03/15/2024
☞Can You Hear Me Now?
☞Today in History -- On today’s date 148 years ago, Friday, March 10, 1876, famous Scottish-American scientist, inventor, engineer, & innovator Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) made the world’s first successful telephone call from a room in his Boston laboratory to his assistant Thomas Augustus Watson (1854-1934) who was in another room in the same laboratory.
☞The following text is transcribed from Alexander Graham Bell’s handwriting in his notebook on the day of the first telephone call:
March 10th, 1876
The improved instrument shown in Fig I was constructed this morning & tried this evening. P is a brass pipe & W a platinum wire M the mouth piece and S the armature of the receiving instrument.
Mr. Watson was stationed in one room with the receiving instrument. He pressed one ear closely against S & closed his other ear with his hand. The transmitting instrument was placed in another room & the doors of both rooms were closed.
I then shouted into M the following sentence: “Mr. Watson -- Come here -- I want see you.” To my delight he came & declared that he had heard & understood what I said. I asked him to repeat the words. He answered “You said, ‘Mr. Watson -- come here -- I want to see you.’”
We then changed places and I listened at S while Mr. Watson read a few passages from a book into the mouth piece M.
It was certainly the case that articulate sounds proceeded from S. The effect was loud but indistinct & muffled. If I had read beforehand the passage given by Mr. Watson, I should have recognized every word. As it was, I could not make out the sense -- but an occasional word here & there was quite distinct. I made out “to” & “out” & “further;” & finally the sentence “Mr. Bell Do you understand what I say? Do - you - un - der - stand - what - I - say” came quite clearly & intelligibly. No sound was audible when the armature S was moved.
☞The left-hand photograph depicts of a drawing from Alexander Graham Bell’s notebook illustrating the design of his telephone. The right-hand 1876 photograph depicts the bearded visage of Alexander Graham Bell at around the age of 29.
