The boys' life of EdisonMeadowcroft, Wm. H. (William Henry)
General
The boys' life of Edison
Meadowcroft, Wm. H. (William Henry)
Edison, Thomas A. (Thomas Alva), 1847-1931 -- Juvenile literature
Mr. Edison states, however, that while this device was crudely capable
of use as a magneto telephone, he did not invent it for transmitting
speech, but as an apparatus for analyzing the complex waves arising
from various sounds. He did not try the effects of sound waves produced
by the human voice until after Bell's discovery was announced, but then
found that this device was capable of use as a telephone.
This was a curious coincidence, but it must be understood that Mr.
Edison in his testimony and public utterances has always given Mr.
Bell full credit for the original discovery of transmitting articulate
speech over an electric circuit.
In order to understand the value of Edison's work in this field it
should be stated that, while Bell's telephone transmitted speech and
other sounds, it was only practicable for short lines. Bell had no
separate transmitter, but used a single apparatus both as transmitter
and receiver. This instrument was similar to the receiver used to-day,
having a metallic diaphragm placed near the pole of a magnet. The
vibrations of the diaphragm induced very weak electric impulses in the
magnetic coil. These impulses passed over the line to the receiving
end, energizing the magnet coil there, and, by varying the magnetism,
caused the receiving diaphragm to be similarly vibrated, and thus
reproduce the sounds. Under such conditions the telephone would be
practicable upon lines of only a few miles in extent, as the amount of
power generated by the human voice is necessarily quite limited.
The Western Union Company requested Edison to experiment on the
telephone so that it would be commercially practicable. He then went to
work with a corps of helpers, and, after months of hard work day and
night and the performance of many thousands of experiments, invented
the carbon transmitter. This, with his plan of using an induction coil
and constant battery current on the line, were the needed elements of
success, and it made the telephone a commercial possibility. Every
one of the many millions of telephones in use all over the world
to-day bears the imprint of Edison's genius in the employment of the
principles he then established.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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