Outstanding lives and fates of 50 greatest Britons by Greenberg Samuel

Author:Greenberg, Samuel [Greenberg, Samuel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-01-25T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4. Scientists and inventors

Alexander Bell

Alexander Graham Bell (3.03.1847 – 2.08.1922)

The future American inventor was born in the Scottish city of Edinburgh and was the second child in the family. Alexander Bell had two brothers - the eldest Melville and the younger Edward. His father, Alexander Melville Bell was a professor, and his mother was engaged in children - Eliza Grace Bell, nee Symonds. When Alexander was 11 years old, with the permission of his father, he added himself a middle name - Graham, in memory of a friend of their family from Canada. All relatives called the boy Alec.

Quite early, Alexander showed a talent for invention and a love of music. In addition, he constantly repaired something and even improved the neighboring mill, independently learned to play the piano and gave whole concerts for home and guests. After her mother began to stall, Bell took up the study of acoustics. At least her deafness taught the young man to pronounce the words clearly. Sometime after graduating from the Royal School in Edinburgh, Bell takes a job as a teacher of oratory and music at the Weston House Academy. But he is only 16 years old. In the 1860s, Bell actively experimented with sound and sent his written work to universities in England and Germany. In 1865, he engaged in experiments with electricity and the transmission of sound through wires.

Trouble comes to Bell's family. The younger brother is ill with tuberculosis. For some time he was completely bedridden, and in 1867 Edward died. Elder brother Melville already lives separately with his family. After the death of his brother, Bell decides to focus on preparing for exams at the University of London. Unexpectedly, in May 1870, the elder brother also died from complications caused by tuberculosis. This is shocking to everyone.

The death of two children prompted the Bell family, including the widow of brother Caroline, to emigrate to Canada. In 1870 they ended up in Brantford. In 1873, Alexander was offered the post of professor of physiology of speech at Boston University, and he moved to the United States. Bell continued his theoretical research in the field of sound, but there was no time to engage in practical experiments. He had to work at night in a room specially rented in a boarding house.

He began to engage in invention in Canada. Here he came up with an electric piano that transmits music by wire. In 1876, he received a US patent, presenting in a regular notebook drawings and a description of the apparatus for transmitting sound by telegraph. So the phone appeared. In the story with the phone, everything is complicated. In fact, Antonio Meucci was the first to invent an apparatus that transmits voice from a distance using electricity, and he did it five years earlier than A. Bell. But because Meucci’s documentation was lost, Bell received the patent for the invention first.

In 2002, the US Congress officially recognized Meucci as the inventor of the telephone. It must be remembered

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