Alexander Graham Bell KRISTIN KUMMER ANDY LEVIN DANA

1
Alexander Graham Bell

• Kristin Kummer
• Andy Levin
• Dana Chandler

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Biography
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Growing Up

• Born on March 3, 1847 in Edinburgh, Scotland.
• Bell was homeschooled by his father and then went
  to The Royal High School until he was 15.
• He skipped school frequently and did not get good
  grades.
• At 16, he became a pupil teacher at The Weston
  House Academy and later went on to attend the
  University of Edinburgh.

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Growing Up Contd

• Both Bells mother and wife were deaf which
  caused him to have a great interest in speech and
  sound.
• Bell began experimenting at an early age.
• In 1870, his family moved to Canada, where Bell
  met his wife and married her in1877.
• They had four children together, but their two
  sons died as infants.
• Bell became a U.S. Citizen in 1882.
• He died of pernicious anemia on August 2, 1922.

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Inventions

• Wheat Husker
• Telephone
• Photophone
• Phonograph
• Metal Detector

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Wheat Husker

• This was Bells first invention.
• He made it to help his best friend who grew up
  working in a mill.
• The friend had the laborious task of manually
  removing the husk from the individual stalks of
  wheat.
• So, Bell developed a device that combined
  rotating paddles with nail brushes that would
  de-husk the wheat.
• His invention was used in the mill for many years.

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Telephone

• Transmits sounds, most often voices, through the
  transmission of electrical signals.
• The telephone is now the most common electronic
  device in homes.
• Bell patented his telephone as an apparatus for
  transmitting vocal or other sounds
  telegraphically.

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Photophone

• Bell believed this was his most important
  invention.
• This is a very similar device to the telephone.
  However, it allowed for sound to be transmitted
  on a beam of light.
• The main difference between the two inventions
  was that the photophone relied on light energy
  and the telephone relies on electricity.

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Phonograph

• Also known as the gramophone.
• Most common device used to play recorded sounds
  from the 1870s through the 1980s.
• A needle holds the record onto a mechanism that
  reads the record and plays the music that is
  coded for.

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Metal Detector

• A device that was quickly put together to find
  the bullet in President Garfield's body.
• It was a successful in tests but failed in
  finding the bullet.

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Elisha Gray and Alexander Bell Telephone
Controversy
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Elisha Gray

• Elisha Gray was an American electrical engineer
  who developed a telephone prototype in 1874, in
  Highland Park, Illinois and had 70 patents for
  his own inventions.
• Grays patents were financed by Dr. Samuel White,
  a prominent Philadelphia dentist, who made his
  fortune on producing porcelain teeth. He
  believed that their was no profit in the
  telephone, so Gray abandoned his plans.
• Many believe Gray to be the true inventor of the
  telephone, only to be cheated out of credit by
  history.

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So, who got to the patent office first?

• According to Gray, he had submitted his patent
  caveat first thing in the morning on February 14,
  1876, in Washington DC and remained near the
  bottom of the in-basket until late in the
  afternoon.
• Bells application, was submitted by his lawyer,
  shortly before noon and insisted on the Patent
  Clerk receipting the filing fee immediately, thus
  Bells application was entered first.

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Lawsuits

• From 1878-1888, Bell was accused of patent fraud.
  The patent examiner, Zenas Wilber, was accused
  of revealing information to Bells lawyer that
  Gray had submitted an identical patent earlier in
  the morning.
• Evidence was introduced to the court that Bells
  1876 US patent, had a specific 7 sentence claim
  that did not appear on any of patent drawings, or
  earlier drafts, but did appear on Grays.

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Lawsuits (Contd)

• After numerous appeals, Wilber admitted under
  oath to taking a 100 bribe from Bells patent
  attorney and in fact had allowed Bells lawyers
  to see Grays patent application and make the
  necessary corrections in Bells name. Bell
  countered under oath that no such thing occurred
  and Wilber was an alcoholic.

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Impact

• Even though Bell is still accused in some
  circles, history has long forgotten Grays
  contribution to the invention of the telephone.
• Bell in fact did end up using Grays transmitter
  design after his own patent was accepted, but
  quickly abandoned it.