Last century saw many technological inventions leading to the betterment of the human life. One such marvelous inventions was Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone. For us now, mobile
phone are so ubiquitous; but imagine the life without telephones ! and imagine the how the traditional phones developed in last hundred years.
Alexander Graham Bell was born in 1847.His school days were terrible. To improve his performance his father sent him to grandfather’s place. The new place encouraged him to speak, act and think as an adult. At the end of the first year, on the way back home, Alex was met Charles Wheatstone. Charles had developed a sound making machine. This was a turning point of the life of Alex. He kept brooding over the machine , while his father challenged him to develop a speaking machine. Alex started the work with his brother Melly, and together they developed the model of the human head with cheeks and teeth so that it can speak ! It just made some soft noise.
Alexander joined a school as a teacher in 1863 at the age of 16. As a scientific person, Alexander experimented with vocal sounds by tapping on his throat while doing weird sounds. He also taught his dog to ruffly say “how are you grandmamma?”Alexander moved to Ontario in 1870 where he started a university of speech. By then Alexander had invented many things which he had kept secret. His desire to invent a speaking machine led him toward developing a telephone. His first methods were to use multiple telegraph which could send and receive more than one message. In 1875 Alexander found an assistant named Watson and together they set up an apparatus with steel strips which twanged based on electricity. Electricity made the strips resonate. One day when the electricity was switched off, Watson wanted to unjam a piece and when he gave it a blow, the apparatus with Alexander, three rooms away, twanged. He had invented half telephone.
Alexander soon developed a new type of acid phone. It was a pot of acid with needle suspended and the needle was connected to an electro magnet which was connected to a battery and the other pole of the battery was connected to the acid through a wire. On the electromagnet he kept a metal reed. This worked brilliantly and he only needed to improve it. On 14th February 1876, he patented the idea. He gave lot of public demonstration soon after that. By then Thomas s Alva Edison had come up with a receiver and Alexander made his phone without acid. He experimented with the phone in many place including under water. He had his working model ready and only needed people to accept it.
The biggest challenge was that he needed some one to have the telephone so that he could have a dialogue. He presented one set to his friend, using which he called his wife Hello, whose name we all use now as a starting protocol when we pick up phone.
Soon after that he demonstrated the phone to the queen of England. People went wild after that. Everyone had a telephone in their house. Wherever Alexander went people recognized him.
His next famous invention was the bullet detecter.this helped many people save their lives. From then on the phones never silent, except once in 1922 to mark his funeral.
