převzaty ze stránek http://park.org/Japan/NTT/MUSEUM/html_f2/F2_10114_e.html
a http://park.org/Japan/NTT/MUSEUM/html_f2/F2_10117_e.html)
The modern telephone appliances are electronic, equipped with the press-button keyboard and allow a rang of comfort services: memory for the called number, they allow the repeated calls, they are equipped with an answering machine … A relative novelty is the mobile – blessed but also execrated by many people. The last hit is phoning on the internet (blesses by the users) and execrated (by the telephone companies) …
Note: Fig. of A. Graham Bell is overtaken from http://www.cybercomm.net/~chuck/bell.htm.
