Alexander Bell and his invention in English. Alexander Bell: biography and his main invention
By patenting the “harmonic telegraph” and founding a company named after him, Alexander Graham Bell laid the foundations for telecommunications, thanks to which mankind has been chatting incessantly at a distance for the second century in a row.
Biography of Alexander Bell
Alexander Graham Bell was born on March 3, 1847 in Edinburgh. His many ancestors were predominantly linguists who excelled in the scientific discipline of rhetoric, which was very popular in pre-telephone times.
The father of the future inventor of the telephone, Alexander Melville Bell, devoted a lot of time to studying the possibilities and developing means of communication for the deaf and dumb. Bell Sr. is one of the founders of modern pedagogy for the deaf. His monograph “Visible Speech” with tables of correspondence between speech sounds and visual images is a classic of this scientific and educational subject. Alexander Melville Bell also had his say in the field of lip reading.
Alexander inherited from his father a heightened perception of sound. He taught himself to play the piano. He performed not the most complex pieces of music, but absolutely flawlessly, since he almost physically suffered from false notes. He was seriously interested in poetry, especially its sound writing and melody. Young Bell was so successful in acoustics that he even mastered the art of ventriloquism.
In his adolescence, Alexander Bell also showed a craving for invention and engineering creativity. At the age of 12, he designed a machine for shelling grains. The mechanism was an intricate design of blades and metal teeth mounted on a rotating shaft. Bell gave the car to his neighbor, the owner of the mill. The neighbor made a reciprocal gesture: he gave the boy access to his mechanical workshop.
Alexander Bell got quite a good education. He studied at the Royal higher school Edinburgh, then entered the University of London. He received his specialization at the department of his grandfather, a respected professor of rhetoric. For some time he worked in his specialty: he taught oratory at a military academy. But the passion for acoustics did not let me go. Bell took the problem of mechanical imitation seriously human speech. He built an artificial head that accurately copied not only the skull, but also the cavities of the nasopharynx. I spent a long time working with various vibrators, spring plates and valves. But the only thing I achieved was a relatively clear pronunciation of the word Mummy.
Remained unresolved the main problem- at the receiving end of the wire, only a pulsating hiss could be discerned.
Alexander Bell experimented a lot with the tuning fork, studying the characteristics of propagation sound waves in space depending on the pitch of sound. Having systematized his observations, the young man sent a report to the famous philologist Alexander Ellis, a friend of his father. He got acquainted with the development and immediately saw that the research of the novice scientist was not unique. The German doctor, psychologist, physiologist and physicist Hermann Helmholtz has already designed a resonator in which electromagnetic vibrations are converted into sound waves. Bell was upset that he himself did not take an interest in Helmholtz’s work, but he did not abandon his plans to continue the experiments.
In parallel with his research, Bell helped his father, a professor at the University of London, with lectures on speech visualization for deaf and mute people. And soon he began teaching at a private school for the deaf in the London area of South Kensington.
New World
Suddenly, great troubles befell the Bell family. Died of tuberculosis in 1868 younger brother Alexandra - Edward. And in 1870, the same fate befell his older brother, Melville.
The conclusion was obvious: we need to change the climate.
On the advice of the doctor, Bella leaves chilly England for North America, to Canada - namely to the city of Brantfort, which is located in the province of Ontario.
In Canada, Bell, this time having thoroughly studied the works of Hermann Helmholtz recommended to him by Alexander Ellis, began active experiments with electricity. Pulls many wires from one room to another - Bell then believed that different cables would be needed to transmit sound vibrations of different frequencies. But the main problem remained unresolved - the transmitter and receiver of the speech signal. At the receiving end of the wire, only a pulsating hiss could be discerned.
In 1872, Alexander Graham Bell moved to the United States. He lectured on the physiology of speech at Boston University and opened his own private school“Vocal physiology” for the deaf and mute.
However, Bell soon decided to concentrate all his efforts on inventive activities. I quit teaching. True, he left two of the most gifted students: a six-year-old boy, George Sanders, and a 15-year-old girl, Mabel Hubbard.
Sanders' father provided Bell with space for his experiments as compensation for his son's tuition. And his son eventually became so successful in lip recognition and learned to pronounce words so clearly that he did not feel any social discomfort his entire life.
As for Bell's second student, Mabel Hubbard, she was unusually pretty, smart, and charming. Bell fell in love with the girl, and she, of course, reciprocated his feelings. They later got married and were happily married. And Bell's future father-in-law took part in financing his inventive activities.
To work with wires, tuning forks, inductors and other devices, an assistant was needed who was capable of performing delicate engineering work. And Alexander Bell invited the young mechanic Thomas Watson to be his assistant.
On the verge of opening
At the beginning of 1875, Bell was confident that he was one step away from creating an apparatus capable of transmitting human speech over a distance. As a signal transmitter and receiver, he intended to use a set of steel reeds tuned to different frequencies to cover the entire vocal spectrum of human speech. The idea seemed promising.
The president of Western Union abandoned the invention, considering the manufacture of telephones and laying telephone wires a hopeless matter. “A child’s toy!” was his verdict.
In March, Bell obtained an audience with the greatest American scientist, the world's leading famous physicist Joseph Henry, after whom the unit of inductance is named. An elderly professor, who served as director of the Smithsonian Institution, listened carefully to the young inventor and said that the device would not work in this form. However, he called the idea “the germ of a great invention,” advising him not to disclose it until he received a patent.
There is contact!
The parting words of the luminary inspired Bell. Ultimately, a transmitter and receiver mechanism, that is, a microphone and an earpiece, was created. Its main element was a membrane made of drum skin, vibrating under the influence of sound waves. Vibration of the membrane due to electromagnetic induction is converted into electrical vibrations, which are transmitted through a wire to the receiving device, where the reverse process occurs - the conversion of the electrical signal into sound vibrations of a thin membrane.
On February 14, 1876, Bell filed an application with the Washington Patent Office describing his invention. Applications in those days were considered quickly: the patent was received on March 7. And the first demonstration of the “harmonic telegraph,” as Bell initially called his invention, took place on June 25 of the same year at the World Electrical Exhibition in Philadelphia.
Bell's show created a real sensation. But what was demonstrated at the exhibition was the apparatus itself, but only its mock-up, which operated at a distance of 300 meters. There was no call buzzer: in order to call the person on the other end of the line to the device, you had to whistle loudly into the receiver. The tube served in turn for both receiving and transmitting speech. And, naturally, there was no trace of any switching mechanisms, since at that time there were only two telephone sets in the world.
After the triumphant premiere, Bell and his backers, Sanders and Hubbard, began monetizing the world's first telecommunications project. For six months, Bell traveled around the cities and towns of America and Europe, organizing paid demonstrations of the miracle device. I attended one of the sessions british queen Victoria, from whom, however, they did not take money for watching.
Then an attempt was made to sell the patent to the largest telegraph company Western Union. However, the company's president, William Orton, refused the offer, considering the manufacture of telephones and laying telephone wires to be too troublesome and therefore futile. “A child’s toy!” was his verdict.
As a result, Alexander Bell, who was not very versed in business, founded his own Bell Telephone Company. It is quite clear that the board of directors included Thomas Sanders and Gardner Hubbard, who at that time was already Bell’s father-in-law. Things have moved on.
The small workshop produced hundreds of devices per month, which were in steady demand. The installers pulled the communication lines, and the young ladies at the telephone exchange carried out switching using a plug-in dial pad. By mid-1878, the company served almost 800 subscribers. The first telephone exchange opened in New Haven, Connecticut. A few years later, telephone exchanges worked in almost all major cities USA.
Here Western Union saw the light. Having analyzed the prospects for the development of telegraph communications in the exchange sector, the company's specialists found out that more and more brokers prefer the telephone. First, the telephone provided instant two-way communication. The telegraph worked with a significant time delay between request and response. Secondly, the telegraph needed big state specially trained telegraph operators who know Morse code. Telephone operators had no use for Morse code.
And Orton rushed to make up for lost time. To begin with, he offered Bell $25 million for the patent, but received a categorical refusal. Then Western Union founded a subsidiary American Speaking Telephone Company, launching into production devices designed by Elisha Gray. To improve the phone, Thomas Edison himself was invited to the company, who, by using graphite powder in the microphone, managed to increase the volume and clarity of the sound.
Western Union also had another important advantage: an extensive network of telegraph cables, also suitable for telephone communications.
Bell Telephone had a hard time competing with this well-oiled business machine. Sanders and Hubbard saw no way out of this situation. And Alexander Bell retired from business, returning to teaching the deaf and dumb.
In free flight
The business was saved by the young and energetic entrepreneur Theodore Weil. A strong charismatic person, he inspired employees to competition. Vail sent copies of Bell's patent to all the company's branches, providing them with incendiary text: “We are the first, we invented the telephone. We created this business and are not going to give it to anyone! We must organize our work in such a way as to repel any attack. There is no point in creating a company that gives up at the first blow of competition!”
To expand the business with limited funds, Weil used a franchising scheme. The pioneer here was Isaac Singer, who introduced a franchise at his clothing company Singer Manufacturing Company. Vale came second. As a result, very soon a whole network of telephone companies was formed, and therefore Bell Telephone was renamed Bell System.
The competitiveness of the Bell telephone was significantly increased due to the microphone invented by Francis Blake, which was in no way inferior to Edison’s microphone. But Western Union's main blow came on the legal front. Bell System lawyers literally bombarded competitors with claims of illegal use of commercial activities Bell's invented telephone.
The owners of Western Union, Cornelius Vanderbilt and his son William, unexpectedly found a new formidable opponent. American tycoon Jay Gould laid claim to a controlling stake in the telegraph company. The Vanderbilts were unable to wage a war on two fronts in court. And, having defended their rights to Western Union, they lost the lawsuit to Bell’s company. As a result, all telephone assets were sold. They were acquired by the Bell System, which became a virtual monopolist in the telephone industry. In 1899, as a result of a series of exchange events, the company was renamed American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T). It still operates under this name.
Bell, the owner of a large block of shares in the company, quietly engaged in inventive activities. But in other areas. He invented a metal detector and a vacuum pump, and enriched aviation and hydrodynamics with many engineering ideas. According to his designs, the first hydrofoil boat was built, as well as an airplane. Silver dart" At the age of 58, Bell flew in an airplane of his own design.
He passed away on August 4, 1922. On the day of the funeral, as a sign of mourning for the great inventor, all telephones on the North American continent were turned off for one minute. And at that time there were already more than 13 million.
It seems that the fate of this man was predetermined from the beginning: it was Bell (by the way, bell in English means call) who was to become the most famous inventor of the telephone.
His grandfather and uncle were professional rhetoricians; his father, Melville Bell, invented the Visible Speech system, in which speech sounds were represented by written symbols. It is not surprising that after graduating from the Royal School in Edinburgh at the age of 13, Alexander received the position of teacher of eloquence and music at Weston House Academy at the age of 16. In 1865, Bell moved to London and worked as an assistant to his father, a professor of rhetoric at the University of London. In 1870, Alexander and his family moved to Canada, later ending up in Boston, where in 1871–1873 he worked at a school for the deaf and dumb. In 1873, he became a professor of speech physiology at Boston University.
Alexander Bell came to wide fame thanks to the invention of an apparatus that transmitted the sound of the human voice over a distance. However, here too there was some providence and luck. History is replete with prototype telephones created long before Bell's discovery. These are the inventions of C. Page, S. Bursel, A. Meucci, F. Reis and others. Meanwhile, it was Bell who received the loudest fame.
It’s a paradox, but the researcher made his discovery almost by accident, because he was not trying to invent a telephone, but a “harmonic telegraph” capable of simultaneously transmitting seven (according to the number of musical notes) telegrams over one wire.
There is one more interesting fact. After the “ovation” in his honor, Bell admitted: “I invented the telephone thanks to my ignorance of electrical engineering. Not a single person with even a basic knowledge of electrical engineering would have invented the telephone.” But even here he was lucky: a prominent scientist, D. Henry, lived in Boston, who was always happy to give the Scotsman practical advice.
Of course, all these “happy accidents” in no way diminish the talents and works of Alexander Bell, the greatest scientist and inventor.
On February 14, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell filed patent No. 174465 with the Washington Bureau of Western Union for “a method and apparatus for telegraphically transmitting the human voice and other sounds by creating electrical vibrations" Elisha Gray from Chicago was literally a couple of hours late in registering a similar invention. When Bell was issued a patent on March 7, Gray began a multi-year litigation. But in 1893 Supreme Court The US ruled in Bell's favor in this case.
In 1876, Alexander Bell successfully presented his apparatus at the Philadelphia World's Fair. Using a telephone speaker installed in the exhibition pavilion, the jury was able to hear the monologue of the Prince of Denmark “To be or not to be?”, which was read by Bell himself, who was in another room. It became a real sensation.
However large companies did not see any prospects in a device with a very weak (especially on long distance) audibility. Bell even attempted to sell his patent to Western Union for $100,000, but was refused. However, at the end of 1879, Western Union changed its attitude towards the invention and entered into an agreement with Bell's partners, according to which the united Bell Company was created, the bulk of the shares of which belonged to Bell. After some time, the price of one share of the monopoly telephone company rose to $995!
Having become rich, Alexander Bell continued to work tirelessly. He has published more than 100 articles and received 30 patents. Bell was involved in aviation and hydrodynamics, supported talented scientists and inventors, and even... raised sheep. Bell's inventions included a grain-husking machine, a phonautograph, a photophone, an audiometer, a metal detector, a vacuum pump, and much more.
Bell was awarded the A. Volta Prize, established by Napoleon, and made a Knight of the Legion of Honor. In 1882, Bell took American citizenship.
On the morning of August 4, 1922, all telephones in the United States and Canada were turned off for a minute. America was burying Alexander Graham Bell: 13 million telephones went silent, paying tribute to the memory of the outstanding scientist.
On March 7, 1876, the great American scientist and inventor Alexander Graham Bell received a patent for the invention of the world's first telephone. We remember the creations of the brilliant engineer, which immortalized his name
Photo: wikimedia.org
2014-03-07 15:51
Alexander Graham Bell was born in Baddeck, Nova Scotia, into a family of philologists. He was not only the founder of telephony, but also the founder of Bell Labs, which determined the development of telecommunications in the United States. Despite the fact that the telephone brought Bell worldwide fame, he has 18 of his own patents and dozens in collaboration with other scientists. We decided to recall the most famous creations of the engineering genius of the great American.
Telephone
The surprising fact is that Bell had no intention of inventing the telephone. The scientist was working on creating a device that would allow several telegrams to be transmitted over one wire. A large prize was announced for the invention of such a device.
On June 2, 1875, Bell and his assistant Watson were setting up the invented devices. By chance, while troubleshooting a problem, Bell heard a crackling sound in the wires. That evening the idea of creating a device that transmits sounds at a distance was born.
In November 1875, Bell filed an application for his invention. On March 7, 1876, Alexander Bell received a patent for the creation of a telephone.
On June 25, 1876, Alexander Bell demonstrated his telephone for the first time at the first World Electrical Exhibition in Philadelphia.
In 1877, Graham Bell opened the international Bell Telephone company, the world's first telephone company, which provided the opportunity to communicate with residents of different cities and countries.
Many scientists rushed to improve Bell's invention. By 1900, the number of telephone-related patents had risen to three thousand.
Photo background
On February 19, 1880, Alexander Bell, together with his assistant Sarah Orr, invented a device called the photophone. It was designed to transmit sounds over a distance using light. But the photophone had disadvantages, since it could not protect against external interference, such as clouds.
Bell received four patents for this device and considered it his most important invention. Photophone is the progenitor of modern fiber-optic communication lines, which are currently the main transmitter of the world's telecommunications traffic.
Metal detector
In 1881, Bell created an improvement on a metal detector created in the 19th century to search for ore-bearing veins. The device was based on the development of the induction balance system of the German physicist Heinrich Wilhelm Dauphe.
The appearance of the metal detector was facilitated by tragic events. US President James Garfield was wounded in Washington. For a long time, doctors could not detect the bullet stuck in his body.
The device was created relatively quickly. But, due to the fact that the president was on a bed with metal springs, difficulties arose with the operation of the metal detector. In the end, it was not possible to save Garfield.
Pyramid kite
At the beginning of the 20th century, Bell began to become interested in the sky. Since 1898, Alexander Bell began experimenting with kites. For a long time he worked with box-shaped flying machines.
In 1901, Bell invented the pyramidal kite.
It consisted of four triangular sides. The device was incredibly light, strong and durable and, according to some sources, could lift a person into the air.
Airplane "Silver Dart"
Together with his wife, Bell created the Experimental Aeronautics Association in 1907. In 1909, together with Glenn Curtiss, Thomas Selfridge, Casey Baldwin and Douglas McCurdy, an airplane called the Silver Dart was built.
Subsequently this aircraft received the name “duck” because the plumage was placed in front of the wing.
The airplane made its first flight on February 23, 1909, under the control of McCarthy. He flew 805 meters. This date is considered to be the birthday of Canadian aviation.
Hydrofoil boat HD-4
Bell came up with the idea of creating a hydrofoil while traveling in Italy. Together with Baldwin, scientists studied the development of inventor Enrico Forlanini - a hydrofoil boat. They decided to improve it.
In 1919, the HD-4 boat was built, setting a new water speed record. During its construction, the basics of aeronautics were used. This hydrofoil boat was capable of reaching speeds of up to 113 kilometers per hour. For more than 20 years, no inventor could break this record.
1847. The range of interests of this American scientist and inventor was unusually wide. In his amazing experiments, he managed to combine art and science: acoustics and music, electrical engineering and mechanics. It was Alexander Bell who invented the telephone and greatly contributed to the development of the telecommunications industry in the United States.
Childhood and youth
Alexander Melville Bell, the father of the future inventor, is a professional philologist and the author of a large-scale work on the art of eloquence. In particular, he is credited with creating the “Visible Speech” system, which makes it possible to convey the sounds of oral human speech using special written notations. Thanks to this development, the speaker, without even knowing foreign language, could pronounce certain words correctly.
Bell's parents tried to pay maximum attention to the sound of their son's voice and recitation skills. At the age of thirteen, Alexander completed his studies at the Royal Edinburgh School, and a year later he moved to his grandfather in London. Here he actively studies the intricacies of oratory and reads thematic literature. At the age of sixteen, the talented young man became a teacher of eloquence and music at Weston House Academy. Alexander Bell never completed his studies.
Moving to America
Shortly thereafter, Bell's two brothers died of tuberculosis. Doctors advised Alexander to change his surroundings. He decides to move to Canada. In 1870, the whole family settled in the province of Ontario, in a town called Brantford.
Since 1871, Alexander Bell has lived in Boston and taught at a specialized school for deaf and mute students. During his work as a teacher, the future scientist was actively looking for a way to demonstrate speech to the deaf. In particular, he tested a device in which a special membrane vibrated under the influence and transmitted the resulting vibrations to the needle. The needle, in turn, recorded data on a rotating drum. This invention of Bell became the impetus for his main discovery.
"Talking Telegraph"
In 1876, as part of the World Exhibition (Philadelphia), the scientist presented to the public an amazing apparatus, which he called a “talking telegraph.” This was Alexander Bell's first telephone. You can imagine the surprise of the jury members when they were able to hear from the megaphone the famous monologue of the Prince of Denmark “To be or not to be?”, which at the same time the inventor himself was reading in the next room. Needless to say, the jury’s verdict regarding the first telephone on the planet was unequivocal - to be?
The scientist began work on the possibility of broadcasting signals via telecommunication channels back in Scotland. While in America, he continued his developments. The appearance of the world's first telephone was facilitated by many other
For example, at a certain stage, Bell managed to create a unique electric piano that made it possible to transmit the sounds of music through wires.
Once upon a time, the Western Union company announced a huge monetary reward to anyone who could find a way to transmit several telegrams simultaneously using only one pair of wires. The management sought to abandon additional telegraph lines, and Bell was able to offer them a suitable solution - with the help of his development, it became possible to transmit up to 7 telegrams at once!
In his scientific research, Bell actively collaborated with Thomas Watson, and on electrical laws he was advised by the famous Boston scientist D. Henry.
Personal life of a scientist
On June 11, 1877, Alexander Bell married his former student Mabel Hubbard. The inventor's wife lost her hearing back in early childhood, V age four years after I had scarlet fever. After the wedding ceremony, the newlyweds returned to Bell's homeland, England. Here the inventor actively told everyone about the amazing talking telegraph. The “telephone performance” was even given to the royal family, whose members were indescribably delighted.
Bell lived with his wife for 45 years. Throughout this considerable period, warm friendly relations remained between them.
Success and recognition
After well-known and wealthy companies refused to buy the rights to manufacture telephones, the scientist created the American Speaking Telephone Company, which after some time became the largest in the world and began to generate huge income. By March 1979, Alexander Bell and his wife received 15% of the total profits, and by 1883 their fortune reached an impressive million dollars.
In 1880, the inventor received the Volta Prize. Bell spent the money he received on the development of a new gramophone project - one of the world's earliest sound recording systems, created together with Charles Sumner Tainter.
At the same time, he continued his work in the field of medicine. Thus, the University of Heidelberg awarded Bell an honorary degree for his developments in the field of acoustic physiology.
Improvements to the phone continued. In 1881 it became almost fully operational.
last years of life
Alexander Bell and his invention literally turned the world upside down. Unfortunately, the scientist’s health began to fail. Until the very last breath his wife Mabel remained nearby. She would later write in her diary that Bell's last silent message was a barely perceptible squeeze of his fingers at the moment when she asked not to leave her. The inventor died on August 4, 1922. As a sign of mourning for the great scientist, all telephones, of which there were more than 13 million at that time, were turned off throughout Canada and the United States.
The biography of Alexander Bell is interesting down to the smallest details. Thus, the famous scientist had the habit of working exclusively in dark time days, at night. Sometimes this became the cause of disagreements and disputes between spouses. Understanding Mabel's concerns, Bell made repeated desperate attempts to return to a "normal" daily routine, but none of them were successful.
And on August 15, 1877, a curious dispute took place between Alexander and his legendary contemporary Thomas Edison, which was ultimately resolved in favor of the latter. Edison proved that ideal option The greeting at the beginning of a telephone conversation is the word “hello”, which in Russia was converted into the familiar “hello” to us. The inventor of the telephone himself suggested using the word “ahoy,” which translates as “Hey, who’s there?”
It is also interesting that Bell himself did not like to use the phone - calls distracted him from thinking and work. But he was never able to talk to either his mother or his wife - both of them were completely deaf.