Telephon

 Alexander Graham Bell

Alexander Graham Bell (/ˈɡreɪ.əm/, born Alexander Bell; March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922)[4]

was a Scottish-born[N 1] Canadian-American inventor, scientist, and engineer who is credited

with patenting the œrst practical telephone. He also co-founded the American Telephone and

Telegraph Company (AT&T) in 1885.[7]

Bell's father, grandfather, and brother had all been associated with work on elocution and

speech, and both his mother and wife were deaf, profoundly inžuencing Bell's life's work.[8] His

research on hearing and speech fu her led him to experiment with hearing devices, which

eventually culminated in his being awarded the œrst U.S. patent for the telephone, on March 7,

1876.[N 2] Bell considered his invention an intrusion on his real work as a scientist and refused

to have a telephone in his study.[9][N 3]

Many other inventions marked Bell's later life, including groundbreaking work in optical

telecommunications, hydrofoils, and aeronautics. Bell also had a strong inžuence on the

National Geographic Society[11] and its magazine while se¡ing as its second president from

1898 to 1903.

Beyond his work in engineering, Bell had a deep interest in the emerging science of

heredity.[12] His work in this area has been called "the soundest, and most useful study of

human heredity proposed in nineteenth-centu£ America... Bell's most notable contribution to

basic science, as distinct from invention."[13]

Early life

Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on March 3, 1847.[14] e family home was at South

Charlotte Street, and has a stone inscription marking it as Bell's bi hplace. He had two

brothers: Melville James Bell (1845–1870) and Edward Charles Bell (1848–1867), both of whom

died of tuberculosis.[15] His father was Alexander Melville Bell, a phonetician, and his mother

was Eliza Grace Bell (née Symonds).[16] Born as just "Alexander Bell", at age 10 he made a plea

to his father to have a middle name like his two brothers.[17][N 4] For his 11th bi hday, his

father acquiesced and allowed him to adopt the name "Graham", chosen out of respect for

Alexander Graham, a Canadian being treated by his father who had become a family friend.[18]

First invention

As a child, Bell displayed a curiosity about his

world; he gathered botanical specimens and

ran experiments at an early age. His best

friend was Ben Herdman, a neighbor whose

family operated a žour mill. At the age of 12,

Bell built a homemade device that combined

rotating paddles with sets of nail brushes,

creating a simple dehusking machine that was

put into operation at the mill and used steadily

for a number of years.[21] In return, Ben's father

John Herdman gave both boys the run of a

small workshop in which to "invent".[21]

From his early years, Bell showed a sensitive

nature and a talent for a , poet£, and music

that his mother encouraged. With no formal

training, he mastered the piano and became

the family's pianist.[22] ough normally quiet

and introspective, he reveled in mimic£ and

"voice tricks" akin to ventriloquism that

ente ained family guests.[22] Bell was also

deeply a•ected by his mother's gradual

deafness (she began to lose her hearing when

he was 12), and learned a manual œnger

language so he could sit at her side and tap

out silently the conversations swirling around

the family parlor.[23] He also developed a

technique of speaking in clear, modulated

tones directly into his mother's forehead,

whereby she would hear him with reasonable

clarity.[24] Bell's preoccupation with his

mother's deafness led him to study acoustics.

His family was long associated with the

teaching of elocution: his grandfather,

Alexander Graham Bell

Bell, c. 1917

Born

Alexander Bell

March 3, 1847

Edinburgh, Scotland

Died

August 2, 1922

(aged 75)

Beinn Bhreagh,

Nova Scotia,

Canada

Citizenship

United Kingdom

(1847–1922)

British-subject in

Canada (1870–1882)

United States

(1882–1922)

Alma mater

University of

Edinburgh

University College

London

Occupations

Inventor · scientist

engineer ·

professor a ·

Alexander Bell, in London, his uncle in Dublin,

and his father, in Edinburgh, were all

elocutionists. His father published a variety of

works on the subject, several of which are still

well known, especially e Standard

Elocutionist (1860),[22] which appeared in

Edinburgh in 1868. e Standard Elocutionist

appeared in 168 British editions and sold over

250,000 copies in the United States alone. It

explains methods to instruct deaf-mutes (as

they were then known) to a iculate words and

read other people's lip movements to decipher

meaning. Bell's father taught him and his

brothers not only to write Visible Speech but

to identify any symbol and its accompanying

sound.[25] Bell became so proœcient that he

became a pa  of his father's public

demonstrations and astounded audiences with

his abilities. He could decipher Visible Speech

representing vi ually eve£ language,

including Latin, Scottish Gaelic, and even

Sanskrit, accurately reciting written tracts

without any prior knowledge of their

pronunciation.[25]

Education

As a young child, Bell, like his brothers, was

schooled at home by his father. At an early

age, he was enrolled at the Royal High School,

Edinburgh; he left at age 15, having completed

only the œrst four forms.[26] His school record

was undistinguished, marked by absenteeism

and lackluster grades. His main interest

remained in the sciences, especially biology,

while he treated other school subjects with

teacher of the

deaf [2]

Known for

Invention of the

telephone b

Co-founder of Bell

Telephone

Company, Bell

Canada and AT&T

Spouse

Mabel Gardiner

Hubbard

(m. 1877)

Children

4

Parents

Alexander Melville

Bell

Eliza Grace

Symonds

Relatives

Gardiner G. Hubbard

(father-in-law)

David C. Bell (uncle)

Gilbe  H. Grosvenor

(son-in-law)

David Fairchild

(son-in-law)

Melville Bell

Grosvenor

(grandson)

Mabel Grosvenor

(granddaughter)

A. Graham Bell

Fairchild (grandson)

Gilbe  Grosvenor

(great-grandson)

Edwin Grosvenor

(great-grandson)

Chichester Bell

(cousin)

Awards

Volta Prize (1880)

indi•erence, to his father's dismay.[27] Upon

leaving school, Bell traveled to London to live

with his grandfather, Alexander Bell, on

Harrington Square. During the year he spent

with his grandfather, a love of learning was

born, with long hours spent in serious

discussion and study. e elder Bell took great

e•o s to have his young pupil learn to speak

clearly and with conviction, attributes he

would need to become a teacher himself.[28]

At age 16, Bell secured a position as a "pupilteacher" of elocution and music at Weston

House Academy in Elgin, Moray, Scotland.

Although enrolled as a student in Latin and

Greek, he instructed classes himself in return

for board and £10 per session.[29] e next

year, he attended the University of Edinburgh,

joining his brother Melville, who had enrolled

there the previous year. In 1868, not long

before he depa ed for Canada with his family,

Bell completed his matriculation exams and

was accepted for admission to University

College London.[30]

First experiments with sound

Bell's father encouraged his interest in speech and, in 1863, took his sons to see a unique

automaton developed by Sir Charles Wheatstone based on the earlier work of Baron Wolfgang

von Kempelen.[31] e rudimenta£ "mechanical man" simulated a human voice. Bell was

fascinated by the machine, and after he obtained a copy of von Kempelen's book, published in

German, and had laboriously translated it, he and Melville built their own automaton head.

eir father, highly interested in their project, o•ered to pay for any supplies and spurred the

boys on with the enticement of a "big prize" if they were successful.[31] While his brother

constructed the throat and la£nx, Bell tackled the more dicult task of recreating a realistic

skull. His e•o s resulted in a remarkably lifelike head that could "speak", albeit only a few

words.[31] e boys would carefully adjust the "lips" and when a bellows forced air through the

windpipe, a ve£ recognizable Mama ensued, to the delight of neighbors who came to see the

invention.[32]

Intrigued by the results of the automaton, Bell continued to experiment with a live subject, the

family's Skye Terrier, Trouve.[33] After he taught it to growl continuously, Bell would reach into

its mouth and manipulate the dog's lips and vocal cords to produce a crude-sounding "Ow ah

oo ga ma ma". With little convincing, visitors believed his dog could a iculate "How are you,

grandmama?"[34] Indicative of his playful nature, his experiments convinced onlookers that

they saw a "talking dog".[35] ese initial forays into experimentation with sound led Bell to

unde ake his œrst serious work on the transmission of sound, using tuning forks to explore

resonance.

At age 19, Bell wrote a repo  on his work and sent it to philologist Alexander Ellis, a colleague

of his father.[35] Ellis immediately wrote back indicating that the experiments were similar to

existing work in Germany, and also lent Bell a copy of Hermann von Helmholtz's work, e

Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the eo£ of Music.[36]

Dismayed to œnd that groundbreaking work had already been unde aken by Helmholtz, who

had conveyed vowel sounds by means of a similar tuning fork "contraption", Bell pored over

the book. Working from his own erroneous mistranslation of a French edition,[37] Bell

fo uitously then made a deduction that would underpin all his future work on transmitting

sound, repo ing: "Without knowing much about the subject, it seemed to me that if vowel

sounds could be produced by electrical means, so could consonants, so could a iculate

speech." He also later remarked: "I thought that Helmholtz had done it ... and that my failure

was due only to my ignorance of electricity. It was a valuable blunder ... If I had been able to

read German in those days, I might never have commenced my experiments!"[38][39][40][N 5]

Family tragedy

In 1865, when the Bell family moved to London,[41] Bell returned to Weston House as an

assistant master and, in his spare hours, continued experiments on sound using a minimum of

laborato£ equipment. Bell concentrated on experimenting with electricity to convey sound

and later installed a telegraph wire from his room in Somerset College to that of a friend.[42]

roughout late 1867, his health faltered mainly through exhaustion. His brother Edward was

similarly a•ected by tuberculosis. While Bell recovered (by then referring to himself in

correspondence as "A. G. Bell") and se¡ed the next year as an instructor at Somerset College,

Bath, England, his brother's condition deteriorated. Edward never recovered. Upon his