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Alexander Graham Bell
(3 Mar 1847 - 2 Aug 1922)

Scottish-American inventor.


Science Quotes by Alexander Graham Bell (4)

'Grand telegraphic discovery today ... Transmitted vocal sounds for the first time ... With some further modification I hope we may be enabled to distinguish ... the 'timbre' of the sound. Should this be so, conversation viva voce by telegraph will be a fait accompli.'
— Alexander Graham Bell
Letter to Sarah Fuller, 1 July I875. Quoted in Robert V. Bruce, Bell: Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude (1973), 149.
See also:  |  Telephone (9)

'Watson, ... if I can get a mechanism which will make a current of electricity vary in its intensity, as the air varies in density when a sound is passing through it, I can telegraph any sound, even the sound of speech.'
— Alexander Graham Bell
Quoted in Thomas A. Watson, Exploring Life: The Autobiography of Thomas A. Watson (1926), 62.
See also:  |  Electricity (26)  |  Telephone (9)

I have read somewhere that the resistance offered by a wire ... is affected by the tension of the wire. If this is so, a continuous current of electricity passed through a vibrating wire should meet with a varying resistance, and hence a pulsatory action should be induced in the current ... [corresponding] in amplitude, as well as in rate of movement, to the vibrations of the string ... [Thus] the timbre of a sound [a quality essential to intelligible speech] could be transmitted ... [and] the strength of the current can be increased ad libitum without destroying the relative intensities of the vibrations.
— Alexander Graham Bell
Letter to Gardiner Greene Hubbard, 4 May 1875. Quoted in Robert V. Bruce, Bell: Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude (1973), 144-5.
See also:  |  Current (2)  |  Electricity (26)  |  Telephone (9)

I then shouted into M [the mouthpiece] the following sentence: 'Mr. Watson-—Come here—I want to see you.' To my delight he came and declared that he had heard and 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 [the reed receiver] 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 and 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 and there was quite distinct. I made out 'to' and 'out' and 'further'; and finally the sentence 'Mr. Bell do you understand what I say? Do—you—un—der—stand—what—I—say' came quite clearly and intelligibly. No sound was audible when the armature S was removed.
— Alexander Graham Bell
Notebook, 'Experiments made by A. Graham Bell, vol. I'. Entry for 10 March 1876. Quoted in Robert V. Bruce, Bell: Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude (1973), 181.
See also:  |  Experiment (183)  |  Telephone (9)


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