Divyanshu67/squad_v2 huggingface dataset:
Alexander_Graham_Bell

Dismayed to find that groundbreaking work had already been undertaken by Helmholtz who had conveyed vowel sounds by means of a similar tuning fork "contraption", he pored over the German scientist's book. Working from his own erroneous mistranslation of a French edition, Bell fortuitously then made a deduction that would be the underpinning of all his future work on transmitting sound, reporting: "Without knowing much about the subject, it seemed to me that if vowel sounds could be produced by electrical means, so could consonants, so could articulate speech." He also later remarked: "I thought that Helmholtz had done it ... and that my failure was due only to my ignorance of electricity. It was a valuable blunder ... If I had been able to read German in those days, I might never have commenced my experiments!"[N 7]

Question: By what means did Bell conclude vowel sounds could be made?
Answer: electrical

Question: What else besides vowels did Bell decide could be created?
Answer: consonants

Question: What language was Bell happy he couldn't read?
Answer: German

Question: What did Bell think he didn't know well enough?
Answer: electricity
Alexander_Graham_Bell

In 1865, when the Bell family moved to London, Bell returned to Weston House as an assistant master and, in his spare hours, continued experiments on sound using a minimum of laboratory equipment. Bell concentrated on experimenting with electricity to convey sound and later installed a telegraph wire from his room in Somerset College to that of a friend. Throughout late 1867, his health faltered mainly through exhaustion. His younger brother, Edward "Ted," was similarly bed-ridden, suffering from tuberculosis. While Bell recovered (by then referring to himself in correspondence as "A.G. Bell") and served the next year as an instructor at Somerset College, Bath, England, his brother's condition deteriorated. Edward would never recover. Upon his brother's death, Bell returned home in 1867. His older brother Melville had married and moved out. With aspirations to obtain a degree at University College London, Bell considered his next years as preparation for the degree examinations, devoting his spare time at his family's residence to studying.

Question: In what year did the Bell's move to London?
Answer: 1865

Question: Where did Bell go in work in 1865?
Answer: Weston House

Question: What building was Bell in?
Answer: Somerset College

Question: How did Bell sign his letters?
Answer: A.G. Bell

Question: In what year did Bell move home?
Answer: 1867
Alexander_Graham_Bell

Helping his father in Visible Speech demonstrations and lectures brought Bell to Susanna E. Hull's private school for the deaf in South Kensington, London. His first two pupils were "deaf mute" girls who made remarkable progress under his tutelage. While his older brother seemed to achieve success on many fronts including opening his own elocution school, applying for a patent on an invention, and starting a family, Bell continued as a teacher. However, in May 1870, Melville died from complications due to tuberculosis, causing a family crisis. His father had also suffered a debilitating illness earlier in life and had been restored to health by a convalescence in Newfoundland. Bell's parents embarked upon a long-planned move when they realized that their remaining son was also sickly. Acting decisively, Alexander Melville Bell asked Bell to arrange for the sale of all the family property,[N 8] conclude all of his brother's affairs (Bell took over his last student, curing a pronounced lisp), and join his father and mother in setting out for the "New World". Reluctantly, Bell also had to conclude a relationship with Marie Eccleston, who, as he had surmised, was not prepared to leave England with him.

Question: What city is Susanna E. Hull located in?
Answer: South Kensington

Question: What sort of student attended Susanna E. Hull?
Answer: deaf

Question: Who died in 1870?
Answer: Melville

Question: Where did Bell's father go to recover from illness?
Answer: Newfoundland

Question: What did Bell help his final student get rid of?
Answer: lisp
Alexander_Graham_Bell

In 1870, at age 23, Bell, his brother's widow, Caroline (Margaret Ottaway), and his parents travelled on the SS Nestorian to Canada. After landing at Quebec City the Bells transferred to another steamer to Montreal and then boarded a train to Paris, Ontario, to stay with the Reverend Thomas Henderson, a family friend. After a brief stay with the Hendersons, the Bell family purchased a farm of 10.5 acres (42,000 m2) at Tutelo Heights (now called Tutela Heights), near Brantford, Ontario. The property consisted of an orchard, large farm house, stable, pigsty, hen-house, and a carriage house, which bordered the Grand River.[N 9]

Question: How old was Bell when he went to Canada?
Answer: 23

Question: What boat did Bell travel on?
Answer: SS Nestorian

Question: In what Canadian city did Bell first arrive?
Answer: Quebec City

Question: What city did Bell arrive at by train?
Answer: Paris

Question: How many acres was the farm the Bell's bought in Canada?
Answer: 10.5
Alexander_Graham_Bell

At the homestead, Bell set up his own workshop in the converted carriage house near to what he called his "dreaming place", a large hollow nestled in trees at the back of the property above the river. Despite his frail condition upon arriving in Canada, Bell found the climate and environs to his liking, and rapidly improved.[N 10] He continued his interest in the study of the human voice and when he discovered the Six Nations Reserve across the river at Onondaga, he learned the Mohawk language and translated its unwritten vocabulary into Visible Speech symbols. For his work, Bell was awarded the title of Honorary Chief and participated in a ceremony where he donned a Mohawk headdress and danced traditional dances.[N 11]

Question: What building did Bell use as a workshop?
Answer: carriage house

Question: What did Bell call his special spot in the back of the property?
Answer: dreaming place

Question: What Native American language did Bell learn?
Answer: Mohawk

Question: What special status did Bell get in the Mohawk tribe?
Answer: Honorary Chief

Question: Where was the Six Nations Reserve located?
Answer: Onondaga
Alexander_Graham_Bell

After setting up his workshop, Bell continued experiments based on Helmholtz's work with electricity and sound. He also modified a melodeon (a type of pump organ) so that it could transmit its music electrically over a distance. Once the family was settled in, both Bell and his father made plans to establish a teaching practice and in 1871, he accompanied his father to Montreal, where Melville was offered a position to teach his System of Visible Speech.

Question: What did Bell rework to send music?
Answer: melodeon

Question: What is a melodeon a kind of?
Answer: pump organ

Question: When did Bell go to Montreal?
Answer: 1871

Question: Who went with Bell to Montreal?
Answer: father

Question: How did Bell's reworked melodeon send music?
Answer: electrically
Alexander_Graham_Bell

Bell's father was invited by Sarah Fuller, principal of the Boston School for Deaf Mutes (which continues today as the public Horace Mann School for the Deaf), in Boston, Massachusetts, to introduce the Visible Speech System by providing training for Fuller's instructors, but he declined the post in favor of his son. Traveling to Boston in April 1871, Bell proved successful in training the school's instructors. He was subsequently asked to repeat the program at the American Asylum for Deaf-mutes in Hartford, Connecticut, and the Clarke School for the Deaf in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Question: Who ran the Boston School for Deaf Mutes?
Answer: Sarah Fuller

Question: What name does the Boston School for Deaf Mutes go by now?
Answer: the public Horace Mann School for the Deaf

Question: What month did Bell go to Boston?
Answer: April

Question: Bell trained who in Boston?
Answer: instructors

Question: What city was the American Asylum in?
Answer: Hartford
Alexander_Graham_Bell

Returning home to Brantford after six months abroad, Bell continued his experiments with his "harmonic telegraph".[N 12] The basic concept behind his device was that messages could be sent through a single wire if each message was transmitted at a different pitch, but work on both the transmitter and receiver was needed.

Question: How many wires did Bell send a signal through?
Answer: 1

Question: For  his system to work, Bell had to change what about each code?
Answer: pitch

Question: Bell needed to fix both the transmitter and what?
Answer: receiver

Question: Where was Bell's home?
Answer: Brantford
Alexander_Graham_Bell

Unsure of his future, he first contemplated returning to London to complete his studies, but decided to return to Boston as a teacher. His father helped him set up his private practice by contacting Gardiner Greene Hubbard, the president of the Clarke School for the Deaf for a recommendation. Teaching his father's system, in October 1872, Alexander Bell opened his "School of Vocal Physiology and Mechanics of Speech" in Boston, which attracted a large number of deaf pupils, with his first class numbering 30 students. While he was working as a private tutor, one of his most famous pupils was Helen Keller, who came to him as a young child unable to see, hear, or speak. She was later to say that Bell dedicated his life to the penetration of that "inhuman silence which separates and estranges." In 1893, Keller performed the sod-breaking ceremony for the construction of the new Bell's new Volta Bureau, dedicated to "the increase and diffusion of knowledge relating to the deaf".

Question: What city did Bell decide to return to?
Answer: Boston

Question: In what year did Bell open his own school?
Answer: 1872

Question: How many people were in Bell's first class?
Answer: 30

Question: Which of Bell's students is the most well known?
Answer: Helen Keller
Alexander_Graham_Bell

Several influential people of the time, including Bell, viewed deafness as something that should be eradicated, and also believed that with resources and effort they could teach the deaf to speak and avoid the use of sign language, thus enabling their integration within the wider society from which many were often being excluded. In several schools, children were mistreated, for example by having their hands tied behind their backs so they could not communicate by signing—the only language they knew—in an attempt to force them to attempt oral communication. Owing to his efforts to suppress the teaching of sign language, Bell is often viewed negatively by those embracing Deaf culture.

Question: Bell's goal was to instruct the deaf to speak and not use what?
Answer: sign language

Question: What would happen so some children's hands in schools?
Answer: tied behind their backs

Question: In what light to many pro-deaf people see Bell?
Answer: negative

Question: What was the only language many deaf people had?
Answer: signing
Alexander_Graham_Bell

In the following year, Bell became professor of Vocal Physiology and Elocution at the Boston University School of Oratory. During this period, he alternated between Boston and Brantford, spending summers in his Canadian home. At Boston University, Bell was "swept up" by the excitement engendered by the many scientists and inventors residing in the city. He continued his research in sound and endeavored to find a way to transmit musical notes and articulate speech, but although absorbed by his experiments, he found it difficult to devote enough time to experimentation. While days and evenings were occupied by his teaching and private classes, Bell began to stay awake late into the night, running experiment after experiment in rented facilities at his boarding house. Keeping "night owl" hours, he worried that his work would be discovered and took great pains to lock up his notebooks and laboratory equipment. Bell had a specially made table where he could place his notes and equipment inside a locking cover. Worse still, his health deteriorated as he suffered severe headaches. Returning to Boston in fall 1873, Bell made a fateful decision to concentrate on his experiments in sound.

Question: With what school did Bell get his next teaching job?
Answer: Boston University School of Oratory.

Question: What was Bell's discipline?
Answer: Vocal Physiology and Elocution

Question: What did Bell do late at night?
Answer: experiments

Question: What health condition did Bell start to have?
Answer: headaches

Question: In what year did Bell start to focus on research into sound?
Answer: 1873
Alexander_Graham_Bell

Deciding to give up his lucrative private Boston practice, Bell retained only two students, six-year-old "Georgie" Sanders, deaf from birth, and 15-year-old Mabel Hubbard. Each pupil would play an important role in the next developments. George's father, Thomas Sanders, a wealthy businessman, offered Bell a place to stay in nearby Salem with Georgie's grandmother, complete with a room to "experiment". Although the offer was made by George's mother and followed the year-long arrangement in 1872 where her son and his nurse had moved to quarters next to Bell's boarding house, it was clear that Mr. Sanders was backing the proposal. The arrangement was for teacher and student to continue their work together, with free room and board thrown in. Mabel was a bright, attractive girl who was ten years Bell's junior, but became the object of his affection. Having lost her hearing after a near-fatal bout of scarlet fever close to her fifth birthday,[N 13] she had learned to read lips but her father, Gardiner Greene Hubbard, Bell's benefactor and personal friend, wanted her to work directly with her teacher.

Question: Bell's two remaining students were "Georgie" Sanders and who?
Answer: Mabel Hubbard

Question: What was Georgie's father's name?
Answer: Thomas Sanders

Question: What disease made Mabel deaf?
Answer: scarlet fever

Question: How old was Mabel when she became deaf?
Answer: 15
Alexander_Graham_Bell

By 1874, Bell's initial work on the harmonic telegraph had entered a formative stage, with progress made both at his new Boston "laboratory" (a rented facility) and at his family home in Canada a big success.[N 14] While working that summer in Brantford, Bell experimented with a "phonautograph", a pen-like machine that could draw shapes of sound waves on smoked glass by tracing their vibrations. Bell thought it might be possible to generate undulating electrical currents that corresponded to sound waves. Bell also thought that multiple metal reeds tuned to different frequencies like a harp would be able to convert the undulating currents back into sound. But he had no working model to demonstrate the feasibility of these ideas.

Question: On what material did the phonautograph operate?
Answer: smoked glass

Question: What kind of reed did Bell want to play with?
Answer: metal

Question: What did Bell believe the reeds would turn the signal into?
Answer: sound

Question: What instrument is a phonautograph similar to?
Answer: pen

Question: In what year was Bell really working on his telegraph?
Answer: 1874
Alexander_Graham_Bell

In 1874, telegraph message traffic was rapidly expanding and in the words of Western Union President William Orton, had become "the nervous system of commerce". Orton had contracted with inventors Thomas Edison and Elisha Gray to find a way to send multiple telegraph messages on each telegraph line to avoid the great cost of constructing new lines. When Bell mentioned to Gardiner Hubbard and Thomas Sanders that he was working on a method of sending multiple tones on a telegraph wire using a multi-reed device, the two wealthy patrons began to financially support Bell's experiments. Patent matters would be handled by Hubbard's patent attorney, Anthony Pollok.

Question: What business was William Orton in charge of?
Answer: Western Union

Question: In 1874 the telegraph was known as the what of commerce?
Answer: nervous system

Question: What was the primary motivation for not building new telegraph lines?
Answer: cost

Question: Thomas Edison and what other scientist were already asked to work on a better telegraph?
Answer: Elisha Gray
Alexander_Graham_Bell

In March 1875, Bell and Pollok visited the famous scientist Joseph Henry, who was then director of the Smithsonian Institution, and asked Henry's advice on the electrical multi-reed apparatus that Bell hoped would transmit the human voice by telegraph. Henry replied that Bell had "the germ of a great invention". When Bell said that he did not have the necessary knowledge, Henry replied, "Get it!" That declaration greatly encouraged Bell to keep trying, even though he did not have the equipment needed to continue his experiments, nor the ability to create a working model of his ideas. However, a chance meeting in 1874 between Bell and Thomas A. Watson, an experienced electrical designer and mechanic at the electrical machine shop of Charles Williams, changed all that.

Question: Who did Bell go to see in 1875?
Answer: Joseph Henry

Question: Who ran the Smithsonian in 1875?
Answer: Joseph Henry

Question: What was Henry's reply to Bell's statement that he lacked information to complete his telegraph?
Answer: Get it!

Question: Who did Bell meet in 1874?
Answer: Thomas A. Watson

Question: What kind of business did Watson work at?
Answer: electrical machine
Alexander_Graham_Bell

With financial support from Sanders and Hubbard, Bell hired Thomas Watson as his assistant,[N 15] and the two of them experimented with acoustic telegraphy. On June 2, 1875, Watson accidentally plucked one of the reeds and Bell, at the receiving end of the wire, heard the overtones of the reed; overtones that would be necessary for transmitting speech. That demonstrated to Bell that only one reed or armature was necessary, not multiple reeds. This led to the "gallows" sound-powered telephone, which could transmit indistinct, voice-like sounds, but not clear speech.

Question: Who did Bell take on to work with him?
Answer: Thomas Watson

Question: What month and day did Watson and Bell have a breakthrough?
Answer: June 2

Question: How many reeds did Bell conclude he needed?
Answer: 1

Question: What name was given to the telephone that sort of worked?
Answer: gallows

Question: Who gave money to Bell and Watson?
Answer: Sanders and Hubbard
Alexander_Graham_Bell

In 1875, Bell developed an acoustic telegraph and drew up a patent application for it. Since he had agreed to share U.S. profits with his investors Gardiner Hubbard and Thomas Sanders, Bell requested that an associate in Ontario, George Brown, attempt to patent it in Britain, instructing his lawyers to apply for a patent in the U.S. only after they received word from Britain (Britain would issue patents only for discoveries not previously patented elsewhere).

Question: What did Bell promise to split with his financers?
Answer: U.S. profits

Question: In what country other than the U.S. did Bell try to patent his telegraph?
Answer: Britain

Question: Which country did Bell first try to get a patent?
Answer: Britain

Question: Who did Bell ask to get a patent in Britain?
Answer: George Brown

Question: What kind of telegraph did Bell create?
Answer: acoustic
Alexander_Graham_Bell

Meanwhile, Elisha Gray was also experimenting with acoustic telegraphy and thought of a way to transmit speech using a water transmitter. On February 14, 1876, Gray filed a caveat with the U.S. Patent Office for a telephone design that used a water transmitter. That same morning, Bell's lawyer filed Bell's application with the patent office. There is considerable debate about who arrived first and Gray later challenged the primacy of Bell's patent. Bell was in Boston on February 14 and did not arrive in Washington until February 26.

Question: What material did Elisha Gray use to convey sound?
Answer: water

Question: On what date did Gray and Bell both put in for a patent?
Answer: February 14, 1876

Question: On what day did Bell get to Washington?
Answer: February 26

Question: What office in Washington did Bell and Gray visit?
Answer: U.S. Patent Office

Question: What sort of machine did Bell and Gray both try to patent at the same time?
Answer: telephone
Alexander_Graham_Bell

Bell's patent 174,465, was issued to Bell on March 7, 1876, by the U.S. Patent Office. Bell's patent covered "the method of, and apparatus for, transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically ... by causing electrical undulations, similar in form to the vibrations of the air accompanying the said vocal or other sound" [N 16] Bell returned to Boston the same day and the next day resumed work, drawing in his notebook a diagram similar to that in Gray's patent caveat.

Question: What number is Bell's patent?
Answer: 174,465

Question: On what date did Bell get his patent?
Answer: March 7, 1876

Question: Bell's patent was for the method and what for transmitting vocal and other sounds telegraphically?
Answer: apparatus

Question: On what day did Bell go back to Boston?
Answer: March 7, 1876

Question: Bell sketched a design that looked like the work of who?
Answer: Gray
Alexander_Graham_Bell

On March 10, 1876, three days after his patent was issued, Bell succeeded in getting his telephone to work, using a liquid transmitter similar to Gray's design. Vibration of the diaphragm caused a needle to vibrate in the water, varying the electrical resistance in the circuit. When Bell spoke the famous sentence "Mr. Watson—Come here—I want to see you" into the liquid transmitter, Watson, listening at the receiving end in an adjoining room, heard the words clearly.

Question: What kind of transmitter did Bell put in his telephone?
Answer: liquid

Question: How did Bell refer to his partner in his well known line?
Answer: Mr. Watson

Question: What did the vibrations cause to change?
Answer: electrical resistance
Alexander_Graham_Bell

Although Bell was, and still is, accused of stealing the telephone from Gray, Bell used Gray's water transmitter design only after Bell's patent had been granted, and only as a proof of concept scientific experiment, to prove to his own satisfaction that intelligible "articulate speech" (Bell's words) could be electrically transmitted. After March 1876, Bell focused on improving the electromagnetic telephone and never used Gray's liquid transmitter in public demonstrations or commercial use.

Question: Bell implemented Gray's design as a what?
Answer: proof of concept

Question: Bell stopped using the liquid-based method after what month?
Answer: March

Question: Bell used his own design in all public demonstrations and what?
Answer: commercial use
Alexander_Graham_Bell

The question of priority for the variable resistance feature of the telephone was raised by the examiner before he approved Bell's patent application. He told Bell that his claim for the variable resistance feature was also described in Gray's caveat. Bell pointed to a variable resistance device in Bell's previous application in which Bell described a cup of mercury, not water. Bell had filed the mercury application at the patent office a year earlier on February 25, 1875, long before Elisha Gray described the water device. In addition, Gray abandoned his caveat, and because he did not contest Bell's priority, the examiner approved Bell's patent on March 3, 1876. Gray had reinvented the variable resistance telephone, but Bell was the first to write down the idea and the first to test it in a telephone.

Question: What part of the telephone was investigated by the patent officer?
Answer: variable resistance

Question: When did Bell put in his prior patent?
Answer: February 25, 1875

Question: What liquid did Bell use in his first application?
Answer: mercury
Alexander_Graham_Bell

The patent examiner, Zenas Fisk Wilber, later stated in an affidavit that he was an alcoholic who was much in debt to Bell's lawyer, Marcellus Bailey, with whom he had served in the Civil War. He claimed he showed Gray's patent caveat to Bailey. Wilber also claimed (after Bell arrived in Washington D.C. from Boston) that he showed Gray's caveat to Bell and that Bell paid him $100. Bell claimed they discussed the patent only in general terms, although in a letter to Gray, Bell admitted that he learned some of the technical details. Bell denied in an affidavit that he ever gave Wilber any money.

Question: Who declared himself an alcoholic?
Answer: Zenas Fisk Wilber

Question: In what war did Wilber and Bailey fight together?
Answer: Civil War

Question: How much did Wilber say Bell gave him in order to look at Gray's paperwork?
Answer: $100

Question: What did Bell only admit to knowing in a letter?
Answer: technical details
Alexander_Graham_Bell

Continuing his experiments in Brantford, Bell brought home a working model of his telephone. On August 3, 1876, from the telegraph office in Mount Pleasant five miles (eight km) away from Brantford, Bell sent a tentative telegram indicating that he was ready. With curious onlookers packed into the office as witnesses, faint voices were heard replying. The following night, he amazed guests as well as his family when a message was received at the Bell home from Brantford, four miles (six km) distant, along an improvised wire strung up along telegraph lines and fences, and laid through a tunnel. This time, guests at the household distinctly heard people in Brantford reading and singing. These experiments clearly proved that the telephone could work over long distances.

Question: From what city did Bell send his first message?
Answer: Mount Pleasant

Question: Bell sent messages over wires hooked onto telegraph lines and what?
Answer: fences

Question: What did the group at the Bells house hear other people doing?
Answer: reading and singing
Alexander_Graham_Bell

Bell and his partners, Hubbard and Sanders, offered to sell the patent outright to Western Union for $100,000. The president of Western Union balked, countering that the telephone was nothing but a toy. Two years later, he told colleagues that if he could get the patent for $25 million he would consider it a bargain. By then, the Bell company no longer wanted to sell the patent. Bell's investors would become millionaires, while he fared well from residuals and at one point had assets of nearly one million dollars.

Question: How much did Bell et al. try to sell his patent for?
Answer: $100,000

Question: Who did Bell et al. try to sell his patent to?
Answer: Western Union

Question: What did the President think the telephone was, such that he refused to buy the patent?
Answer: a toy

Question: How much the the President of Western Union want to pay for the patent later on?
Answer: $25 million
Alexander_Graham_Bell

Bell began a series of public demonstrations and lectures to introduce the new invention to the scientific community as well as the general public. A short time later, his demonstration of an early telephone prototype at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia brought the telephone to international attention. Influential visitors to the exhibition included Emperor Pedro II of Brazil. Later Bell had the opportunity to demonstrate the invention personally to Sir William Thomson (later, Lord Kelvin), a renowned Scottish scientist, as well as to Queen Victoria, who had requested a private audience at Osborne House, her Isle of Wight home. She called the demonstration "most extraordinary". The enthusiasm surrounding Bell's public displays laid the groundwork for universal acceptance of the revolutionary device.

Question: In what city was the 1876 Centennial Exposition?
Answer: Philadelphia

Question: What important person saw the telephone at the Centennial Exposition?
Answer: Emperor Pedro II

Question: Pedro II was the Emperor of what Country?
Answer: Brazil

Question: Which Queen did Bell present his invention to?
Answer: Victoria
Alexander_Graham_Bell

In January 1915, Bell made the first ceremonial transcontinental telephone call. Calling from the AT&T head office at 15 Dey Street in New York City, Bell was heard by Thomas Watson at 333 Grant Avenue in San Francisco. The New York Times reported:

Question: In what month and year did Bell telephone across the country?
Answer: January 1915

Question: What company office did Bell make the original cross country phone call from?
Answer: AT&T

Question: What city did Bell make the first cross country call from?
Answer: New York

Question: What city did Bell make the first cross country call to?
Answer: San Francisco

Question: Who was on the other end of the first cross country phone call?
Answer: Thomas Watson
Alexander_Graham_Bell

As is sometimes common in scientific discoveries, simultaneous developments can occur, as evidenced by a number of inventors who were at work on the telephone. Over a period of 18 years, the Bell Telephone Company faced 587 court challenges to its patents, including five that went to the U.S. Supreme Court, but none was successful in establishing priority over the original Bell patent and the Bell Telephone Company never lost a case that had proceeded to a final trial stage. Bell's laboratory notes and family letters were the key to establishing a long lineage to his experiments. The Bell company lawyers successfully fought off myriad lawsuits generated initially around the challenges by Elisha Gray and Amos Dolbear. In personal correspondence to Bell, both Gray and Dolbear had acknowledged his prior work, which considerably weakened their later claims.

Question: During how many years did the Bell Company battle lawsuits?
Answer: 18

Question: How many times were Bell's patents contested?
Answer: 587

Question: How many of the court cases wound up at the Supreme Court?
Answer: 5

Question: Elisha Gray and what other man were behind many of the court cases?
Answer: Amos Dolbear
Alexander_Graham_Bell

On January 13, 1887, the U,S. Government moved to annul the patent issued to Bell on the grounds of fraud and misrepresentation. After a series of decisions and reversals, the Bell company won a decision in the Supreme Court, though a couple of the original claims from the lower court cases were left undecided. By the time that the trial wound its way through nine years of legal battles, the U.S. prosecuting attorney had died and the two Bell patents (No. 174,465 dated March 7, 1876 and No. 186,787 dated January 30, 1877) were no longer in effect, although the presiding judges agreed to continue the proceedings due to the case's importance as a "precedent". With a change in administration and charges of conflict of interest (on both sides) arising from the original trial, the US Attorney General dropped the lawsuit on November 30, 1897 leaving several issues undecided on the merits.

Question: In 1887 the US Government wanted to undo Bell's patent due to fraud and what?
Answer: misrepresentation

Question: The US Government lost the bid to overturn Bell's patent in what court?
Answer: Supreme Court

Question: How many years did Bell and the US Government fight in court?
Answer: 9

Question: What excuse did the judges have for the trial despite the fact that the patents had expired?
Answer: precedent

Question: On what date did the US Government stop legal action?
Answer: November 30, 1897
Alexander_Graham_Bell

During a deposition filed for the 1887 trial, Italian inventor Antonio Meucci also claimed to have created the first working model of a telephone in Italy in 1834. In 1886, in the first of three cases in which he was involved, Meucci took the stand as a witness in the hopes of establishing his invention's priority. Meucci's evidence in this case was disputed due to a lack of material evidence for his inventions as his working models were purportedly lost at the laboratory of American District Telegraph (ADT) of New York, which was later incorporated as a subsidiary of Western Union in 1901. Meucci's work, like many other inventors of the period, was based on earlier acoustic principles and despite evidence of earlier experiments, the final case involving Meucci was eventually dropped upon Meucci's death. However, due to the efforts of Congressman Vito Fossella, the U.S. House of Representatives on June 11, 2002 stated that Meucci's "work in the invention of the telephone should be acknowledged", even though this did not put an end to a still contentious issue.[N 17] Some modern scholars do not agree with the claims that Bell's work on the telephone was influenced by Meucci's inventions.[N 18]

Question: Who claimed to have invented the in 1834?
Answer: Antonio Meucci

Question: How many court trials did Meucci participate in?
Answer: 3

Question: At what company were Meucci's prototypes supposedly lost?
Answer: American District Telegraph (ADT)

Question: In what year did Western Union absorb ADT?
Answer: 1901

Question: What event caused Meucci's trials to be dropped?
Answer: death
Alexander_Graham_Bell

On July 11, 1877, a few days after the Bell Telephone Company was established, Bell married Mabel Hubbard (1857–1923) at the Hubbard estate in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His wedding present to his bride was to turn over 1,487 of his 1,497 shares in the newly formed Bell Telephone Company. Shortly thereafter, the newlyweds embarked on a year-long honeymoon in Europe. During that excursion, Bell took a handmade model of his telephone with him, making it a "working holiday". The courtship had begun years earlier; however, Bell waited until he was more financially secure before marrying. Although the telephone appeared to be an "instant" success, it was not initially a profitable venture and Bell's main sources of income were from lectures until after 1897. One unusual request exacted by his fiancée was that he use "Alec" rather than the family's earlier familiar name of "Aleck". From 1876, he would sign his name "Alec Bell". They had four children:

Question: Who did Bell marry in 1877?
Answer: Mabel Hubbard

Question: How many children did Bell and Mabel have?
Answer: 4

Question: Where did Bell and his wife go on their honeymoon?
Answer: Europe

Question: Before 1897, what did Bell get most of his money from?
Answer: lectures
Alexander_Graham_Bell

The Bell family home was in Cambridge, Massachusetts, until 1880 when Bell's father-in-law bought a house in Washington, D.C., and later in 1882 bought a home in the same city for Bell's family, so that they could be with him while he attended to the numerous court cases involving patent disputes.

Question: In what year did Mabel's father move to Washington D.C.?
Answer: 1880

Question: In what year did Bell acquire a house in D.C.?
Answer: 1882

Question: Where did Bell and Mabel live before 1880?
Answer: Cambridge, Massachusetts

Question: What did Bell have to go to court for in D.C.?
Answer: patent disputes
Alexander_Graham_Bell

Bell was a British subject throughout his early life in Scotland and later in Canada until 1882, when he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. In 1915, he characterized his status as: "I am not one of those hyphenated Americans who claim allegiance to two countries." Despite this declaration, Bell has been proudly claimed as a "native son" by all three countries he resided in: the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

Question: In what year did Bell officially become an American?
Answer: 1882

Question: What was Bell's original nationality?
Answer: British

Question: Besides the US and UK, what other country claims Bell as a citizen?
Answer: Canada

Question: What does Bell call people who are citizens of two countries?
Answer: hyphenated
Alexander_Graham_Bell

By 1885, a new summer retreat was contemplated. That summer, the Bells had a vacation on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, spending time at the small village of Baddeck. Returning in 1886, Bell started building an estate on a point across from Baddeck, overlooking Bras d'Or Lake. By 1889, a large house, christened The Lodge was completed and two years later, a larger complex of buildings, including a new laboratory, were begun that the Bells would name Beinn Bhreagh (Gaelic: beautiful mountain) after Bell's ancestral Scottish highlands.[N 21] Bell also built the Bell Boatyard on the estate, employing up to 40 people building experimental craft as well as wartime lifeboats and workboats for the Royal Canadian Navy and pleasure craft for the Bell family. An enthusiastic boater, Bell and his family sailed or rowed a long series of vessels on Bras d'Or Lake, ordering additional vessels from the H.W. Embree and Sons boatyard in Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia. In his final, and some of his most productive years, Bell split his residency between Washington, D.C., where he and his family initially resided for most of the year, and at Beinn Bhreagh where they spent increasing amounts of time.

Question: What Island in Nova Scotia did the Bells go to in 1885?
Answer: Breton Island

Question: In 1886, what lake did Bell start building a house near?
Answer: Bras d'Or

Question: What did the Bells call the house completed in 1889?
Answer: The Lodge

Question: How many people worked for the Bell Boatyard?
Answer: 40
Alexander_Graham_Bell

Until the end of his life, Bell and his family would alternate between the two homes, but Beinn Bhreagh would, over the next 30 years, become more than a summer home as Bell became so absorbed in his experiments that his annual stays lengthened. Both Mabel and Bell became immersed in the Baddeck community and were accepted by the villagers as "their own".[N 22] The Bells were still in residence at Beinn Bhreagh when the Halifax Explosion occurred on December 6, 1917. Mabel and Bell mobilized the community to help victims in Halifax.

Question: Where did the Bells live when the Halifax Explosion happened?
Answer: Beinn Bhreagh

Question: On what day did the Halifax Explosion happen?
Answer: December 6, 1917

Question: Which of their two homes did the Bells start spending more time as Bell aged?
Answer: Beinn Bhreagh

Question: What city adopted the Bells?
Answer: Baddeck

Question: What did the Bells do to help the victims in Halifax?
Answer: mobilized the community
Alexander_Graham_Bell

Although Alexander Graham Bell is most often associated with the invention of the telephone, his interests were extremely varied. According to one of his biographers, Charlotte Gray, Bell's work ranged "unfettered across the scientific landscape" and he often went to bed voraciously reading the Encyclopædia Britannica, scouring it for new areas of interest. The range of Bell's inventive genius is represented only in part by the 18 patents granted in his name alone and the 12 he shared with his collaborators. These included 14 for the telephone and telegraph, four for the photophone, one for the phonograph, five for aerial vehicles, four for "hydroairplanes" and two for selenium cells. Bell's inventions spanned a wide range of interests and included a metal jacket to assist in breathing, the audiometer to detect minor hearing problems, a device to locate icebergs, investigations on how to separate salt from seawater, and work on finding alternative fuels.

Question: What series of books does Gray say Bell would go to sleep reading?
Answer: Encyclopædia Britannica

Question: How many solo patents did Bell get?
Answer: 18

Question: How many patents did Bell co-author?
Answer: 12
Alexander_Graham_Bell

Bell's own home used a primitive form of air conditioning, in which fans blew currents of air across great blocks of ice. He also anticipated modern concerns with fuel shortages and industrial pollution. Methane gas, he reasoned, could be produced from the waste of farms and factories. At his Canadian estate in Nova Scotia, he experimented with composting toilets and devices to capture water from the atmosphere. In a magazine interview published shortly before his death, he reflected on the possibility of using solar panels to heat houses.

Question: What form of water played a part in Bell's home cooling system?
Answer: ice

Question: What did Bell think could be collected from farm and factory byproduct?
Answer: Methane gas

Question: What kind of toilet did Bell work on?
Answer: composting

Question: Right before his death, what kind of energy did he speculate about?
Answer: solar
Alexander_Graham_Bell

Bell and his assistant Charles Sumner Tainter jointly invented a wireless telephone, named a photophone, which allowed for the transmission of both sounds and normal human conversations on a beam of light. Both men later became full associates in the Volta Laboratory Association.

Question: What did Bell call his cord-free phone?
Answer: photophone

Question: Who did Bell invent the cord-free phone with?
Answer: Charles Sumner Tainter

Question: What did Bell's cord-free phone use to transmit messages?
Answer: light

Question: What lab association did Bell and Tainter both eventually join?
Answer: Volta Laboratory Association

Question: In the photophone, light carried sound and what?
Answer: normal human conversations
Alexander_Graham_Bell

On June 21, 1880, Bell's assistant transmitted a wireless voice telephone message a considerable distance, from the roof of the Franklin School in Washington, D.C., to Bell at the window of his laboratory, some 213 metres (700 ft) away, 19 years before the first voice radio transmissions.

Question: Bell and his assistant first used their photophone on what date?
Answer: June 21, 1880

Question: How many feet did the first photophone message travel?
Answer: 700

Question: From what building was the first photophone message sent?
Answer: Franklin School

Question: How many years after this photophone message would the first message take place over radio?
Answer: 19
Alexander_Graham_Bell

Bell believed the photophone's principles were his life's "greatest achievement", telling a reporter shortly before his death that the photophone was "the greatest invention [I have] ever made, greater than the telephone". The photophone was a precursor to the fiber-optic communication systems which achieved popular worldwide usage in the 1980s. Its master patent was issued in December 1880, many decades before the photophone's principles came into popular use.

Question: What did Bell call the best thing he ever made?
Answer: The photophone

Question: Bell thought the photophone was better than what famous invention?
Answer: telephone

Question: What modern technology takes the next step from the photophone?
Answer: fiber-optic communication

Question: When was fiber-optics first patented?
Answer: 1880

Question: In what decade did fiber-optics become widely used?
Answer: 1980s
Alexander_Graham_Bell

Bell is also credited with developing one of the early versions of a metal detector in 1881. The device was quickly put together in an attempt to find the bullet in the body of U.S. President James Garfield. According to some accounts, the metal detector worked flawlessly in tests but did not find the assassin's bullet partly because the metal bed frame on which the President was lying disturbed the instrument, resulting in static. The president's surgeons, who were skeptical of the device, ignored Bell's requests to move the president to a bed not fitted with metal springs. Alternatively, although Bell had detected a slight sound on his first test, the bullet may have been lodged too deeply to be detected by the crude apparatus.

Question: What did Bell create in 1881?
Answer: metal detector

Question: What was in James Garfield that they wanted to get out?
Answer: bullet

Question: What did Bell think was wrong with the bed, which prevented his machine from finding the bullet?
Answer: metal bed frame

Question: On which run did Bell's metal detector give a small indication?
Answer: first

Question: When did Bell's metal detector work well?
Answer: in tests
Alexander_Graham_Bell

Bell's own detailed account, presented to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1882, differs in several particulars from most of the many and varied versions now in circulation, most notably by concluding that extraneous metal was not to blame for failure to locate the bullet. Perplexed by the peculiar results he had obtained during an examination of Garfield, Bell "...proceeded to the Executive Mansion the next morning...to ascertain from the surgeons whether they were perfectly sure that all metal had been removed from the neighborhood of the bed. It was then recollected that underneath the horse-hair mattress on which the President lay was another mattress composed of steel wires. Upon obtaining a duplicate, the mattress was found to consist of a sort of net of woven steel wires, with large meshes. The extent of the [area that produced a response from the detector] having been so small, as compared with the area of the bed, it seemed reasonable to conclude that the steel mattress had produced no detrimental effect." In a footnote, Bell adds that "The death of President Garfield and the subsequent post-mortem examination, however, proved that the bullet was at too great a distance from the surface to have affected our apparatus."

Question: Bell gave his story about trying to find the bullet to the American Association for the Advancement of what?
Answer: Science

Question: Where did Bell go the day after trying to find the bullet?
Answer: Executive Mansion

Question: What kind of mattress was the President directly on?
Answer: horse-hair

Question: Where did Bell indicate that the bullet was too deep for his machine to register?
Answer: footnote
Alexander_Graham_Bell

The March 1906 Scientific American article by American pioneer William E. Meacham explained the basic principle of hydrofoils and hydroplanes. Bell considered the invention of the hydroplane as a very significant achievement. Based on information gained from that article he began to sketch concepts of what is now called a hydrofoil boat. Bell and assistant Frederick W. "Casey" Baldwin began hydrofoil experimentation in the summer of 1908 as a possible aid to airplane takeoff from water. Baldwin studied the work of the Italian inventor Enrico Forlanini and began testing models. This led him and Bell to the development of practical hydrofoil watercraft.

Question: Who wrote the paper laying out hydrofoils and hydroplanes?
Answer: William E. Meacham

Question: What nationality was Meacham?
Answer: American

Question: What did Bell start drawing after reading the article?
Answer: hydrofoil boat

Question: Who helped Bell investigate hydrofoils in 1908?
Answer: Frederick W. "Casey" Baldwin

Question: Which Italian scientist did Baldwin draw inspiration from?
Answer: Enrico Forlanini
Alexander_Graham_Bell

During his world tour of 1910–11, Bell and Baldwin met with Forlanini in France. They had rides in the Forlanini hydrofoil boat over Lake Maggiore. Baldwin described it as being as smooth as flying. On returning to Baddeck, a number of initial concepts were built as experimental models, including the Dhonnas Beag, the first self-propelled Bell-Baldwin hydrofoil. The experimental boats were essentially proof-of-concept prototypes that culminated in the more substantial HD-4, powered by Renault engines. A top speed of 54 miles per hour (87 km/h) was achieved, with the hydrofoil exhibiting rapid acceleration, good stability and steering along with the ability to take waves without difficulty. In 1913, Dr. Bell hired Walter Pinaud, a Sydney yacht designer and builder as well as the proprietor of Pinaud's Yacht Yard in Westmount, Nova Scotia to work on the pontoons of the HD-4. Pinaud soon took over the boatyard at Bell Laboratories on Beinn Bhreagh, Bell's estate near Baddeck, Nova Scotia. Pinaud's experience in boat-building enabled him to make useful design changes to the HD-4. After the First World War, work began again on the HD-4. Bell's report to the U.S. Navy permitted him to obtain two 350 horsepower (260 kilowatts) engines in July 1919. On September 9, 1919, the HD-4 set a world marine speed record of 70.86 miles per hour (114.04 kilometres per hour), a record which stood for ten years.

Question: In what country did Baldwin and Forlanini get together?
Answer: France

Question: What did Baldwin liken the hydrofoil boat to?
Answer: flying

Question: Which boat was first powered by a Renault engine?
Answer: HD-4