What Alexander Graham Bell invented. Alexander Graham Bell, who "accidentally" invented the telephone

A man with a good level of education and a wide range of knowledge in various fields, Alexander Bell had a vivid imagination, which allowed him to easily experiment in various fields of science. He masterfully mastered the skills in electrical engineering and mechanics, in music and acoustics, and in other areas.

Biography of Alexander Bell

Alexander Graham Bell was born on March 3, 1847 in Edinburgh. His parents were philologists by education: his father was famous for his development of Visible Speech. This system included sounds indicated by written symbols - when applied, people could pronounce words in different languages.

Alexander Bell's childhood passed in a musical atmosphere, his parents tried to instill in the child the correct skills of oratory and voice. Already at the age of 13, Bell completed his studies at the Edinburgh School and a year later moved from his parents to London, where his grandfather lived. In the rapidly developing capital of England in those days, he studied oratory, studying a lot of thematic literature. Already at the age of sixteen, this talented and promising young man (from the point of view of his senior mentors) received a position as a teacher of music and eloquence at Weston House Academy. Education at the university remained unfinished.

For 9 years, he thoroughly and comprehensively studied the physics of human speech and acoustics, which subsequently gave him the opportunity to develop, working as an assistant to his father, then a professor at the University of London.

The developments of A. Bell, which became the prototypes of the first telephone

In 1870, Alexander fell ill, and on the recommendation of doctors, the family decided to change the climate by moving to another place of residence. The Bell family moved to another continent - to Canada, after which Alexander settled in American Boston. He began his career in a school for the deaf and dumb, using the system of visible speech in his methodological program. Then he began to work on a development that would allow people with such disabilities to learn the articulation of speech sounds. He tested equipment in which a thin, sensitive membrane was vibrated by sound waves and transmitted to a needle. This needle was used to record vibrations on a rotating drum.

This work on equipment to help the deaf and dumb gave the talented inventor the idea of ​​​​the possibility of inventing a device that will be in demand all over the world and will affect its development in a global sense.

Working on an interesting project

In the 70s of the nineteenth century, a large American company, Western Union, was working on a project for the simultaneous transmission of several telegrams over a single wired network, replacing these additional lines. Representatives of the company said they would pay a large cash prize to an inventor who could develop such a communication system. For a scientist who had studied the basics of acoustics, electrical engineering and mechanics for several years, such an interesting proposal was a challenge, and he set to work on this project.

Alexander Bell (photo in the article), using the knowledge of the laws of acoustics, installed tuning forks at the transmitting point - they created a current in one line that pulsated at a strictly defined frequency. At the receiving point, these signals were received by the same tuning forks operating at a given frequency. Alexander Bell wanted to arrange the transmission of seven telegrams in a single stream, according to the number of musical notes.

He did not work on the "musical telegraph" alone - he was advised by the then famous Boston scientist D. Henry, after whom the unit of inductance was later named. Seeing the first prototype of the telegraph invented by Bell in his laboratory, Henry exclaimed admiringly: "Do not stop there!"

The main invention of A. Bell - the beginning of a new era

The most important invention in the life of A. Bell appeared almost by accident, during the period of improving the invented telegraph and conducting experiments on it. During the next study of the equipment, a small incident happened - one of the tuning forks got stuck. Bell's young colleague, Thomas Watson, who conducted experiments with him on the modernization of the invention, began to swear and resent this accident. At the same moment, Bell was at the point of the receiving device and heard the faint sounds of the voice of a colleague on the transmitter. From that moment on, the era of telephones began. This invention came as a complete surprise to the public, since at that time the era of the electric telegraph flourished with might and main.

In 1876, Alexander Bell presented the first telephone at the world Philadelphia exhibition. In the exhibition pavilion, hundreds of people heard for the first time this word familiar to our ears - "telephone": this is how the scientist called his "talking telegraph". From the mouthpiece of the invention of Alexander Bell, the astonished jury and spectators heard the monologue "To be or not to be?", which was read to them, being in another room, by the scientist himself.

World recognition of the invention of the century

This device, new in all respects, made a real sensation at the exhibition and was called a world sensation. And this is despite the strong sound distortion in the world's first telephone. And it was possible to carry on a conversation with its help no further than at a distance of 250 meters, since the device worked without batteries, only with the help of electromagnetic induction.

After this resounding success, the inventor decided to establish the Bell Telephone Society. After that, persistent and difficult for those times work began to improve the design and functionality of the first telephone. The result of this was the appearance, less than a year later, of a new armature and membrane, and the reception distance was also increased by using batteries and a Yuz microphone. In such equipment, the telephone was produced for about a hundred years.

The Queen of England meets the first telephone

After a resounding success on the American continent, the inventor of the telephone, Alexander Bell, sailed to England, where he successfully continued demonstrating his miracle invention. The English public showed a lively and genuine interest in Bell's "telephone performance", and soon the Queen of England herself wanted to see him. After the presentation of the device, members of the royal family were talking animatedly on the first phone, singing songs, sharing their impressions, constantly asking each other how they could be heard. The Queen was pleasantly surprised and pleased with the performance.

Global success and intrigues of competitors

Naturally, the news about the invention of the first telephone did not leave the front pages of all the world's newspapers for a long time. At first, Western Union was skeptical about the invention of the telephone and did not perceive the teacher of the deaf-mute as the inventor. Then, after the resounding success of Bell, company representatives expressed different opinions. President Orton, for example, spoke in this vein: since such a complex invention could be created by a simple philologist, then our specialists (Edison and Gray) can do something more grandiose. In 1879, Western Union opens the American Spiking Telephone Company - this company began producing telephones, completely forgetting about the patent right that Bell had for his invention.

After these events, A. Bell's friends and associates opened their own telephone manufacturing company - the New England Telephone Company. As a result, both companies merged into the Bell Company, which was immediately followed by a rise in share prices, which made the inventor Bell one of the richest people in the country. Together with worldwide fame and fame, the inventor Alexander Bell received in France for his invention the Volta Prize - 50 thousand francs, established by Napoleon. In the same country, he was awarded the title of Chevalier of the Legion of Honor.

Telephone greeting

A. Bell once argued with his no less famous contemporary T. Edison about the welcoming speech at the beginning telephone conversation. Edison was able to prove to his opponent that the word hello, which in our country is still pronounced as "hello" in our country, will be the most successful and acceptable in a colloquial style. Bell insisted on using ahoy instead of greeting - translated from English "Hey, who's there?".

It was known that the inventor himself practically did not use the telephone - he claimed that the calls prevented him from thinking and working. Moreover, the dearest people in his life - his mother and wife - were deaf, and it was not possible to talk to them. The outstanding scientist worked only after dark - at night. This often caused disagreements in the family, therefore, realizing that his wife was worried about his health, Bell tried many times to redo his regimen, but he could not return to the correct daily routine.

The personality of the scientist Alexander Bell is truly legendary, because it was this genius who invented the metal detector, seaplane and telephone - objects that have become an integral part of Everyday life modern society.

Childhood and youth

Alexander Graham Bell was born in the Scottish city of Edinburgh on March 3, 1847, in a family of philologists. The grandfather of the scientist was the founder of the school of oratory and the author of the book Graceful Fragments. It is noteworthy that his grandfather began his career as a shoemaker, but the craving for beauty brought him to the stage.

First, the man performed in the theater, then became a reader, reciting excerpts from plays. Success inspired him so much that he began to give diction lessons and opened his own school of oratory in London. This is how a family business was born, which was continued by the father of the inventor, Alexander Melville Bell, who at one time even published a treatise on the art of eloquence.

The future scientist grew up in an atmosphere of music and a reverent attitude to the sounds of the human voice. At the age of 14 he moved to London to live with his grandfather. And three years later, after receiving medical and philosophical education in Edinburgh and Würzburg, he had already begun an independent life, teaching music and oratory at the Weston House Academy.

Having thoroughly studied the acoustics and physics of human speech, Bell became an assistant to the head of the family, who by that time was working on a method for developing competent diction.

It is known that the mother of the creator of the seaplane was hard of hearing and it was she who was destined for all the novelties in the field of studying sounds. My father came up with the “Visual Speech” system, in which the sounds of speech were indicated by written symbols and pictures indicating what facial expressions of the speech apparatus should be at that time (a kind of transcription of words, but for people who have never heard sounds).

After Alexander's brothers died of tuberculosis, the family moved first to Canada in 1870 and then to America. There they continued to work with people and sound. The work in Boston went well. The younger Bell opened his own school in the city, where he taught the basics of family methodology to other teachers.

As soon as Alexander Graham had a steady source of income, the scientist returned to experiments on voice transmission over wires, which he had become interested in back in England. Bell created a small laboratory in which he experimented at night, in his spare time.

Among the wards who restored hearing was the scientist's future wife, Mabel, daughter of businessman Gardner Hubbard, and the five-year-old son of a leather merchant named Thomas Sanders.

Inventions and science

In 1876, at the World Science Fair in Philadelphia, Bell presented his new invention called the telephone. On March 7 of the same year, Alexander received a patent for his invention. It is noteworthy that at the exhibition, representatives of the scientific community called the phone a useless toy.

Bell, in order to pay off his debts, was ready to sell the invention for $100,000 to Western Union, but Western Union representatives did not consider the purchase profitable. Later, the WU leadership realized that they had made a mistake and offered the scientist cooperation.

It is worth noting that at the initial stages the phone was not perfect - the device distorted the sound, and it was possible to talk with it only at a distance of 250 meters. Therefore, the inventor continued to constantly improve the apparatus. In February 1880, Bell, along with an assistant, invented a device called a photophone, designed to transmit sounds over a distance using light.

In 1881, the scientist improved the metal detector created in the 19th century to search for ore-bearing veins. Tragic events contributed to the appearance of the metal detector. In 1901, Bell invented the pyramidal kite. It consisted of four triangular sides. The device was incredibly light, strong and durable. According to some reports, he could lift a person into the air.

Together with his wife, Bell formed the "Association for Experimental Aeronautics" in 1907. In 1909, an airplane called the Silver Dart was built. The airplane made its first flight on February 23, 1909. This date is considered to be the birthday of Canadian aviation.

In 1919, according to the drawings of the scientist, the HD-4 boat was built, which set a new water speed record. It is known that this hydrofoil swimming apparatus developed a speed of up to 113 kilometers per hour.

Business

At the end of 1879, the Western Union entered into an agreement with the inventor's partners. This is how the united firm "Bell Company" appeared, the main part of the shares of which belonged to Alexander. It is authentically known that the price of one share of the company was $1 thousand. This organization marked the beginning of the development of telephony and the emergence of new telephone companies. Already by 1900, 1.5 million telephones were installed in the United States, and two years later - 13 million.

Bell looked to the future and provided financial support to young professionals to train new personnel. In total, by 1900, more than two and a half thousand patents for inventions related to telephony had been issued. With the money received from the inventions, Bell opened the Institute named after the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta.

Bell did not forget about publicity either. Apart from scientific activity, a scientist was engaged in patronage and was a naturalist. It is known that Alexander participated in the creation of the National Geographic Society and founded the National Geographic magazine, which is still being published.

As a result, Alexander Graham received worldwide recognition, and his company was and remains to this day the world leader in the production of telecommunications, computer and electronic systems. A scientist once said that a day will come when a person will be able to see on the phone an image of the one with whom he speaks, and that day has long come.

The company founded by Bell is still true to its founder. Innovative technologies, such as the C++ programming language, the first prototypes of DNA machines, and the cosmic map of dark matter, were all created in the scientific laboratories of his institution.

Personal life

Most of Bell's scientific work and inventions were devoted to improving the means of communication. It is also known that for a couple of years the scientist lectured and studied with deaf and dumb students. Thanks to these studies, the genius of science met the first and only wife of Mabel Hubbard.

They met when the chosen one of the creator of the phone was barely 15 years old. On the day of the 18th anniversary of the beloved, their engagement took place. Since then, this date has become a special holiday for lovers. After a year and a half, Bell saved up enough money and convinced Mabel's parents that his financial situation allows him to provide for both their daughter and their future joint children. As a result, father and mother Hubbart agreed to the wedding, and Mabel and Alexander became husband and wife.

In Mabel's correspondence with her mother, the girl often wrote that every day she recognizes Bell from a new, hitherto unseen side. These small discoveries made the young lady understand that she had made the right choice and now she had a person who could be trusted next to her.

Hubbart's boundless love was expressed through food, so it is not surprising that a couple of years after the wedding, the weight of the scientist reached the 100 kg mark (40 kg more than he weighed before marrying).

After the wedding, which took place in 1877, the newlyweds spent their honeymoon in the town of Niagara Falls, located in southern Ontario (Canada). Bell traveled frequently on business trips. During the separation, the scientist yearned for his wife and, in order not to torment his soul, decided to take Mabel with him on all trips.

It is worth noting that the only reason for the emergence of conflicts in the Bell family was Alexander's habit of working only at night. The scientist's working day ended at 4 o'clock in the morning, and until that time Hubbart dutifully waited for her husband in the bedchamber, as she could not sleep without his presence next to her.

A couple of times Alexander tried to change the daily routine to please his wife, but these attempts were unsuccessful. Over the years of married life, the chosen one gave birth to her husband two daughters and two sons, but both boys died in early childhood. Their death was a big blow for the spouses, but Mabel was philosophical about it, declaring that her sons will forever remain with her, in her memories.

The teacher and his student lived together for 45 years of happy family life.

Death

Bell suffered from a serious illness for a couple of years and was bedridden for a long time. On the day of his death, the businessman came to his senses only for a couple of minutes. Then Alexander saw his beloved Mabel sitting near his bed and smiled at her. The woman tearfully asked not to leave her, but there was no answer from the creator of the phone. The man weakly squeezed his wife's hand and closed his eyes forever.

The eminent inventor died on August 2, 1922 (aged 75), on his estate in the province of Nova Scotia, located in eastern Canada. It is authentically known that on August 4, 1922, all telephones in the USA were turned off for a minute. So the country paid its last respects to the person who gave people the opportunity to communicate with each other, regardless of the distance.

The name of the scientist is immortalized in his inventions and documentaries, which are based on biographical facts from the life of a genius. Few people know, but in 2002 the US Congress admitted that the phone was not invented by Bell, but by Italian Antonio Meucci. The man created an invention a couple of years earlier than Alexander, but did not receive a patent for it and died in poverty. After this news, the world scientific community began to believe that Bell simply took advantage of the failure of a competitor and appropriated his discovery.

• The inventor of the telephone, Alexander Bell, suggested using the word "Ahoy" from the lexicon of German sailors as a telephone greeting. Later, he proposed a more traditional “Hello”, which also penetrated the Russian language, changing to “Hello!”.

• Alexander Bell, in addition to inventing innovative devices, tried to teach his dog to speak.
• Being a deeply religious man, Alexander Graham Bell sincerely believed that his invention - the telephone - would help to communicate with the souls of the dead.
• The inventor of the telephone never called his mother and wife: they were both deaf.

inventions

• 1858 - Grain husking machine
• 1874 - Phonautograph
• 1876 ​​- Telephone
• 1879 - Audiometer
• 1880 - Photophone
• 1881 - Metal detector, vacuum pump
• 1901 - Pyramid kite
• 1909 - Silver Dart Airplane
• 1919 - Hydrofoil HD-4

By patenting the "harmonic telegraph" and founding a company in his own name, Alexander Graham Bell laid the foundations for telecommunications, thanks to which mankind has been chatting non-stop over a distance for the second century in a row.

Biography of Alexander Bell

Alexander Graham Bell was born on March 3, 1847 in Edinburgh. His numerous ancestors were predominantly linguists who excelled in such a highly popular scientific discipline in pre-telephone times as rhetoric.

The father of the future inventor of the telephone, Alexander Melville Bell, devoted much time to exploring the possibilities and developing means of communication for the deaf and dumb. Bell Sr. is one of the founders of modern deaf education. His monograph "Visible Speech" with tables of correspondence of speech sounds to visual images is a classic of this scientific and educational subject. Alexander Melville Bell also had his say in the field of lip reading.

Alexander inherited from his father a heightened perception of sound. He taught himself to play the piano. He performed not the most complex pieces of music, but absolutely unmistakably, since he almost physically suffered from false notes. He was seriously fond of poetry, especially its sound writing and melody. Young Bell was so good at acoustics that he even mastered the art of ventriloquism.

In adolescence, Alexander Bell also showed a craving for invention, engineering creativity. At the age of 12, he designed a machine for peeling grains. The mechanism was an intricate design of blades and metal teeth mounted on a rotating shaft. Bell gave the car to a neighbor who owns a mill. The neighbor made a return gesture: he gave the boy access to his mechanical workshop.

Alexander Bell received quite a good education. He studied at the Royal High School of Edinburgh, then entered the University of London. He specialized in the department of his grandfather, a respected professor of rhetoric. For some time he worked in his specialty: he taught oratory at the military academy. But the passion for acoustics did not let go. Bell seriously took up the problem of mechanical imitation of human speech. He built an artificial head that accurately copied not only the skull, but also the nasopharyngeal cavity. I conjured for a long time with various vibrators, spring plates and valves. But the only thing he achieved was a relatively intelligible pronunciation of the word Mummy.

remained unresolved the main problem- at the receiving end of the wire it was possible to distinguish only a pulsating hiss.

Alexander Bell experimented a lot with the tuning fork, investigating the propagation of sound waves in space depending on the pitch of the sound. Having systematized his observations, the young man sent a report to the famous philologist Alexander Ellis, a friend of his father. He got acquainted with the development and immediately saw that the research of the novice scientist was not unique. The German physician, psychologist, physiologist and physicist Hermann Helmholtz has already designed a resonator in which electromagnetic oscillations are converted into sound waves. Bell was upset that he himself did not take an interest in the work of Helmholtz, but he did not abandon his plans to continue the experiments.

In parallel with his research, Bell helped his father, a professor at the University of London, in lectures on speech visualization for deaf and dumb people. And soon he took up teaching at a private school for the deaf in the London area of ​​South Kensington.

New World

Unexpectedly, great troubles befell the Bell family. In 1868, Alexander's younger brother, Edward, died of tuberculosis. And in 1870, the same fate befell his older brother, Melville.

The conclusion was obvious: we need to change the climate.

On the advice of a doctor, Bella leaves dank England for North America, Canada - namely, the city of Brantfort, which is located in the province of Ontario.

In Canada, Bell, this time having thoroughly studied the works of Hermann Helmholtz recommended to him by Alexander Ellis, begins active experiments with electricity. Stretches many wires from one room to another - Bell then believed that different cables would be needed to transmit sound vibrations of different frequencies. But the main problem remained unresolved - the transmitter and receiver of the speech signal. At the receiving end of the wire, only a pulsating hiss could be discerned.

In 1872, Alexander Graham Bell moved to the United States. He lectured on the physiology of speech at Boston University, opened his own private school "Vocal Physiology" for the deaf and dumb.

However, Bell soon decided to focus all his efforts on inventive activity. I quit teaching. True, he left two students, the most gifted: a six-year-old boy, George Sanders, and a 15-year-old girl, Mabel Hubbard.

Sanders' father, as compensation for his son's education, provided Bell with a room for experiments. And his son eventually became so good at recognizing speech from lips and learned to pronounce words so clearly that he did not feel any social discomfort all his life.

As for Bell's second student, Mabel Hubbard, she was unusually pretty, smart, charming. Bell fell in love with the girl, and she, of course, reciprocated. They later got married and were happily married. And Bell's future father-in-law took part in financing his inventive activities.

To work with wires, tuning forks, inductors and other devices, an assistant was needed who could perform fine engineering work. And Alexander Bell invited the young mechanic Thomas Watson to be his assistant.

On the threshold of discovery

At the beginning of 1875, Bell was confident that he was one step away from creating an apparatus capable of transmitting human speech over a distance. As a transmitter and receiver of the signal, he intended to use a set of steel reeds tuned to different frequencies to cover the entire vocal spectrum of human speech. The idea seemed promising.

The president of Western Union refused the invention, considering the manufacture of telephones and gaskets telephone wires an unpromising business. "Children's toy!" - that was his verdict.

In March, Bell obtained an audience with the leading American scientist, the world-famous physicist Joseph Henry, after whom the unit of inductance is named. An elderly professor who served as director of the Smithsonian Institution listened carefully to the young inventor and said that the device would not work in this form. However, he called the idea "the germ of a great invention", advising not to disclose it before obtaining a patent.

There is a contact!

The luminary's parting words inspired Bell. Ultimately, the transmitter and receiver mechanism, i.e. microphone and earpiece, was created. Its main element was a membrane made of drum skin, vibrating under the influence of sound waves. The vibration of the membrane due to electromagnetic induction is converted into electrical vibrations, which are transmitted through the wire to the receiving device, where the reverse process occurs - the conversion of the electrical signal into sound vibrations of a thin membrane.

On February 14, 1876, Bell filed an application with the Washington Patent Office describing his invention. Applications were considered quickly in those days: the patent was received on March 7th. And the first demonstration of the "harmonic telegraph", as Bell called his invention at first, took place on June 25 of the same year at the World Electrical Exhibition in Philadelphia.

Bellovsky show made a real sensation. But at the exhibition it was demonstrated on the device itself, but only its model, which operated at a distance of 300 meters. There was no call buzzer: in order to call the person on the other end of the wire to the device, it was necessary to whistle loudly into the receiver. The tube served in turn for both receiving and transmitting speech. And, of course, there was not even a trace of any switching mechanisms, since at that time there were only two telephone sets in the world.

After the triumphant premiere, Bell and his sponsors, Sanders and Hubbard, set about monetizing the world's first telecommunications project. For six months, Bell traveled around the cities and towns of America and Europe, arranging paid demonstrations of the miracle device. One of the sessions was visited by the British Queen Victoria, with whom, however, they did not take money for viewing.

Then an attempt was made to sell the patent to the largest telegraph company Western Union. However, the president of the company, William Orton, refused the offer, considering the manufacture of telephones and the laying of telephone wires to be too troublesome, and therefore unpromising. "Children's toy!" - that was his verdict.

As a result, Alexander Bell, who was not very business savvy, founded his own company in 1877. Bell Telephone Company. It is quite understandable that the board of directors included Thomas Sanders and Gardner Hubbard, who at that time was already Bell's father-in-law. The matter moved.

In a small workshop, hundreds of devices were produced per month, which were in steady demand. The fitters pulled communication lines, and the young ladies at the telephone exchange carried out switching using a plug-in dial pad. By the middle of 1878, the company served almost 800 subscribers. The first telephone hub opened in New Haven, Connecticut. A few years later, telephone exchanges were operating in almost all major cities in the United States.

Here Western Union saw the light. After analyzing the development prospects telegraph communication in the exchange sector, the company's specialists found that more and more brokers prefer the phone. First, the phone provided instant two-way communication. The telegraph, on the other hand, worked with a significant time delay between a request and a response. Secondly, the telegraph needed a large staff of specially trained telegraph operators who knew Morse code. Telephone operators Morse code was useless.

And Orton rushed to catch up. To begin with, he offered Bell $25 million for a patent, but was flatly refused. Then Western Union founded a subsidiary American Speaking Telephone Company, launching the production of devices designed by Elisha Gray. To improve the phone, the company invited Thomas Edison himself, who, through the use of graphite powder in the microphone, managed to increase the volume and clarity of the sound.

Western Union also had another important advantage: an extensive network of telegraph cables, suitable for telephone communications.

It was not easy for Bell Telephone to compete with this finely tuned business machine. Sanders and Hubbard saw no way out of the situation. And Alexander Bell retired from business, returning to teaching the deaf.

In free flight

The business was saved by a young and energetic entrepreneur, Theodore Weil. A strong charismatic, he inspired employees to compete. Vail sent copies of Bell's patent to all the company's branches, providing them with an incendiary text: “We are the first, we invented the telephone. We created this business and we are not going to give it away to anyone! We must organize our work in such a way as to repulse any attack. It makes no sense to create a company that gives up at the first blows of competition!

To expand the business in the face of limited funds, Vail applied a franchising scheme. The pioneer here was Isaac Singer, who introduced a franchise on his clothing company Singer Manufacturing Company. Weil came in second. As a result, a whole network of telephone companies soon formed, in connection with which Bell Telephone was renamed Bell System.

The competitiveness of the Bell telephone was significantly increased due to the microphone invented by Francis Blake, which was in no way inferior to the Edison microphone. But Western Union's main blow came on the judicial front. Bell System lawyers literally bombarded competitors with lawsuits about the illegal use of commercial activities telephone invented by Bell.

Western Union owners Cornelius Vanderbilt and his son William suddenly found themselves with a formidable new adversary. American tycoon Jay Gould laid claim to a controlling interest in the telegraph company. The Vanderbilts were not in a position to wage war on two fronts in court. And, having defended their rights to Western Union, they lost the lawsuit to the Bell company. As a result, all telephone assets were sold. They were acquired by the Bell System, which became a de facto monopolist in the telephone industry. In 1899, as a result of a series of stock exchange events, the company was renamed American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T). It still operates under this name.

Bell, the owner of a large stake in the company, quietly engaged in inventive activities. But in other areas. He invented a metal detector and a vacuum pump, enriched aviation and hydrodynamics with many engineering ideas. According to his designs, the first hydrofoil boat was built, as well as the Silver Dart airplane. At the age of 58, Bell flew in an airplane of his own design.

He passed away on August 4, 1922. On the day of the funeral, as a sign of mourning for the great inventor, all telephones on the North American continent were turned off for one minute. And at that time there were already more than 13 million of them.

The great inventor Alexander Bell was born on March 3, 1847. One gets the impression that the fate of this man was destined from the beginning, because it was Bell ("bell" in English "call") was destined to become the most famous inventor of the telephone.

The uncle and grandfather of the future inventor were professional rhetoricians, and Father Mevill Bell invented the Visible Speech system, in which speech sounds were displayed in the form of written characters. It is not at all surprising that at the age of 13 he graduated from the Royal School in Edinburgh, and at the age of 16 he already received the post of teacher of oratory music at Weston House Academy. Alexander Bell moved to London in 1865 and began working as an assistant to his father, a professor of rhetoric at the University of London. In 1870 he moved to Canada with his family. A little later he moved to Boston, where from 1871-1873 he worked in a school for the deaf and dumb. Beginning in 1873, Alexander became professor of speech physiology at the University of Boston.

Great popularity came to Bell due to the fact that he came up with an apparatus that transmits the sound of a human voice at a distance. But here, too, it was not without providence. There is a lot of information in history about the creation of a prototype telephone, which appeared before the invention of Alexander Bell. Suffice it to recall such names as Flight, Meuchi, Bursel, Page and many others. But it was Bell who got the loudest fame.

On February 14, 1876, Alexander Bell filed a patent with the Washington bureau of Western Union under the number 174465 for "a method and apparatus for the telegraphic transmission of the human voice and other sounds by creating electrical vibrations." Elisha Gray from Chicago was only a couple of hours late with a similar invention. On March 7, Bell was granted a patent, and Gray began a lengthy legal battle. However, in 1893, the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of Bell.

The great inventor in 1876 very successfully presented his invention at the world exhibition in Philadelphia. A telephone horn was installed in the exhibition hall, through which the jury could hear the monologue of the Prince of Denmark "To be or not to be?", which Bell himself recited, being in another room. It was a real sensation.

But big companies decided that this was not a promising invention, because at a great distance the audibility was very poor. Bell even had an attempt to sell the patent to Western Union for $100. But they refused. But in 1879, their opinion changed sharply in favor of the invention, and it was decided to enter into an agreement with Bell's associates, as a result of which the combined firm Bell Company was created, most of the shares of which belonged to Bell. Some time passed and one share of the monopoly telephone company rose to $995.

The most amazing thing is that Bell accidentally invented the telephone, because the idea he was working on was the "harmonic telegraph", which can simultaneously transmit seven (like the number of notes in music) telegrams.

There is also another very interesting fact. After a loud standing ovation in his honor, Bell admitted that he invented the telephone due to the fact that he did not know electrical engineering at all. And that not a single person, even a little familiar with electrical engineering, could invent it. And in this he was also lucky, because an outstanding scientist named Henry lived in Boston, who gladly gave Alexander good advice.

None of these "happy coincidences" are able to beg for the labors and talents of Alexander Bell, who became a great scientist and inventor.

After Bell got rich, he still continued to work hard. He received 30 patents and published over 100 articles. Whatever the scientist did - aviation, hydrodynamics, support for talented inventors and scientists, and even sheep breeding. Bell also invented a photophone, a metal detector, a grain peeling machine, a vacuum pump, an audiometer, a phonautograph, and much more.

Alexander Bell was awarded the A. Volta Prize established by Napoleon. The scientist in 1882 received American citizenship.

On the morning of August 4, 1922, all telephones in Canada and the United States were turned off for a minute. The country buried Alexander Bell. To pay tribute to the memory of this outstanding person, 13 million telephone sets fell silent.