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Full name: Alexander Graham Bell
Born: 3rd March 1847
Invention/Achievement:The Telephone
Date of introduction/Achievement: 1876 (First
Patent)
Died: 2nd August 1922
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In 1876 Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first US Patent
for a device that produced clear and intelligible replication of
the human voice across distance - a telephone.
This invention, and the communications network that it
generated, has transformed society and is today central to social
and commercial life the world over. Bell was born in
Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1847, the son of Professor Alexander
Melville Bell. His uncle, father and grandfather worked on
elocution, while his mother began to go deaf while Bell was a boy.
He soon became interested in sound mechanics, and at 16 had
become highly skilful in the adaptation of "visible speech" (sign
language) to teach deaf-mute children. Bell was an inventive
and sensitive youth, a skilful piano player and artist.
In 1870 Bell and his family emigrated to the United States,
where Bell continued his experiments with sound and
electricity.
In 1874 he received backing from wealthy patrons for development
of a system for multiplexing (transmitting multiple messages
simultaneously) along a telegraph wire. By 1875 he had
developed and applied for a patent for an "Acoustic Telegraph".
On 7th March 1876 Bell was granted Patent no.
174,465 by the US Patent Office. There was some controversy
about the patent - several others were working on telephony
technology. However, Bell's patent stood and from there on
matters progressed rapidly.
Unlike many inventors who fail to profit from their ideas, Bell
prospered. In 1877 the Bell Telephone Company was formed.
Bell owned one third of the shares and became a very wealthy
man.
Shortly after, Bell and his partners offered to sell his patent
outright to Western Union for $100,000, which they turned down -
later Western Union estimated in hindsight the patent to be worth
$25 million.
The telephone was just one product of the fertile mind of
Alexander Bell. He also invented a "Photophone" that
transmitted sounds along a beam of light, presaging fibre optic
communications of the 1980s. In 1881 he developed a primitive
metal detector.
During the 1890s bell experimented with heavier-than-air
aircraft and built a hydrofoil boat. In 1877 Bell married
Mabel Hubbard, with whom he had four children.
He died aged 75, on 2nd August 1922 at his private
estate in Nova Scotia.