Today even children have mobile phones, and it is difficult to imagine life without them. And once people could only dream of a means that would allow them to easily communicate with loved ones living in another city or another country. There were also those who tried to make this dream come true.
The first attempts to invent the telephone
The transmission and reception of sounds by modern telephones occurs through electromagnetic signals. The first instruments were mechanical and had a direct acoustic channel; they worked on the basis of the principle of propagation of sound vibrations in a continuous medium, in this case air.
Attempts to invent a means of voice communication were many centuries ago. "Rope telephone", in which two membranes were connected with a string or wire, has been known for a very long time.
For the first time the word "telephone" was used by Charles Boursel, vice inspector of the Parisian telegraph and mechanical engineer. He came up with the idea of telephony, and in 1854, in his dissertation, he described the principle of the telephone. But in practice, he did not realize his idea.
German Johann Philip Reis in 1861 designed the Telephon device capable of transmitting human speech and musical tones over wires. It was equipped with a galvanic battery as a power source, speaker and microphone.
The invention of the first full-fledged telephone
In 1871, Italian-American scientist Antonio Meucci applied for a patent for a sound-by-wire device he invented in 1860 called the Telectrophon. Meucci learned about the possibility of converting sound vibrations into electrical impulses and transmitting voice over a distance through wires by chance. He practiced medicine using his electric generator. One day he heard from another room the voice of a patient with wires attached to his lips. So the inventor realized that electric current can transmit sound over a distance. However, he failed to obtain a patent for his invention in time due to the machinations of a large company and interested parties.
But Alexander Bell patented in 1876 a telephone called the "talking telegraph". His tube could receive and transmit human speech. The bell was invented a little later, in 1878, by a colleague Bella Watson. The call was made using a whistle into the receiver, but this mechanism was limited to a range of 500 meters. Bell's apparatus was demonstrated in Philadelphia at the World Electrotechnical Exhibition in June 1876.
Alexander Bell has been officially considered the inventor of the telephone for over a century. However, on June 11, 2002, the Italian Antonio Meucci was nevertheless recognized as the inventor of this means of communication, which was recorded in the resolution of the US Congress.
Since the beginning of the 20th century, telephone lines have been constantly developing in the world, including international ones.
