Limitations of the Telegraph: Why Did We Need a Telephone? As explains, “Alexander Graham Bell’s success with the telephone came as a direct result of his attempts to improve the telegraph.”īy the time Bell began experimenting with using electrical signals to send audio data, the telegraph has been an established means of communication for nearly three decades. The telegraph also paved the way for later telephone inventors. Why did we need electrical telegraphs before the telephone? Well, both the telephone and the telegraph are wire-based electrical systems. By 1838, Morse had sent America’s first telegram. His assistant, Alfred Vail, created a Morse code signaling alphabet that could be used to transmit messages electronically. In 1837, Samuel Morse independently developed his own electrical telegraph and patented the invention in America. The first working electrical telegraph, however, wasn’t put into place until April 1839 when it was constructed on the Great Western Railway in England. Two German inventors created their own electromagnetic telegraph in 1833. In 1832, Baron Schilling improved upon the device. In 1804, Catalan scientist and inventor Francisco Salva Campillo created an electrochemical telegraph. Starting in the 1800s, inventors like Francisco Salva Campillo and Alexander Graham Bell started trying to develop electrical telephones.Įlectrical telephones sought to combine the audio transmission technology of mechanical acoustic devices with the long-distance electrical data transmission of the electrical telegraph.īut first, inventors had to create better electrical telegraphs. Inventors knew there had to be a better way. And you needed to be physically connected to the other “telephone”. You couldn’t transmit through certain media. You couldn’t transmit sound over long distances. Mechanical devices faced some obvious restrictions. Before We Had Electrical Telephones, We First Needed Electrical Telegraphs Morrison is credited as the first person to theorize that an electric telegraph could exist. In 1753, one Scottish scientist named Charles Morrison proposed an important theory: you could transmit messages through electricity by using different wires for each letter. 1700s: Scientist Theorizes You Can Transmit Messages Through Electricity The first telephone-like device, an acoustic string phone, is credited to him in 1667. Between 16, Hooke conducted numerous experiments with these devices. The mechanical vibrations from your voice travel down the wire before being converted back into sound energy at the other end of the line.īritish physicist Robert Hooke was credited as the first person to invent one of these devices. It’s the same types of “phones” you created in elementary school when you were younger: you connect two tin cans (or “diaphragms”) using a taut string or wire. One of the best-known examples of this technology is called the tin can telephone, also known as the lover’s phone. Using these basic devices, users could transmit speech and music over distances greater than you would be able to transmit if you were speaking (or yelling). Instead of transforming audio energy into electrical energy, these devices simply transmitted voice data mechanically – like through pipes and other media. Mechanical Acoustic DevicesĮarly telephones are more accurately called “mechanical acoustic devices”. Yes, these telephones were incredibly primitive compared to Bell’s telephone, but they still deserve to be mentioned. But Bell didn’t invent this device out of thin air: early telephones had started being developed as early as the 1660s. You may already know that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in the 1880s. How did someone figure out the technology that makes the telephone possible? Where could telephones take us in the future? Today, we’re going to explain the history of the telephone. But just over 100 years ago, the idea of instantly chatting to someone anywhere in the world seemed impossible. You probably have a telephone within arm’s reach as you read this.
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