Even in the myth of ancient Greek times, Theseus was the first mention of how information can be transmitted. Aegeus, the father of this hero, when he sent his son to the island of Crete, to fight the monster Minotaur, asked him to return, in case of success, to raise a white sail on the ship, and in case of defeat - black. Unfortunately, the inventor of the telephone had not yet been born, and the colors were mixed up, and Aegeus, deciding that his son was dead, drowned himself. The sea where he did it was called the Aegean.
Continuation of the story with connection
For some time, people did not pay much attention to solving the problem of transmitting symbols and signals over long distances. For a long time, birds and people remained the most reliable way to provide high-quality communication. When the weather was disgusting and there were no people willing to flee, they used the fire of a fire, smoke, voice, or other conditionalsigns.
Although, to be honest, in the 16th century there was a proposal, Giovanni della Porta, an Italian scientist, to use speaking tubes for communication. A similar method operates on ships for communication between the engine room and the captain. So, the proposal to lay such pipes throughout Italy did not meet with understanding, and the first telephone was not invented at that time.
French revolution and communication breakthrough
Mechanic Claude Chappe in 1789 proposed to the Convention to resolve the communication issue as follows: they intended to cover the whole of France with a network of towers and install devices made of planks on them. At the same time, they should have been clearly visible from a distance. At night, lanterns were lit at the ends of the planks. Inside the tower was a telegraph operator, changing the location of the slats. The reference point for him was the tower in the zone of visibility. The telegraph operator sitting in it copied the message and sent it further. And so it went - from the beginning to the end point. Approximately 200 combinations could be obtained by changing the arrangement of the bars.
A cipher was compiled, which consisted of a notebook with a volume of 92 pages, each of which had the same number of words. The telegraph employee transmitted the number of the word and page, they did not know the cipher at the intermediate points, but simply passed on the received combinations. Claude Chappe is not yet the inventor of the telephone, but his great admirer, Napoleon, introduced his method of communication throughout almost all of Europe. By the way, the transmission speed was quite high. For example, the message from St. Petersburg to Warsaw took about 45 minutes, if only the weather was normal.
Invention of electricity and communication
When electricity was invented, at first scientists could not find a practical application for it. The first experience was the transmission of information over a distance. Austrian scientists, seeing the dependence of the Schapp telegraph on weather conditions, created its electric version. Semmering, a member of the Munich academy, invented a device in 1809 that was connected by thirty-five wires, each of which corresponded to numbers and letters of the alphabet. The message came to a bath filled with water, here the electrical network was closed, during which gas bubbles were released, information was read from them. The design was very complex, it did not immediately take root, only in 1832 was a usable electric telegraph made. It was invented by Schilling, a scientist from Russia, and later improved by the British Cook and Wheatstone. So, gradually, we will get to how the invention of the telephone happened, briefly dwelling on important points.
Invention of Morse
Morse demonstrated his telegraph alphabet and transmitting apparatus to the public in 1837. From that moment on, the electric telegraph began its victorious march around the world. In just 10 years, his lines have entangled most of North America and Europe. His triumph was the laying of a communication cable along the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, carried out in 1866 with the help of the ship Great Eastern, specially built for this purpose. When radio was invented, Morse code moved intobroadcast.
And now, despite the mass distribution of satellite, cellular, other sophisticated communications, the Internet, there are people, and there are many of them, who prefer to send telegrams. And not only in villages, but also in big cities. Now we are very close to such a significant date as the year of the invention of the telephone.
When was the telephone invented
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the telephone became the main means of communication. He was born much later than the telegraph, his predecessor. Even at a time when this predecessor was the main one, Philipp Rice, a German scientist, in 1861 invented a device that, using a galvanic current, transfers a human voice to any distance. Fifteen years later, Alexander Graham Bell, a Philadelphia school teacher, demonstrated the first electric telephone at the World's Fair. Remember: 1876 is the date the telephone was invented. But Elish Grey, another inventor, was only a couple of hours late with a claim for the same invention. Therefore, the primacy in this matter is purely conditional.
Development of telephone communication
Literally five years later, a new means of communication, which was much simpler than the telegraph, firmly entered human life. Have you seen the photo of the first phone? So, the famous Thomas Edison improved this device, and it became a truly household means of communication. And the telegraph was and remains public. There was also a field phone option. Due to its rapid deployment and ease of handling, it has become indispensable for the army andmilitary.
The first telephone exchange opened in 1878. This means of communication, like the telegraph, acquired the status of inviolable. Neither revolution nor war could interfere with their normal functioning. From films about those times it is clear that one of the favorite activities of the military commanders of both the White Army and the Red Army during the Civil War was quarreling over the phone.
Briefly about the first phone
You have already figured out who is the official inventor of the telephone. And what was this first phone like? By the way, the invention happened by chance, like many others in this life. During experiments and experiments, the stuck plate began to act as a primitive diaphragm, and it was already a matter of time to think out what to do next. As a result, Bell's phone became a real sensation at the exhibition.
Although the first apparatus only worked at a distance of up to two hundred meters, with monstrous sound distortion, the transmitting and receiving devices were very primitive. The inventor created the "Bell Telephone Society" and began to actively improve it. As a result, one year later he patented fittings and a new membrane for his device. A little later, I used a carbon microphone (to increase the transmission distance) and powered by separate batteries. A little over a hundred years, almost in this form, the telephone existed.
Telephone development in the twentieth century
How did the further development of the invention, the author of whichbecame Alexander Bell? The telephone, created by him, soon surpassed telegraph communication and began to develop by leaps and bounds. The first transatlantic telephone cable TAT-1 was laid between Canada and Scotland in 1956. And after that - more than a hundred thousand kilometers of such cables. Including - Washington - Moscow, the famous government special wire, for communication between the American president and the leader of the Soviet Union. Nobody else had access to it. Such a wired, cable telephone connection, of course, is much more expensive than radiotelephone, especially if you count the amount of drowned and buried copper, but it is not going to give up its positions. At least because of its greater reliability and the ability to intercept the conversation.
Phone today
Bell - the inventor of the telephone - could not, most likely, even imagine the progress that communications have made to date. It would seem that the development of cellular communications should slow down wired communications, but the latter continues to move forward, especially in large cities: thanks, as already mentioned, to its reliability, as well as the introduction of the latest technologies, such as fiber optic communications.
Have you forgotten what wires the Internet is transmitted through? According to the very ones that our grandfathers and grandmothers used to communicate, and in the central part of Moscow - great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers. Thanks to the latest technology, the phone mastered the air and turned from a stationary object into a very convenient and advanced human companion.
One moreversion about the inventor of the telephone
Revealing the topic of the invention of this means of communication, one cannot fail to mention one more version, according to which the inventor of the telephone is Elisha Gray, and not Alexander Bell at all. In 2007, a book was published by a well-known researcher, journalist Seth Shulman, in which he wrote that the latter had stolen a competitor's invention and passed it off as his own. The main piece of evidence is Bell's notebook, access to which was very limited until 1976. It turns out, in addition to everything else, that Gray applied for a patent first, but his competitor, thanks to bribery and aggressive lawyers, managed to register a patent earlier. But that's not all.
There is a version that Philipp Rice, a German scientist, can also be considered as the inventor of the first telephone. His device, created in the 1860s, was capable of transmitting speech over a distance, but it worked on a different principle. By the way, Gray began his work as a carpenter, while studying at Oberlin College. Then he experimented with telegraph technology and electricity, invented a hotel notification device, a telegraph switchboard, a letter-printing machine and other devices. He lost the trial for the right to be considered the inventor of the telephone, and Bell has since been considered the first.
Further prospects for the development of communications
The inventor of the telephone, whoever he was, could probably imagine what future prospects the means of communication have. They are a bit from the realm of fantasy, but, nevertheless, they have the right toExistence. This is telepathy, or, in other words, the transmission of thoughts over a distance. Back in the seventies of the last century, the Soviet academician Glushkov formulated this perspective. He noted that the thought process of a person will be sent to a computer, it will remember it, and over time, a complete symbiosis of a machine and a person will turn out. And I was sure that in 2020 full compatibility of the computer and the human brain would be achieved.
Given how computer communications are replacing traditional means of transmitting information over a distance, the academician's forecast does not seem very fantastic. After all, many fantasies that seemed unrealistic came true. For example, a home that is fully computerized, helmets connected to a PC, transmitting visual sensations. It was once the fantasy of Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Bradbury. Or computer printing at the command of a human voice. When the transmission of thoughts over a distance is demanded, then this issue will also be resolved. It's just that no one really needs it yet.
A little about other inventions of mankind
Although the invention of the telephone is one of the most important, all the inventions of mankind do not end there. We will now briefly list a dozen of the most basic of them.
- Alcohol.
- Internet.
- Birth control.
- Antibiotics.
- Anesthesia.
- Print.
- Sewerage.
- Tools.
- Cooking food.
- Language.
Brief biography of Alexander Bell
Since we talked about the invention of the great scientist, we need to briefly outline his biography. He was born in Edinburgh (Scotland), March 3, 1847. Many of his relatives had the profession of professional orators - uncle, grandfather and father. The latter even wrote a treatise on eloquence. At first, Alexander also followed their path, graduated from the appropriate school and became a teacher of music and eloquence. He studied for a year at the University of Edinburgh, then moved to Bath (England). In 1870 the family moved to Canada and settled in Ontario. Here Bell continued to deal with the issue of signal transmission through telecommunications, which he became interested in back in Scotland. He created, for example, an electric piano that transmitted music over wires. Soon, in 1873, Alexander became a lecturer in the physiology of speech at the University of Boston. And three years later he received patent No. 174465 for the invention of the telephone. He also worked with light rays, which later contributed to the creation of fiber optic technologies. In 1877 he married Mabel Hubbard, his student, in 1882 he became a US citizen. Died August 2, 1992. In the country for a minute, in order to honor his memory, all phones were turned off.
