Alexander Graham Bell

Alexander Graham Bell (March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was a scientist, inventor, and founder of Bell Canada, who was known as the father of the telephone. In addition to his work in telecommunications technology, he was responsible for important advances in aviation and hydrofoil technology.

Inventions

Bell was a prolific inventor, and had a keen interest in many fields.

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The telephone and patent issues

Bell filed an application to patent his speaking telephone in the United States on February 14 1876, and by a strange coincidence, Mr. Elisha Gray applied on the same day for patent caveat (a preliminary notice of a patent application) of a similar kind only 2 hours after Bell had filed for his patent.

Related Topics:
United States - February 14 - 1876 - Elisha Gray

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Gray's transmitter is supposed to have been suggested by the very old device known as the "lovers' telephone," in which two diaphragms are joined by a taut string and in speaking against one the voice is conveyed through the string, solely by mechanical vibration, to the other. Gray employed electricity, and varied the strength of the current in conformity with the voice by causing the diaphragm in vibrating to dip a metal probe attached to its centre more or less deep into a well of conducting liquid in circuit with the line. As the current passed from the probe through the liquid to the line a greater or less thickness of liquid intervened as the probe vibrated up and down, and thus the strength of the current was regulated by the resistance offered to the passage of the current. His receiver was an having an iron plate as an armature capable of vibrating under the attractions of the varying current.

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But Gray allowed his idea to slumber, whereas Bell continued to perfect the apparatus designed by Gray. An official at the patent office later admitted to selling Gray's idea to Bell's lawyers for money. Gray never knew this. However, when Bell achieved an unmistakable success, Gray brought a suit against him, which resulted in a compromise, one public company acquiring both patents.

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Philipp Reis, a German self-taught scientist and inventor, also worked on a version of the telephone many years before Bell. Reis' telephone was fairly crude and roused little interest in the scientific community, but his work appears to have been used by Bell when designing the telephone. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3253174.stm

Related Topics:
Philipp Reis - Reis' telephone

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Of the people who have challenged Bell's patent and claimed to have invented the telephone, the most interesting case was that of Antonio Meucci, an Italian emigrant, who produced a mass of evidence to show that in 1849, while in Havana, Cuba, he experimented with the view of transmitting speech by the electric current. He continued his research in 1852-1853, and subsequently at Staten Island, U.S.; and in 1860 deputed a friend visiting Europe to interest people in his invention. In 1871, he filed a caveat in the United States Patent Office and tried to get Mr Grant, President of the New York District Telegraph Company, to give the apparatus a trial. Ill health and poverty, from injuries of an explosion on board the Staten Island ferry boat Westfield, retarded his experiments and prevented him from completing his patent.

Related Topics:
Antonio Meucci - 1849 - Havana, Cuba - 1852 - 1853 - Staten Island - 1860 - 1871

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Meucci's experimental apparatus was exhibited at the Philadelphia Exhibition of 1884 and attracted much attention. But his evidence showed lack of electrical understanding and incomplete models. In the caveat of 1871, he says "I employ the well-known conducting effect of continuous metallic conductors as a medium for sound, and increase the effect by electrically insulating both the conductor and the parties who are communicating. It forms a speaking telegraph without the necessity of any hollow tube" . Meucci was eventually recognised as the original inventor of the telephone by the Congress of the United States in Resolution 269, dated June 11 2002.

Related Topics:
1884 - Congress of the United States - June 11 - 2002

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Bell Telephone Company

Bell and others formed the Bell Telephone Company in July 1877. In 1879, it merged with the New England Telephone Company forming the National Telephone Company, which was renamed the American Bell Telephone Company in 1880. Along with Thomas Edison, Bell formed the Oriental Telephone Company on January 25 1881. On March 3 1885, American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) was formed to manage the expanding long-distance business of the American Bell Telephone Company. AT&T became the overall holding company for all the Bell ventures, and remains active today.

Related Topics:
1877 - Thomas Edison - Oriental Telephone Company - January 25 - 1881 - March 3 - 1885 - American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T)

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Bel and decibel

The bel is a unit of measurement invented by Bell Labs and named after Bell. The bel was too large for everyday use, so the decibel (dB), equal to 0.1 B, became more commonly used.

Related Topics:
Bell Labs - Decibel

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Now, dB is commonly used as a unit for measuring the sound intensity.

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The photophone

Another of Bell's inventions was the photophone, a device enabling the transmission of sound over a beam of light, which he developed together with Charles Sumner Tainter. The device employed light-sensitive cells of crystalline selenium, which has the property that its electrical resistance varies inversely with the illumination (i.e., the resistance is higher when the material is in the dark, and lower when it is lighted). The basic principle was to modulate a beam of light directed at a receiver made of crystalline selenium, to which a telephone was attached. The modulation was done either by means of a vibrating mirror, or a rotating disk periodically obscuring the light beam.

Related Topics:
Photophone - Charles Sumner Tainter - Selenium - Electrical resistance - Telephone

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This idea was by no means new. Selenium had been discovered by Jöns Jakob Berzelius in 1817, and the peculiar properties of crystalline or granulate selenium were discovered by Willoughby Smith in 1873. In 1878, one writer with the initials J.F.W. from Kew described such an arrangement in Nature in a column appearing on June 13, asking the readers whether any experiments in that direction had already been done. In his paper on the photophone, Bell credited one A. C. Browne of London with the independent discovery in 1878—the same year Bell became aware of the idea. Bell and Tainter, however, were apparently the first to perform a successful experiment, by no means any easy task, as they even had to produce the selenium cells with the desired resistance characteristics themselves.

Related Topics:
Jöns Jakob Berzelius - 1817 - Willoughby Smith - 1873 - 1878 - Kew - Nature - June 13 - A. C. Browne - London

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In one experiment in Washington, D.C. the sender and the receiver were placed on in different buildings some 700 feet (213 metres) apart. The sender consisted of a mirror directing sunlight onto the mouthpiece, where the light beam was modulated by a vibrating mirror, focused by a lens and directed at the receiver, which was simply a parabolic reflector with the selenium cells in the focus and the telephone attached. With this setup, Bell and Tainter succeeded to communicate clearly.

Related Topics:
Washington, D.C. - Feet - Metre - Lens - Parabolic - Focus

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The photophone was patented on December 18 1880, but the quality of communication remained poor and the research was not pursued by Bell.

Related Topics:
Patent - December 18 - 1880

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Metal detector

Bell is also credited with the invention of the metal detector in 1881. The device was hurriedly put together in an attempt to find the bullet in the body of U.S. President James Garfield. The metal detector worked, but didn't find the bullet because the metal bedframe the President was lying on confused the instrument. Bell gave a full account of his experiments in a paper read before the American Association for the Advancement of Science in August 1882.

Related Topics:
Metal detector - 1881 - U.S. President - James Garfield - American Association for the Advancement of Science - August - 1882

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Experimental aircraft

Bell was also interested in aircraft and was a supporter of aerospace engineering research through the Aerial Experiment Association. The Association was officially formed at Baddeck, Nova Scotia in October 1907 at the suggestion of Mrs. Mabel Bell and with her financial support. It was headed by the inventor himself. The founding members were four young men, American Glenn H. Curtiss, a motorcycle manufacturer who would later be awarded the Scientific American Trophy for the first official one-kilometre flight in the Western hemisphere and later be world-renowned as an airplane manufacturer; Frederick W. "Casey" Baldwin, the first Canadian and first British subject to pilot a public flight in Hammondsport, New York; J.A.D. McCurdy; and Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge, an official observer of the U.S. government. One of the project's inventions, the aileron, is a standard component of aircraft today. (Note that the aileron was also invented independently by Robert Esnault-Pelterie.)

Related Topics:
Aircraft - Aerospace engineering - Aerial Experiment Association - Glenn H. Curtiss - Frederick W. "Casey" Baldwin - Hammondsport, New York - Thomas Selfridge - Aileron - Robert Esnault-Pelterie

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In 1909, Bell's Silver Dart made the first controlled powered flight in Canada. However, a series of Canadian flights failed to interest the Canadian military in developing the airplane.

Related Topics:
1909 - Silver Dart

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The hydrofoil

The March 1906 Scientific American article by American hydrofoil pioneer William E. Meacham explained the basic principle of hydrofoils. Bell considered the invention of the hydroplane as a very significant achievement. Based on information gained from that article he began to sketch concepts of what is now called a hydrofoil boat.

Related Topics:
1906 - Scientific American - Hydrofoil

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Bell and Casey Baldwin began hydrofoil experimentation in the summer of 1908 as a possible aid to airplane takeoff from water. Baldwin studied the work of the Italian inventor Enrico Forlanini and began testing models. This lead him and Bell to the development of practical hydrofoil watercraft.

Related Topics:
1908 - Enrico Forlanini

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During his world tour of 1910–1911 Bell and Baldwin met with Forlanini in Italy. They had rides in the Forlanini hydrofoil boat over Lake Maggiore. Baldwin described it was as smooth as flying. On returning to Baddeck a number of designs were tried culminating in the HD-4. Using Renault engines a top speed of 54 miles per hour was achieved accelerating rapidly, taking wave without difficulty, steering well, showing good stability.

Related Topics:
1910 - 1911

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Bell's report to the navy permitted him to obtain two 350 horsepower (260 kW) engines in July 1919. On September 9 1919 the HD-4 set a world's marine speed record of 70.86 miles per hour. This record stood for ten years.

Related Topics:
Horsepower - KW - 1919 - September 9

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