'Mr Watson, come here, I want to see you' (1876)
The first intelligible sentence sent by the new device, on 10 March 1876, after acid was spilled on the inventor's trousers
General knowledge · Inventions & discoveries
The telephone
1876
Invention — communications
On 7 March 1876 Alexander Graham Bell was granted US patent 174,465 for transmitting speech electrically, and three days later spoke the first intelligible sentence over a wire to his assistant Thomas Watson. The priority is genuinely disputed: Elisha Gray filed a caveat describing a liquid transmitter on the very day Bell's application reached the patent office, and Antonio Meucci had demonstrated a voice-carrying device in New York years earlier but let his 1871 caveat lapse. The patent that resulted became the foundation of the Bell System and one of the most valuable ever issued.
How to spot them
- ▸US patent 174,465, granted 7 March 1876, often called the most valuable patent ever issued
- ▸'Mr Watson, come here, I want to see you' — spoken on 10 March 1876
- ▸A disputed priority involving an Italian immigrant in Staten Island and a Chicago rival who filed the same day
- ▸The inventor's mother and wife were both deaf; he taught elocution and 'visible speech'
Key facts
US patent 174,465, granted on 7 March 1876
Often described as the most valuable patent ever issued; it survived some 600 legal challenges
Elisha Gray filed a caveat for a liquid transmitter the same day the rival application arrived (1876)
14 February 1876; who reached the patent office first has been argued over ever since
Antonio Meucci's teletrofono, and his lapsed caveat of 1871
He could not afford the $10 renewal after 1874; the US House passed Resolution 269 in 2002 acknowledging his work
Its inventor refused to keep one in his study, calling it a distraction
He regarded his work on deafness as his real vocation
Its inventor wanted 'Ahoy' as the standard greeting; Edison's suggestion won
Edison proposed 'Hello', which stuck
The 1915 line from New York to San Francisco reunited the same two men (1915)
Bell and Watson repeated their famous exchange across the continent
Key ideas
- A varying sound wave is turned into an 'undulatory' electric current whose strength copies the pressure of the sound, then back into sound at the far end — the key claim of Bell's patent
- Bell's first working transmitter used a wire dipped in acidulated water, varying the resistance of the circuit; Edison's carbon transmitter of 1877 made it commercially practical
Quick-fire facts
- •Alexander Graham Bell was born in Edinburgh in 1847 and died in Nova Scotia in 1922
- •Bell's application and Elisha Gray's caveat both reached the US Patent Office on 14 February 1876, and both described a liquid transmitter; the order of arrival has been disputed ever since
- •The US House of Representatives passed H.Res. 269 on 11 June 2002 honouring Antonio Meucci's work; the Canadian parliament passed a counter-motion for Bell days later
- •Bell Telephone Company was founded in 1877; it grew into AT&T, broken up in 1984
- •The unit of sound level, the bel (and its everyday tenth, the decibel), is named after Bell
- •Bell also worked on the photophone, which sent speech on a beam of light, and he considered it his greatest invention
- •On Bell's funeral day in 1922, telephone service across North America was silenced for a minute
- •Almon Strowger, a Kansas City undertaker, patented the automatic exchange in 1891, reputedly because a rival's wife worked as an operator
- •The first transcontinental line, New York to San Francisco, opened in January 1915
Drill it — 10 cards
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Sources
- US House of Representatives — H.Res. 269, 107th Congress: honouring Antonio Meucci and his work in the invention of the telephone Passed 11 June 2002; the lapsed 1871 caveat and the $10 fee
- Basilio Catania — Antonio Meucci, Inventor of the Telephone: Unearthing the Legal and Scientific Proofs
- IEEE-USA InSight — Engineering Hall of Fame: Antonio Meucci, Telephone Inventor