In fact, we must thankīourseul, Reis, Gray, Bell - all of them. Just as Reis had built on the work of Bourseul He built on the combined wisdom of others. But to do that, he did what all inventorsĭo. The force of personality to sell it to a skeptical Produced a robust and viable telephone, and he had Still, we don't want to deny Bell's brilliance. However, heĬould hardly have been unaware of Reis's work. In Scotland while Bell was back there visiting hisįather. Reis's phones wereĭemonstrated all over Europe. He was only 40, and he never did getĪround to seeking a patent for his device. Invention? Reis died two years before Bell received Wonder, was Bell also influenced by Reis's Still, it's clear that Gray's variable resistance Bell soon gave it up inįavor of a system closer to Reis's electromagnet. Of course evaporation and immobility both make a Resistance and a smoothly varying electricalĬurrent. Solution, to create a continuously variable First, he used aĭiaphragm-driven needle, entering a water/acid He didn't make and or break theīell faced the same problem when he began work on Reis usedīourseul's term, "make or break," but his diaphragmĪctually drove a thin rod to varying depths in anĮlectric coil. It should vary the flow of electricity to Sound, the first diaphragm shouldn't make or breakĬontact. Only one part of Bourseul's idea was shaky. TheĮlectric pulsations thereby produced will set the Vibration "make or break" the electric contact. Idea came from a paper by a French investigator Reis was a 26-year-old science teacher when heīegan work on the telephone in 1860. Rethinks the priority question in his book, Wisdom is that Reis's telephone was only marginal, Telephone, and you may get the name of a German, Our civilization run, and the people whose Presents this series about the machines that make The University of Houston's College of Engineering Kids visit the museum to play with antique telephones, take costumed guided tours and even play in an inventor’s workshop where they can experiment and build their own telephones - just like Reis.Today, an old question: who invented the telephone? His house has been turned into a museum, and his home town celebrates “the day of the telephone.” I want to see you.” - was clearly understood.īell’s invention changed the world, and while American kids may take telephones - and their cellphones - for granted, kids in Germany remember Reis. His first message to his assistant in another room - “Mr. In 1876, two years after Reis died, 29-year-old Bell succeeded with his phone using the same process but without knitting needles and violins. The scientists thought it was a toy and laughed at it. Reis called his invention the telefon, in German, a new word and new machine known today by practically everyone on Earth.īut Reis never got recognition for his invention. Witnesses to one of Reis’s early experiments thought his message was “The sun is made of sugar.” In fact, he had said, “The sun is made of copper.” Sometimes, it was just hard to understand what was being said.Ī shot of Reis, with his wife, Margarethe, their two children, Carl and Elise. But today’s popular cellphone frustration - “Can you hear me now?” - also was a problem for Reis’s invention. The needle was placed in a violin, where it vibrated.Īnyone standing near the violin could hear what somebody had said into the “ear” in the other room. In that other room, the wires were connected to a knitting needle with more copper wires twisted around it and then wrapped in silk. Your voice caused the metal to vibrate, and it was carried over copper wires to another room. Stuck in the middle was a piece of metal connected to batteries. First, you spoke into a wooden ear he carved. It was 150 years ago last month that Reis showed off his invention. Historians say Reis built the first “modern” telephone, but you probably wouldn’t recognize it. When Alexander Graham Bell was just 13 years old, a 27-year-old high school physics teacher named Johann Philipp Reis showed a bunch of scientists in Frankfurt, Germany, a battery-powered thing that carried the human voice over copper wires to another room.
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