The master telephone patent granted to Bell, 174465, March 10, 1876 An example of one such company was the Pulsion Telephone Supply Company created by Lemuel Mellett in Massachusetts, which designed its version in 1888 and deployed it on railroad right-of-ways.Īdditionally, speaking tubes have long been common, especially within buildings and aboard ships, and they are still in use today. When the Bell telephone patents expired and many new telephone manufacturers began competing, acoustic telephone makers quickly went out of business. įor a few years in the late 1800s, acoustic telephones were marketed commercially as a competitor to the electrical telephone. The gourd and stretched-hide version resides in the Smithsonian Museum collection and dates back to around the 7th century AD. An early version was also found in use by the Chimu in Peru. An acoustic string phone made in 1667 is attributed to him. Some of the earliest known experiments were conducted by the British physicist and polymath, Robert Hooke, from 1664 to 1685. The classic example is the children's toy made by connecting the bottoms of two paper cups, metal cans, or plastic bottles with tautly held string. It connects two diaphragms with a taut string or wire, which transmits sound by mechanical vibrations from one to the other along the wire (and not by a modulated electric current). The acoustic tin can telephone, or "lovers' phone", has been known for centuries. The earliest mechanical telephones were based on sound transmission through pipes or other physical media. This distance was greater than that of normal direct speech. When we do, we depend on our loyal, helpful readers to point out how we can do better.A 19th century acoustic tin can or "lovers' telephone"īefore the invention of electromagnetic telephones, mechanical acoustic devices existed for transmitting speech and music over a greater distance. However, despite our best efforts, we sometimes miss the mark. Our editors are instructed to fact check thoroughly, including finding at least three references for each fact. Our credibility is the turbo-charged engine of our success. Please submit feedback to Thanks for your time!ĭo you question the accuracy of a fact you just read? At Factinate, we’re dedicated to getting things right. Your suggestions can be as general or specific as you like, from “Life” to “Compact Cars and Trucks” to “A Subspecies of Capybara Called Hydrochoerus Isthmius.” We’ll get our writers on it because we want to create articles on the topics you’re interested in. Want to tell us to write facts on a topic? We’re always looking for your input! Please reach out to us to let us know what you’re interested in reading. Technically, Johann Phillipp Reis’s 1857 telephone worked, but it was extremely finicky. Some worked better than others, of course. Throughout the years that followed, lots of people either came up with the idea of the telephone (but not the technology) or created technology led to the telephone. Eventually, similar technology would end up in the first telephones. This concept led to the invention of the electromagnetic telegram in 1833.
It sounds silly, but it’s not! It’s the same idea: sound waves moving back and forth across a string or wire. The idea goes all the way back to a childhood favorite-the string telephone. But there was a lot more to it than that. So yes, we generally claim that Alexander Graham Bell was the one to invent the telephone. The way that patents work is partially responsible for this. In reality, it takes a whole lot of people and a whole lot of work to get an idea off the ground. As a society, we love the idea of a lone genius, working tirelessly in his lab to complete his vision.