The Magic Sound

Alexander Graham Bell is famous for the invention of telecommunication, one of the important devices that has helped to build modern live. Born in Edinburg, Scotland, on March 3, 1847. Bell was educated at Edinburg High School and at the Edinburgh Universities of Edinburgh and London. Teaching deaf people was the Bell family’s profession. His grandfather has also taught deaf people in Scotland. Alexander Graham Bell did not only teach the deaf, he did even more than that. He opened a private school to train teachers for the deaf.

At Boston University he studied the sciences of speech and later he became a professor there. In 1874 he started working on his electricity merely to help the deaf. He tried to discover a way through which people could talk other over short distance through a string of wire. So, he experimented to send sound vibrations over long distance by using electricity.

In 1875, after Thomas A. Watson had become his assistant, the two of them found that the vibrations could be send from one place to another by using electronic current. Early in 1876 the first message “Mr. Watson, come here; I want you” was sent successfully by Bell over an electronic wire to Watson two floors above.

Bell’s telephone consisted on two similar instruments; one for the transmitter and the other for the receiver. Each one had an electro-magnet, consisting of a piece iron which was made magnetic by wire carrying an electronic current coiled around it. They are very thin sheet of iron, called line wires, joining the transmitter to the receiver. Speech sound waves caused the diaphragms of the transmitting instrument to vibrate in tune with the vibrations in the transmitter. Thus, the sounds delivered to the receiver were heard coming from the transmitter a long distance away.

Answer the following questions based on the text above!
1. What did Bell have in mind when in 1874 he started his effort to invent a device for sending speech?
2. What was the first message Bell sent?
3. What was the function of the coiled around you?
4. Where did Bell study the science of speech?
5. When did Thomas A. Watson become his assistant?
6. How was the transmitter and receiver connected?
7. Mention the instruments of Bell’s telephone!
8. Where was diaphragm put?