Philipp Reis: Inventor of the Telephone: A Biographical SketchThompson, Silvanus P. (Silvanus Phillips)
History
Philipp Reis: Inventor of the Telephone: A Biographical Sketch
Thompson, Silvanus P. (Silvanus Phillips)
Reis, Philipp, 1834-1874; Telephone -- History
Now my apparatus gives the number of the vibrations, but with far less
strength than the original ones; though also, as I have cause to think,
always proportional to one another up to a certain degree. But because
the vibrations are throughout smaller, the difference between large
and small vibrations is much more difficult to recognize than in the
original waves, and the vowel is therefore more or less indefinite.
Whether my views with respect to the curves representing combinations
of tones are correct, may perhaps be determined by aid of the new
phonautograph described by Duhamel. (See Vierordt’s ‘Physiology,’ p.
254.)
There may probably remain much more yet to be done for the utilisation
of the telephone in practice (zur praktischen Verwerthung des
Telephons). For physics, however, it has already sufficient interest in
that it has _opened out_ a new field of labour.
Philipp Reis.
Friedrichsdorf, near Frankfort-on-the-Main,
in December 1861.
[Though the foregoing memoir, as printed in the ‘Jahresbericht,’ of the
Physical Society of Frankfort-on-the-Main, is dated “December 1861,” it
was delivered verbally on October 26th preceding, as the ‘Proceedings’
of the Society show. From the ‘Jahresbericht’ for the succeeding year
we learn that three weeks after the delivery of this communication
Reis made a second communication to the Society on a kindred matter.
The entry is as follows (‘Proceedings’ of the Society, p. 13): “On the
16th November, by the same: Explanation of a new Theory concerning the
Perception of Chords and of Timbre (‘Klangfarben’), as a Continuation
and Supplement of the Memoir on the Telephone.” So far as can now
be learned, the substance of this communication was embodied in the
latter part of the paper “On Telephony,” when written out in December
for publication. On the 8th of January, 1862, the formal thanks of the
Society were voted to Reis for the manuscript which he had contributed
to the ‘Jahresbericht.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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