The telephone was created by the American scientist of Scottish origin Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922).
It was he who filed the first invention patent in March 1876, hours before another scholar,Elisha Gray . The registration started one of the longest patent court battles in history.
Illustration of phones showing the evolution of the device
Origin and history of the phone
The invention of the telephone would have occurred accidentally to improve telegraph transmissions, which have very similar structural concepts.
The telegraph, however, was able to transmit only one message at a time. Having good knowledge of music, Graham Bell realized the possibility of transmitting more than one message along the same wire at once in the "multiple telegraph" concept.
This was not a new concept. Others have tried, but it was the American who made this progress and used electricity to conduct the human voice.
The experiments were supported by an assistant, Thomas Watson , the first to hear a human voice through the device called the telephone in June 1875.
Further research was aimed at developing a membrane to transform the sound into a current and play it back on the other side.
Success was marked on March 10, 1876. Graham Bell's first words were:"Mr Watson, come here. I need to speak with you ", after an accident in the lab.
The following year Graham Bell founded the Bell Telephone Company which later became the American Telephone &Telegraph , the world's largest telephone company.
There was, however, a response in the US Court to at least 600 lawsuits brought by Gray claiming the invention. However, Bell won them all.
Evolution of the Telephone
In the figure above, we can see the evolution of the telephone since its creation in the late 19th century. Almost 20 years after Graham Bell's invention, Landell de Moura performs the first wireless telephony voice transmission.
In 1978 in Japan the mobile phone was activated. In Brazil, 20 years later, in 1998, the first cell phones were activated in São Paulo. Nowadays, mobile phones are indispensable objects in the modern man's life
Photo shows the evolution of cell phones since the 90s
History of the Telephone in Brazil
The first telephone line installed in Brazil was built by order of Emperor Dom Pedro II in 1877.
The line connected the Quinta da Boa Vista Palace to the ministerial houses. The company responsible for the work was Western at Brazilian Telegraph.
Who was Graham Bell?
Alexander Graham Bell was born March 3, 1847 in Edinburgh, Scotland.
He devoted much of his life to finding a means of transforming sound into energy and transmitting it over a wire.
Graham Bell's life was marked by the presence of deaf people. That's because his mother and wife suffered from hearing impairment. As his mother was deaf, he learned sign language very early on.
Graham had two brothers, although they died of tuberculosis. After the death of his brothers, the parents emigrated to Canada in 1870.
The knowledge made him a teacher at a school for the deaf in Boston, where he arrived in 1871. It was there that he met his wife, Mabel Hubbard, with whom he had four children.
The scientist died on August 2, 1922.
Did you know?
March 10th is the Telephone Day. The date refers to the registration of the first patent held by Graham Bell.
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