Biography Category
Name :
Graham Bell
Date :
Views :
575
Category :
Birth Date :
03/03/1847
Birth Place :
Edinburgh, Scotland
Death Date :
2-Aug-22
Not Available
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the invention-fever was in full swing. That period was the most important in modern history of technology, particularly in the western world. It was a period when Thomas Alva Edison invented the first light-bulb, record player and movie camera; George Eastman created the first camera, the Wright Brothers flew their plane, and a German scientist Max Planck opened the new vistas in science by his quantum theory of physics. It was also a time when the barriers amongst continents, countries and communities were broken by none other than Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of Telephone.[br /]
[br /]
[b]BIRTH AND FAMILY BACKGROUND[/b][br /]
[br /]
Alexander Graham Bell was born on March 3, 1847, in a Scottish family with a passion for communication. His father Alexander Melville Bell was a well-known Scottish educator of Edinburgh. He developed a system called "visible speech". His mother Eliza Bell, daughter of a surgeon in the Royal Navy, was a portrait painter and accomplished musician.[br /]
[br /]
His grandfather, also Alexander Bell, had forged for himself a reputation as an impressive, though under employed, actor and orator. Gifted with a commanding speech and considerable physical bearing, he sought to unleash in others the full potential of the spoken word. His attention was especially drawn to those for whom the act of speaking frightened challenges. His experience with such persons led him to publish some writings The Practical Elocutionist, Stammering and Other Impediments of Speech. By 1838, before Graham’s birth, he acquired the reputation and was referred to in the London press as "the celebrated professor of Elocution". Graham’s keen interest in communication was rooted in his heredity.[br /]
[br /]
His father Melville had the similar interest in the mechanics and methods of vocal communication. Melville enthusiastically joined his father in his elocutionary endeavors. And his keen interest in speech pathologies was sharpened when he fell in love with a deaf woman, who was ten years elder to him. He married her and they had three sons. Graham was the second; and his siblings were Melville and Edward.[br /]
[br /]
Graham’s mother was a sweet tempered and refined intelligent woman. Despite being held captive in a world of virtual silence, she developed her talent and became a pianist, whose tenacity and determination to "hear" might have inspired Graham.[br /]
[br /]
[b]EARLY YEARS
[/b][br /]
[br /]
His family knew young Graham as Aleck. He took to reading and writing at a very young age. Bell family lore told of his insistence upon mailing a letter to a family friend, before Graham had grasped any understanding of the alphabet. As he matured, Aleck displayed an expressive, flexible, and resonant voice – that came to be known as Bell family trademark.[br /]
[br /]
Young Aleck forged a unique bond with his deaf mother through usage of this impressive vocal instrument. While others spoke to his mother through an ear tube, little Aleck used to communicate with her by speaking soft, sonorous tones very close to her forehead. He assumed that his mother, Eliza, would be able to ‘hear’ him through the vibrations of his vocal chords. This early insight proved to be significant factor for Alexander Graham Bell to develop more elaborate theories regarding the characteristics of sound waves.[br /]
[br /]
At 14, Graham conceived of a device designed to remove the husks from wheat. That device combined a nailbrush and paddle into a rotary brushing wheel. While visiting London with his father, Aleck was fascinated by a demonstration of Sir Charles Wheatston’s ‘speaking machine’. When they returned home, Melville Sr., challenged Aleck and his brother to make their own model. The boys accepted the challenge and created an apparatus consisting of a facsimile mouth, throat, nose, movable tongue, and bellow lungs. The apparatus actually produced human-like sounds. Inspired by this success, Aleck tried further and succeeded in manipulating the mouth and vocal chords of his pet Skye terrier so that the dog’s growls were audible as words.[br /]
[br /]
Graham’s family had a great influence on his future. He didn’t go to school much. He spent a year at a private school, two years at Edinburgh’s Royal High School. Graham was mainly family trained child, and he was also used to self-teaching. Little Graham was a gifted musician; he played piano pieces by ear![br /]
[br /]
With growing age, Graham’s intellectual horizons diversified. The 16-year-old boy was teaching music and elocution at a boy’s boarding school.[br /]
[br /]
He and his brothers traveled throughout Scotland and impressed audiences with demonstration of their father’s ‘visible speech’ techniques. Combining such ventures, Graham helped his father at the University College in London along with his study there.[br /]
[br /]
German physicist Hermann Von Helmholtz’s thesis On The Sensations of Tone excited Graham. In this thesis, Von Helmholtz declared that vowel sounds could be produced by a combination of electrical tuning forks and resonators. Though Graham was unable to read German, it did not restrain him from hungrily consuming this information. It did lead to his making what he later described as a very valuable blunder’. At that time, he interpreted Von Helmholtz’s findings as stating that vowel sounds could be transmitted ‘over a wire’. Later, he said, "It gave me confidence. If I had been able to read German, I might never have begun my experiments in electricity".[br /]
[br /]
[b]MIDDLE YEARS[/b][br /]
[br /]
In 1870, the midst of his early academic and professional career, Graham had to face a series of personal tragedies. His two brothers died from tuberculosis, within the span of four months. Tuberculosis, the scourge of the late 19th century, also threatened 23 year old Graham during the voyage with his parents to Canada. At a spacious farmhouse in Brantford, Ontario – what he called ‘my dreaming place’. – Graham was able to recover and enriched his mind with a great enthusiasm to dwell in his ever-expanding ambitions.[br /]
[br /]
A year later, Graham went to Boston, U.S.A., becoming professor of vocal physiology at the University of Boston. His work in vocal physiology was a continuation of a system devised by his father to teach deaf mutes to speak with ‘visible speech’ or lip reading. His work with the deaf students proved to be a heart touching event in his life. One of his deaf students, Mabel Hubbard, occupied a unique place in Graham’s heart. Mabel Hubbard was ten years younger than him. Her father Gardinier Guillard Hubbard, was one of the co–founders of the Bell Telephone Company along with Thomas Sanders.[br /]
[br /]
Mabel’s parents were worried by Graham’s obvious interest in their daughter. She was only 17, while they mistakenly believed him to be about 35. In the end, they permitted him and he got engaged with Mabel. ‘Graham’ had a habit of working late in the night and sleeping through the morning. Once, Mabel drew a painting of ‘Graham’. The painting turned out to be the image of a great white owl![br /]
[br /]
Because of ‘Graham’s tendency to jump from one subject to another, Mabel and her family were distressed. Mabel’s father persuaded her to give Graham an ultimatum – no marriage until the completion of multiple telegraph. ‘Graham’ became furious at that decision. Moreover his mother, deaf herself, was not happy with his engagement. When she wrote to ask if Mabel’s deafness was inherited, ‘Graham’ found it hard to forgive his mother. Eventually, love conquered all obstacles. At the wedding ceremony, the bridegroom presented all, but ten of his shares in the newly formed Bell Telephone Company, to the bride. Mabel played a vital role in Graham’s life and his innovative efforts.[br /]
[br /]
[b]CREATING HISTORY: INVENTION OF TELEPHONE[/b][br /]
[br /]
Graham had keen interest in sound and electricity. He devoted much of his time to electrical experiments. While experimenting, he felt sure that speech could be sent by electricity. He found he could not cope with all the work these experiments entailed, and enlisted the help of an electrician, Thomas Watson. Both tried countless methods to transmit the speech. When Bell obtained his patent, he still did not have a working device. The line of experiments that led to the first successful transmission of speech is depicted here. [br /]
[br /]
The box that is lower and to the right is connected by a minus and a plus sign with devices next to each. This is a short-hand way of indicating that to get from one box to the other, Bell removes an electromagnet and substitutes a dish of water. The box called 'spark arrester" above it is connected by an arrow, to indicate that Bell had previous experience using water as a medium of resistance in a device that prevented sparks in a telegraph rely. The liquid experiments eventually, led to the famous "Watson--come here--I want you" result obtained on March 10th, 1876. The secret of their success was a carbon microphone. When Graham was experimenting on his circuit, he said to his assistant who was in another room – the historical words – ‘Watson, come here. I want you.’ Immediately Watson appeared and confirmed that these were the first words ever to be transmitted by the ‘dream device’ – the Telephone.[br /]
[br /]
In the same year the telephone was demonstrated at Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, introducing the wonderful device to the world and led to the foundation of the Bell Telephone Company in 1877. Three years later, Bell was awarded 50,000 Franc Volta Prize for his invention. With this money, Graham founded a laboratory in Washington, DC. There with his associates, he invented a photophone, a device that transmitted speech by light waves. In the following years, he invented the audiometer, a valuable instrument used to compare the hearing abilities of different people.[br /]
[br /]
In 1882, Graham was granted American citizenship. But the very next year had a shock for him, as his son Edward, died.[br /]
[br /]
Throughout the rest of his life Graham continued to experiment. Among the many other things he invented was a method for making gramophone records. He devised the first wax-recording cylinder for phonographs. It was an improved version of the device invented by Thomas Alva Edison.[br /]
[br /]
[b]LATER YEARS[/b][br /]
[br /]
In the later years, Graham became interested in aeronautics and in 1907; he helped to organize the Aerial Experiment Association [AEA]. His wife financed the AEA. He discovered movable sections for the wings of aeronautical principles to boats, devised a full-sized prototype of the hydrofoil, the HD-4, which reached the record-breaking speed of 114 kph. His other experiments include the field of eugenics, the science of improving offspring, which he applied to sheep breeding. Apart from this, he served as the president of the National Geographic Society of U.S., from 1896 to 1903. He was one of the founders of the society.[br /]
[br /]
In the twilight of his career, Graham became less interested in his company matters. He always tried to infuse love towards science and nature in the minds of the people. To increase such interest, he lent considerable financial and editorial support to the magazines – Science and National Geographic. He continued the studies on the causes and heredity of deafness, and published the books Duration of life and Conditions Associated with Longevity, in 1918. He breathe his last at the age of 75, at Baddeck in Canada, where a museum containing many of his original inventions are still maintained by the Canadian Government. On the day of his death, August 2, 1922, that nation’s telephones remained silent for a minute as a tribute to this great man’s contribution that spurred a new era of communication.[br /]
[br /]
[br /]
[br /]
[b]BIRTH AND FAMILY BACKGROUND[/b][br /]
[br /]
Alexander Graham Bell was born on March 3, 1847, in a Scottish family with a passion for communication. His father Alexander Melville Bell was a well-known Scottish educator of Edinburgh. He developed a system called "visible speech". His mother Eliza Bell, daughter of a surgeon in the Royal Navy, was a portrait painter and accomplished musician.[br /]
[br /]
His grandfather, also Alexander Bell, had forged for himself a reputation as an impressive, though under employed, actor and orator. Gifted with a commanding speech and considerable physical bearing, he sought to unleash in others the full potential of the spoken word. His attention was especially drawn to those for whom the act of speaking frightened challenges. His experience with such persons led him to publish some writings The Practical Elocutionist, Stammering and Other Impediments of Speech. By 1838, before Graham’s birth, he acquired the reputation and was referred to in the London press as "the celebrated professor of Elocution". Graham’s keen interest in communication was rooted in his heredity.[br /]
[br /]
His father Melville had the similar interest in the mechanics and methods of vocal communication. Melville enthusiastically joined his father in his elocutionary endeavors. And his keen interest in speech pathologies was sharpened when he fell in love with a deaf woman, who was ten years elder to him. He married her and they had three sons. Graham was the second; and his siblings were Melville and Edward.[br /]
[br /]
Graham’s mother was a sweet tempered and refined intelligent woman. Despite being held captive in a world of virtual silence, she developed her talent and became a pianist, whose tenacity and determination to "hear" might have inspired Graham.[br /]
[br /]
[b]EARLY YEARS
[/b][br /]
[br /]
His family knew young Graham as Aleck. He took to reading and writing at a very young age. Bell family lore told of his insistence upon mailing a letter to a family friend, before Graham had grasped any understanding of the alphabet. As he matured, Aleck displayed an expressive, flexible, and resonant voice – that came to be known as Bell family trademark.[br /]
[br /]
Young Aleck forged a unique bond with his deaf mother through usage of this impressive vocal instrument. While others spoke to his mother through an ear tube, little Aleck used to communicate with her by speaking soft, sonorous tones very close to her forehead. He assumed that his mother, Eliza, would be able to ‘hear’ him through the vibrations of his vocal chords. This early insight proved to be significant factor for Alexander Graham Bell to develop more elaborate theories regarding the characteristics of sound waves.[br /]
[br /]
At 14, Graham conceived of a device designed to remove the husks from wheat. That device combined a nailbrush and paddle into a rotary brushing wheel. While visiting London with his father, Aleck was fascinated by a demonstration of Sir Charles Wheatston’s ‘speaking machine’. When they returned home, Melville Sr., challenged Aleck and his brother to make their own model. The boys accepted the challenge and created an apparatus consisting of a facsimile mouth, throat, nose, movable tongue, and bellow lungs. The apparatus actually produced human-like sounds. Inspired by this success, Aleck tried further and succeeded in manipulating the mouth and vocal chords of his pet Skye terrier so that the dog’s growls were audible as words.[br /]
[br /]
Graham’s family had a great influence on his future. He didn’t go to school much. He spent a year at a private school, two years at Edinburgh’s Royal High School. Graham was mainly family trained child, and he was also used to self-teaching. Little Graham was a gifted musician; he played piano pieces by ear![br /]
[br /]
With growing age, Graham’s intellectual horizons diversified. The 16-year-old boy was teaching music and elocution at a boy’s boarding school.[br /]
[br /]
He and his brothers traveled throughout Scotland and impressed audiences with demonstration of their father’s ‘visible speech’ techniques. Combining such ventures, Graham helped his father at the University College in London along with his study there.[br /]
[br /]
German physicist Hermann Von Helmholtz’s thesis On The Sensations of Tone excited Graham. In this thesis, Von Helmholtz declared that vowel sounds could be produced by a combination of electrical tuning forks and resonators. Though Graham was unable to read German, it did not restrain him from hungrily consuming this information. It did lead to his making what he later described as a very valuable blunder’. At that time, he interpreted Von Helmholtz’s findings as stating that vowel sounds could be transmitted ‘over a wire’. Later, he said, "It gave me confidence. If I had been able to read German, I might never have begun my experiments in electricity".[br /]
[br /]
[b]MIDDLE YEARS[/b][br /]
[br /]
In 1870, the midst of his early academic and professional career, Graham had to face a series of personal tragedies. His two brothers died from tuberculosis, within the span of four months. Tuberculosis, the scourge of the late 19th century, also threatened 23 year old Graham during the voyage with his parents to Canada. At a spacious farmhouse in Brantford, Ontario – what he called ‘my dreaming place’. – Graham was able to recover and enriched his mind with a great enthusiasm to dwell in his ever-expanding ambitions.[br /]
[br /]
A year later, Graham went to Boston, U.S.A., becoming professor of vocal physiology at the University of Boston. His work in vocal physiology was a continuation of a system devised by his father to teach deaf mutes to speak with ‘visible speech’ or lip reading. His work with the deaf students proved to be a heart touching event in his life. One of his deaf students, Mabel Hubbard, occupied a unique place in Graham’s heart. Mabel Hubbard was ten years younger than him. Her father Gardinier Guillard Hubbard, was one of the co–founders of the Bell Telephone Company along with Thomas Sanders.[br /]
[br /]
Mabel’s parents were worried by Graham’s obvious interest in their daughter. She was only 17, while they mistakenly believed him to be about 35. In the end, they permitted him and he got engaged with Mabel. ‘Graham’ had a habit of working late in the night and sleeping through the morning. Once, Mabel drew a painting of ‘Graham’. The painting turned out to be the image of a great white owl![br /]
[br /]
Because of ‘Graham’s tendency to jump from one subject to another, Mabel and her family were distressed. Mabel’s father persuaded her to give Graham an ultimatum – no marriage until the completion of multiple telegraph. ‘Graham’ became furious at that decision. Moreover his mother, deaf herself, was not happy with his engagement. When she wrote to ask if Mabel’s deafness was inherited, ‘Graham’ found it hard to forgive his mother. Eventually, love conquered all obstacles. At the wedding ceremony, the bridegroom presented all, but ten of his shares in the newly formed Bell Telephone Company, to the bride. Mabel played a vital role in Graham’s life and his innovative efforts.[br /]
[br /]
[b]CREATING HISTORY: INVENTION OF TELEPHONE[/b][br /]
[br /]
Graham had keen interest in sound and electricity. He devoted much of his time to electrical experiments. While experimenting, he felt sure that speech could be sent by electricity. He found he could not cope with all the work these experiments entailed, and enlisted the help of an electrician, Thomas Watson. Both tried countless methods to transmit the speech. When Bell obtained his patent, he still did not have a working device. The line of experiments that led to the first successful transmission of speech is depicted here. [br /]
[br /]
The box that is lower and to the right is connected by a minus and a plus sign with devices next to each. This is a short-hand way of indicating that to get from one box to the other, Bell removes an electromagnet and substitutes a dish of water. The box called 'spark arrester" above it is connected by an arrow, to indicate that Bell had previous experience using water as a medium of resistance in a device that prevented sparks in a telegraph rely. The liquid experiments eventually, led to the famous "Watson--come here--I want you" result obtained on March 10th, 1876. The secret of their success was a carbon microphone. When Graham was experimenting on his circuit, he said to his assistant who was in another room – the historical words – ‘Watson, come here. I want you.’ Immediately Watson appeared and confirmed that these were the first words ever to be transmitted by the ‘dream device’ – the Telephone.[br /]
[br /]
In the same year the telephone was demonstrated at Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, introducing the wonderful device to the world and led to the foundation of the Bell Telephone Company in 1877. Three years later, Bell was awarded 50,000 Franc Volta Prize for his invention. With this money, Graham founded a laboratory in Washington, DC. There with his associates, he invented a photophone, a device that transmitted speech by light waves. In the following years, he invented the audiometer, a valuable instrument used to compare the hearing abilities of different people.[br /]
[br /]
In 1882, Graham was granted American citizenship. But the very next year had a shock for him, as his son Edward, died.[br /]
[br /]
Throughout the rest of his life Graham continued to experiment. Among the many other things he invented was a method for making gramophone records. He devised the first wax-recording cylinder for phonographs. It was an improved version of the device invented by Thomas Alva Edison.[br /]
[br /]
[b]LATER YEARS[/b][br /]
[br /]
In the later years, Graham became interested in aeronautics and in 1907; he helped to organize the Aerial Experiment Association [AEA]. His wife financed the AEA. He discovered movable sections for the wings of aeronautical principles to boats, devised a full-sized prototype of the hydrofoil, the HD-4, which reached the record-breaking speed of 114 kph. His other experiments include the field of eugenics, the science of improving offspring, which he applied to sheep breeding. Apart from this, he served as the president of the National Geographic Society of U.S., from 1896 to 1903. He was one of the founders of the society.[br /]
[br /]
In the twilight of his career, Graham became less interested in his company matters. He always tried to infuse love towards science and nature in the minds of the people. To increase such interest, he lent considerable financial and editorial support to the magazines – Science and National Geographic. He continued the studies on the causes and heredity of deafness, and published the books Duration of life and Conditions Associated with Longevity, in 1918. He breathe his last at the age of 75, at Baddeck in Canada, where a museum containing many of his original inventions are still maintained by the Canadian Government. On the day of his death, August 2, 1922, that nation’s telephones remained silent for a minute as a tribute to this great man’s contribution that spurred a new era of communication.[br /]
[br /]
[br /]
How often do you use the telephone? Every day, two or three times a day or almost daylong? What would it be like if there was no phone? Thanks to Alexander Graham Bell, who invented one of the most significant domestic device of today – the Telephone. This Scottish – American scientist had an inventive mind and a great vision. An inventor and a teacher of deaf, he is more famous today for his invention of the telephone then his pioneering efforts for the deaf and the mutes. Both Graham’s mother and wife had serious hearing impairments, a challenge that directed him towards the path of inventions. He defined an inventor as someone "who looks around upon the world and is not contented with things as they are. He wants to improve whatever he sees; he wants to benefit the world; he is haunted by an idea."[br /]
[br /]
Affected by tuberculosis in his youth, he never recovered fully and often suffered from severe headaches; yet never let his problems hold him back from being creative. Despite devoting his entire life in search of new inventions, he never accepted that he had reached the top.[br /]
[br /]
In the great man’s words: "I never really completed my revisions on telegraphy. I do believe that the concept of telephony has greatly impacted our society. I hope that this invention will be remembered."[br /]
[br /]
[br /]
[br /]
Affected by tuberculosis in his youth, he never recovered fully and often suffered from severe headaches; yet never let his problems hold him back from being creative. Despite devoting his entire life in search of new inventions, he never accepted that he had reached the top.[br /]
[br /]
In the great man’s words: "I never really completed my revisions on telegraphy. I do believe that the concept of telephony has greatly impacted our society. I hope that this invention will be remembered."[br /]
[br /]
[br /]
[b]MARCH 3, 1847[/b] Alexander Bell was born at Edinburgh, Scotland.[br /]
[b]1858[/b] Alexander adopted Graham as his middle name out of admiration for a family friend by the name Alexander Graham.[br /]
[b]AUGUST 1863[/b] He began teaching music and elocution at Weston House Academy in Elgin, Scotland.[br /]
[b]MAY 21, 1868[/b] He began teaching speech to the deaf children at Susanna Hull’s School in London.He attended University College, London.[br /]
[b]1871[/b] Moved to Boston U.S.A., and began teaching at the Boston School for Deaf Mutes.[br /]
[b]MARCH - JUNE 1872[/b] Bell taught at Clarke School for the Deaf in Boston and at the American Asylum for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut.[br /]
[b]FALL OF 1872[/b] He opened his School Of Vocal Physiology in Boston.[br /]
[b]1873[/b] Boston University appointed Bell as a professor of Vocal Physiology and Elocution at its School of Oratory.[br /]
[b]SPRING OF 1874[/b] Bell conducted acoustics experiments at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.In summer, Thomas Watson, a young electrician, became his assistant.He first conceived the idea of Telephone.[br /]
[b]FEBRUARY 14, 1876[/b] Bell filed an application for Telephone patent at the United States Patent Office.[br /]
[b]MARCH 7, 1876[/b] United States Patent No. 174, 465 was officially issued for Bell’s Telephone.[br /]
[b]MARCH 10, 1876[/b] The first intelligible human speech was heard over the telephone, when Bell called to Watson, "Mr. Watson – come here - I want to see you."[br /]
[b]JULY 9, 1877[/b] AlexanderGraham Bell, Gardiner Greene Hubbard, Thomas Sanders, and Thomas Watson formed the Bell Telephone Company.[br /]
[b]JULY 11, 1877[/b] He married Mabel Hubbard.[br /]
[b]JANUARY 14, 1878[/b] Bell demonstrated the telephone to Queen Victoria.[br /]
[b]FEB. – MAR., 1878[/b] The Bell Telephone Company merged with the New England Telephone Company to become the National Bell Telephone Company.[br /]
[b]1880[/b] National Bell Company became the American Bell Telephone Company.Bell and his associate, Charles Sumner Tainer, invented the photophone. The French Government awarded the Volta Prize for scientific achievement in electricity to Bell.Bell formed the Volta Laboratory.[br /]
[b]1881[/b] Bell, his cousin, Chichester Bell, and Charles Sumner Tainer invented a wax cylinder for Thomas Edison’s Phonograph.1883 At Scott Circle in Washington, D.C., Bell started a day school for deaf children.Bell was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.[br /]
[b]MARCH 3,1885[/b] Formation of The American Telephone and Telegraph Company to manage the expanding long–distance business of the Bell’s company.[br /]
[b]1886[/b] Establishment of the Volta Bureau as a center for studies on the deaf.[br /]
[b]AUG. – SEP., 1890[/b] Bell and his supporters formed the American Association to promote the Teaching Of Speech To The Deaf.
OCTOBER 1892 Opening of long–distance telephone service between New York and Chicago.[br /]
[b]1897[/b] He was elected as the President of the National Geographic Society.
1898 He was elected a Regent of the Smithsonian Institution.[br /]
[b]DECEMBER 30, 1899[/b] The American Telephone and Telegraph Company became the parent company of the Bell System.[br /]
[b]OCTOBER 1, 1907[/b] Bell formed the Aerial Experiment Association with Glenn Curtis, Thomas Selfridges, Casey Baldwin and J.A.D. McCurdy.[br /]
[b]JANUARY 25, 1915[/b] Formal opening of the transcontinental telephone line from New York to San Francisco.[br /]
[b]SEPTEMBER 9, 1919[/b] Bell and Casey Baldwin’s HD-4, a hydrofoil craft, set a world record in marine speed.[br /]
[b]AUGUST 2, 1922[/b] Death of Bell and buried at Beinn Bhreagh, Nova Scotia.[br /]
[br /]
[br /]
[b]1858[/b] Alexander adopted Graham as his middle name out of admiration for a family friend by the name Alexander Graham.[br /]
[b]AUGUST 1863[/b] He began teaching music and elocution at Weston House Academy in Elgin, Scotland.[br /]
[b]MAY 21, 1868[/b] He began teaching speech to the deaf children at Susanna Hull’s School in London.He attended University College, London.[br /]
[b]1871[/b] Moved to Boston U.S.A., and began teaching at the Boston School for Deaf Mutes.[br /]
[b]MARCH - JUNE 1872[/b] Bell taught at Clarke School for the Deaf in Boston and at the American Asylum for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut.[br /]
[b]FALL OF 1872[/b] He opened his School Of Vocal Physiology in Boston.[br /]
[b]1873[/b] Boston University appointed Bell as a professor of Vocal Physiology and Elocution at its School of Oratory.[br /]
[b]SPRING OF 1874[/b] Bell conducted acoustics experiments at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.In summer, Thomas Watson, a young electrician, became his assistant.He first conceived the idea of Telephone.[br /]
[b]FEBRUARY 14, 1876[/b] Bell filed an application for Telephone patent at the United States Patent Office.[br /]
[b]MARCH 7, 1876[/b] United States Patent No. 174, 465 was officially issued for Bell’s Telephone.[br /]
[b]MARCH 10, 1876[/b] The first intelligible human speech was heard over the telephone, when Bell called to Watson, "Mr. Watson – come here - I want to see you."[br /]
[b]JULY 9, 1877[/b] AlexanderGraham Bell, Gardiner Greene Hubbard, Thomas Sanders, and Thomas Watson formed the Bell Telephone Company.[br /]
[b]JULY 11, 1877[/b] He married Mabel Hubbard.[br /]
[b]JANUARY 14, 1878[/b] Bell demonstrated the telephone to Queen Victoria.[br /]
[b]FEB. – MAR., 1878[/b] The Bell Telephone Company merged with the New England Telephone Company to become the National Bell Telephone Company.[br /]
[b]1880[/b] National Bell Company became the American Bell Telephone Company.Bell and his associate, Charles Sumner Tainer, invented the photophone. The French Government awarded the Volta Prize for scientific achievement in electricity to Bell.Bell formed the Volta Laboratory.[br /]
[b]1881[/b] Bell, his cousin, Chichester Bell, and Charles Sumner Tainer invented a wax cylinder for Thomas Edison’s Phonograph.1883 At Scott Circle in Washington, D.C., Bell started a day school for deaf children.Bell was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.[br /]
[b]MARCH 3,1885[/b] Formation of The American Telephone and Telegraph Company to manage the expanding long–distance business of the Bell’s company.[br /]
[b]1886[/b] Establishment of the Volta Bureau as a center for studies on the deaf.[br /]
[b]AUG. – SEP., 1890[/b] Bell and his supporters formed the American Association to promote the Teaching Of Speech To The Deaf.
OCTOBER 1892 Opening of long–distance telephone service between New York and Chicago.[br /]
[b]1897[/b] He was elected as the President of the National Geographic Society.
1898 He was elected a Regent of the Smithsonian Institution.[br /]
[b]DECEMBER 30, 1899[/b] The American Telephone and Telegraph Company became the parent company of the Bell System.[br /]
[b]OCTOBER 1, 1907[/b] Bell formed the Aerial Experiment Association with Glenn Curtis, Thomas Selfridges, Casey Baldwin and J.A.D. McCurdy.[br /]
[b]JANUARY 25, 1915[/b] Formal opening of the transcontinental telephone line from New York to San Francisco.[br /]
[b]SEPTEMBER 9, 1919[/b] Bell and Casey Baldwin’s HD-4, a hydrofoil craft, set a world record in marine speed.[br /]
[b]AUGUST 2, 1922[/b] Death of Bell and buried at Beinn Bhreagh, Nova Scotia.[br /]
[br /]
[br /]
[b]THE HARMONIC TELEGRAPH[/b][br /]
[br /]
Since, Samuel F. B. Morse completed his first telegraph line in 1843, telegraphy had expanded into a full-fledged industry. This facilitated the people, nearly instantaneous communication between faraway points. While the technology leapt forward, telegraphy was nevertheless dependent upon the delivery by messenger boys between telegraph stations and relative persons. The limitation was – only one message could be transmitted at a time.[br /]
[br /]
To sort out the solution, Alexander Graham Bell applied his genius. His idea about transmitting speech with the help of electricity came into focus when he was working in Boston. He read the books on physics extensively. He digested all lectures on science and technology. He started working in this direction in the winter of 1874. He experimented for one year and while drawing parallels between multiple messages and multiple notes in a musical chord, he conceived the idea of the ‘Harmonic Telegraph.’ This idea led him to the invention of the telephone that put his name in the list of imperishable originators.[br /]
[br /]
[b]THE INVENTION OF TELEPHONE[/b][br /]
[br /]
Alexander Graham Bell wanted to reduce distances between people much before he started to invent thetelephone. A chance meeting with Thomas Watson at the electrical machine shop of Charles Williams was one of the most fortunate event in the history of communication. Watson was a skilful mechanic in devising tools that improved the efficiency of various instruments. He was assigned to work with many inventors and Graham was just a newcomer. The two genius minds collaborated on ways to refine the ‘Harmonic Telegraph’, which was invented before by Graham. Observing the fruitful results, Graham shared his vision with Watson – that vision took the shape of the greatest invention of the 19th century – The Telephone.[br /]
[br /]
It was the most memorable day in the lives of Graham and Watson. On a hot day in June 1875, while working in a transmitter room and trying to free a reed that had been too tightly wound to the pole of its electromagnet, Watson produced a ‘Twang.’ Graham was working in the receiving room. He heard the ‘twang’ and came running. Graham suspected the complex overtones and timbre of the ‘twang’ to be same as the human voice. He was glad that his vision of sending speech over a wire was more than just a fiction.[br /]
[br /]
He confirmed his theory that the speech patterns can be converted into the intensity of an electrical current. The design principles behind his efforts led to the evolution of the modern telephone. As he reached to the perfection level of his invention, he filed the specifications to the United States Patent Office in Washington. On March 7, 1876, four days after his 29th birthday, he received the patent number 174,465.[br /]
[br /]
The patent covering "The method of, and apparatus for, transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically…..by causing electrical undulations, similar in form to the vibrations of the air accompanying the said vocal or other sound."[br /]
[br /]
During this time, Graham discovered that a wire vibrated by the voice while partially plunged in a conducting liquid like mercury, could be made to vary its resistance and produce an undulating current. It means that the human speech could be transmitted over a wire.[br /]
[br /]
After three days, he and his assistant Watson set out to test this finding. Graham knocked over what they were using as a transmitting liquid – battery acid. Reacting to the spilled acid, Graham shouted, ‘Mr. Watson, come here. I want you !’ Graham’s voice spread over a wire. Watson received the ‘first’ telephone call and immediately answered it.[br /]
[br /]
Just over a year later, the first phone call was made over telegraph wires between two towns in Ontario – a span of eight miles. After two months, the long distance ‘Telephone Technology’ expanded to 143 miles.[br /]
[br /]
Seizing upon the opportunity to promote his new invention, Graham introduced the telephone to the world by exhibiting it at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. The Emperor of Brazil, Dom Perdo exclaimed, "My God, it talks!" This exclamation made Graham and his invention the talk of the international scientific community.[br /]
[br /]
After two years, Rutherford B. Hayes, the first US President to have a telephone installed in the White House, placed his first call to Graham, who was waiting for the call some 13th miles away from the White House. The President’s first words were, "Please, speak more slowly."[br /]
[br /]
The memories of the past are still lingering, but today, there is almost no limit to where you can call someone on ‘Graham’s Telephone.’[br /]
[br /]
[b]THE PHOTOPHONE[/b][br /]
[br /]
Alexander Graham Bell applied the principle of telephone in transmitting words on a beam of light and produced the new device – photophone, a precursor for today’s optical fiber system, in 1880. This was the first wireless transmission of speech. The discovery and its widespread use for more than a century, led to creating a handy, slick and immensely popular device – the cellular phone.[br /]
[br /]
[b]THE TETRAHEDRON[/b][br /]
[br /]
Alexander Graham Bell tried to develop a large kite that could carry a man. It was the basic idea of the flying machine. He first innovated the triangular box kite. By removing one of the kites’ sides and joining the other two sides together, he could remove one of the wooden sticks. It was planned to decrease the weight and to acquire the stability. Because a triangle is a more stable shape than a rectangle, which tends to distort the wind. His next step was to combine several triangular kites. Eventually, he evolved a figure made up of equilateral triangles. This was one of the nature’s most stable structures – the Tetrahedron. His wife Mabel helped him in his research directly in whatever way she could, and even indirectly, by asking young Douglas McCurdy to find an assistant for Graham. Finally, Frederick Baldwin was assigned the job of an observation tower composed of tetrahedral cells. These cells were made of half–inch iron pipe and each supported 4000 pounds without stress. There was a facility to replace the damaged cell without weakening the rest of the structure of the tetrahedron.[br /]
[br /]
In August, 1907, the opening ceremony was held and The National Geographic Magazine covered the occasion. ‘The Silver Dart’ was the fourth and final airplane produced by the members of AEA [Aerial Experiment Association]. Fifty years after the original event, a replica of Silver Dart was built and flew on the ice of the same Baddeck Bay. Today, the replica is maintained in the National Aviation Museum in Ottawa, in the memory of its great inventor Graham Bell.[br /]
[br /]
[b]THE HYDROPLANE[/b][br /]
[br /]
After the outbreak of the World War II, the United States entered the war in 1917, Graham wanted to lend his talents to the effort. At that time, the professionals captured the field of aviation. So, Graham started experiments of detecting submarines. But as he realized that the U.S. Navy’s hydrophones did the job very effectively, he dropped that idea. In those days, most people were afraid of a submarine attack. When the American Department of War called for proposals to build submarine chasers – the motorboats, Graham suggested hydrofoils. He built an iron model of it. The final design was 60 feet long and 6 feet in diameter.[br /]
[br /]
It was named the HD–4 and was launched on October 18, 1918. Graham’s enthusiastic report to the American Navy resulted in the shipment of the long–awaited engines. The HD-4, with a speed of almost 71 mph., became the fastest watercraft in the world.[br /]
[br /]
[br /]
[br /]
Since, Samuel F. B. Morse completed his first telegraph line in 1843, telegraphy had expanded into a full-fledged industry. This facilitated the people, nearly instantaneous communication between faraway points. While the technology leapt forward, telegraphy was nevertheless dependent upon the delivery by messenger boys between telegraph stations and relative persons. The limitation was – only one message could be transmitted at a time.[br /]
[br /]
To sort out the solution, Alexander Graham Bell applied his genius. His idea about transmitting speech with the help of electricity came into focus when he was working in Boston. He read the books on physics extensively. He digested all lectures on science and technology. He started working in this direction in the winter of 1874. He experimented for one year and while drawing parallels between multiple messages and multiple notes in a musical chord, he conceived the idea of the ‘Harmonic Telegraph.’ This idea led him to the invention of the telephone that put his name in the list of imperishable originators.[br /]
[br /]
[b]THE INVENTION OF TELEPHONE[/b][br /]
[br /]
Alexander Graham Bell wanted to reduce distances between people much before he started to invent thetelephone. A chance meeting with Thomas Watson at the electrical machine shop of Charles Williams was one of the most fortunate event in the history of communication. Watson was a skilful mechanic in devising tools that improved the efficiency of various instruments. He was assigned to work with many inventors and Graham was just a newcomer. The two genius minds collaborated on ways to refine the ‘Harmonic Telegraph’, which was invented before by Graham. Observing the fruitful results, Graham shared his vision with Watson – that vision took the shape of the greatest invention of the 19th century – The Telephone.[br /]
[br /]
It was the most memorable day in the lives of Graham and Watson. On a hot day in June 1875, while working in a transmitter room and trying to free a reed that had been too tightly wound to the pole of its electromagnet, Watson produced a ‘Twang.’ Graham was working in the receiving room. He heard the ‘twang’ and came running. Graham suspected the complex overtones and timbre of the ‘twang’ to be same as the human voice. He was glad that his vision of sending speech over a wire was more than just a fiction.[br /]
[br /]
He confirmed his theory that the speech patterns can be converted into the intensity of an electrical current. The design principles behind his efforts led to the evolution of the modern telephone. As he reached to the perfection level of his invention, he filed the specifications to the United States Patent Office in Washington. On March 7, 1876, four days after his 29th birthday, he received the patent number 174,465.[br /]
[br /]
The patent covering "The method of, and apparatus for, transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically…..by causing electrical undulations, similar in form to the vibrations of the air accompanying the said vocal or other sound."[br /]
[br /]
During this time, Graham discovered that a wire vibrated by the voice while partially plunged in a conducting liquid like mercury, could be made to vary its resistance and produce an undulating current. It means that the human speech could be transmitted over a wire.[br /]
[br /]
After three days, he and his assistant Watson set out to test this finding. Graham knocked over what they were using as a transmitting liquid – battery acid. Reacting to the spilled acid, Graham shouted, ‘Mr. Watson, come here. I want you !’ Graham’s voice spread over a wire. Watson received the ‘first’ telephone call and immediately answered it.[br /]
[br /]
Just over a year later, the first phone call was made over telegraph wires between two towns in Ontario – a span of eight miles. After two months, the long distance ‘Telephone Technology’ expanded to 143 miles.[br /]
[br /]
Seizing upon the opportunity to promote his new invention, Graham introduced the telephone to the world by exhibiting it at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. The Emperor of Brazil, Dom Perdo exclaimed, "My God, it talks!" This exclamation made Graham and his invention the talk of the international scientific community.[br /]
[br /]
After two years, Rutherford B. Hayes, the first US President to have a telephone installed in the White House, placed his first call to Graham, who was waiting for the call some 13th miles away from the White House. The President’s first words were, "Please, speak more slowly."[br /]
[br /]
The memories of the past are still lingering, but today, there is almost no limit to where you can call someone on ‘Graham’s Telephone.’[br /]
[br /]
[b]THE PHOTOPHONE[/b][br /]
[br /]
Alexander Graham Bell applied the principle of telephone in transmitting words on a beam of light and produced the new device – photophone, a precursor for today’s optical fiber system, in 1880. This was the first wireless transmission of speech. The discovery and its widespread use for more than a century, led to creating a handy, slick and immensely popular device – the cellular phone.[br /]
[br /]
[b]THE TETRAHEDRON[/b][br /]
[br /]
Alexander Graham Bell tried to develop a large kite that could carry a man. It was the basic idea of the flying machine. He first innovated the triangular box kite. By removing one of the kites’ sides and joining the other two sides together, he could remove one of the wooden sticks. It was planned to decrease the weight and to acquire the stability. Because a triangle is a more stable shape than a rectangle, which tends to distort the wind. His next step was to combine several triangular kites. Eventually, he evolved a figure made up of equilateral triangles. This was one of the nature’s most stable structures – the Tetrahedron. His wife Mabel helped him in his research directly in whatever way she could, and even indirectly, by asking young Douglas McCurdy to find an assistant for Graham. Finally, Frederick Baldwin was assigned the job of an observation tower composed of tetrahedral cells. These cells were made of half–inch iron pipe and each supported 4000 pounds without stress. There was a facility to replace the damaged cell without weakening the rest of the structure of the tetrahedron.[br /]
[br /]
In August, 1907, the opening ceremony was held and The National Geographic Magazine covered the occasion. ‘The Silver Dart’ was the fourth and final airplane produced by the members of AEA [Aerial Experiment Association]. Fifty years after the original event, a replica of Silver Dart was built and flew on the ice of the same Baddeck Bay. Today, the replica is maintained in the National Aviation Museum in Ottawa, in the memory of its great inventor Graham Bell.[br /]
[br /]
[b]THE HYDROPLANE[/b][br /]
[br /]
After the outbreak of the World War II, the United States entered the war in 1917, Graham wanted to lend his talents to the effort. At that time, the professionals captured the field of aviation. So, Graham started experiments of detecting submarines. But as he realized that the U.S. Navy’s hydrophones did the job very effectively, he dropped that idea. In those days, most people were afraid of a submarine attack. When the American Department of War called for proposals to build submarine chasers – the motorboats, Graham suggested hydrofoils. He built an iron model of it. The final design was 60 feet long and 6 feet in diameter.[br /]
[br /]
It was named the HD–4 and was launched on October 18, 1918. Graham’s enthusiastic report to the American Navy resulted in the shipment of the long–awaited engines. The HD-4, with a speed of almost 71 mph., became the fastest watercraft in the world.[br /]
[br /]
[br /]
• When one door closes, another opens, but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one that has opened for us.[br /]
[br /]
• Great discoveries and improvements invariably involve the co-operation of many minds.[br /]
[br /]
• A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with. A man is what he makes of himself.[br /]
[br /]
• The most successful men in the end are those, whose success is the result of steady accretion.[br /]
[br /]
• I may be given credit for having blazed the trail but when I look at the subsequent developments I feel the credit is due to others rather than to myself.[br /]
[br /]
• What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it.[br /]
[br /]
[br /]
[br /]
• Great discoveries and improvements invariably involve the co-operation of many minds.[br /]
[br /]
• A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with. A man is what he makes of himself.[br /]
[br /]
• The most successful men in the end are those, whose success is the result of steady accretion.[br /]
[br /]
• I may be given credit for having blazed the trail but when I look at the subsequent developments I feel the credit is due to others rather than to myself.[br /]
[br /]
• What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it.[br /]
[br /]
[br /]
Alexander Graham Bell was a genius. It can only partly be established by the 18 patents in his name and for the 12, he shared with his collaborators. These patents are distributed over a wide range of topics:[br /]
[br /]
[b]PATENT ALLOCATED FOR NUMBER OF PATENTS[/b][br /]
-The Telegraph and Telephone 14[br /]
-The Photophone 4[br /]
-The Phonograph 1[br /]
-Aerial Vehicles 5[br /]
-The Hydroplane 4[br /]
-The Selenium Cell 3[br /]
[br /]
[br /]
[b]PATENT ALLOCATED FOR NUMBER OF PATENTS[/b][br /]
-The Telegraph and Telephone 14[br /]
-The Photophone 4[br /]
-The Phonograph 1[br /]
-Aerial Vehicles 5[br /]
-The Hydroplane 4[br /]
-The Selenium Cell 3[br /]
[br /]
