Talk:Invention of the telephone

message: I've tried to organize this page a little better, but there's still a lot of work to be done, particularly in the "Controversy" section. I just don't have the time right now.--Osprey39 03:16, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There's really nothing that needs to be done other than revert all of the changes made by  on the 17th, which can only be described as breathtakingly inaccurate. (Among other things, Western Union was a bitter competitor of Bell's during the 19th century, which backed Elisha Gray's claims of invention--they were the last company in the entire world that would be interested in helping Bell "organize a world business." And the notion that "in the USA, Bell is today widely recognized as a thief" would surely come as a great surprise to anyone who actually lives in the United States.) I've reverted Mr. 82's changes, which should take care of the problems with the article. --phh 09:04, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks good.--Osprey39 09:09, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Still a lot of work to be done 

message: The remarks on Meucci's uspposed invention of an anti-sidetone circuit were at best highly misleading.  Meucci avoided sidetone by having tone separate circuits, not by inventing a sidetone-cancelling circuit. —12.72.74.86 08:41, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Meucci &amp; Sidetone 

message: OK, but just for "par condicio." We should complete the part about Meucci s life and his numerous inventions. From 1833 to 1850 Meucci invented over 30 different models of telephone!!!  
--Jack 19:09, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Par condicio 

message: Much of this article is cribbed from Munro, "Heroes of the Telegraph" (public domain).  There's a reference, but it could be made more obvious.--Kbk 16:44, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cribbed 

message: Found by accident. Sold for $6. Never set anything down. Bell created it, stole the ideas of Elisha Gray and developed the phone. Regards of the Italian-American lobby, Meucci's invention was at best an intercom, and there were no signs that he would have developed it. Londo06 17:34, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Intercom

message: Besides being "cribbed" from another source which is a charitable way of saying "copied," the article is a piece of revisionist propaganda with inaccurate information. For example, the sentence stating Meucci "was recognized by US Congress on 11th June 2002 as the true inventor" was nothing of the sort. The wholly spurious legislation introduced by a decidely biased representative did not come close to establishing this claim. All that was established was that Meucci did some preliminary work on a telephone. His "tin can on a string" invention was nowhere near a true telephone and the sad history of the Meucci claims have long since been repudiated, even in his lifetime. For a hoot,read about the genesis of the bill and you will get a feeling for the duplicitous nature of the proceedings. The claim that Bell stole the telephone from Elisha Gray continues the "conspiracy" nonsense that is so prevalent with non-historians. FWIWBzuk 19:02, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Recently, on the basis of this article, the Alexander Graham Bell article was again revised drastically to exclude Bell as the inventor of the telephone. This long-standing debate is fine on discussion pages and forums but does not represent the authoritative viewpoint of scientific and historic communities. FWIW Bzuk (talk) 15:35, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: He stole the invention? Bzuk (talk) 04:31, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, apparently as of january 2008 we now have firm evidence that Bell's telephone didn't work, but after he got a look at Gray's working version, he scrapped his entire design and instead copied directly from Gray, and then was able to patent and steal the most lucrative patent ever issued.  The article really needs to be fully revised in light of this new information, but I just don't have the time right now, due to school constraints.  See the telephone gambit for details. — Eric Herboso 06:40, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Article contains POV

message: I have removed the disputed tags because there is no dispute that the true "inventor" of the telephone is in dispute.  Everyone agrees that there is a dispute and this article gives the various arguments pro and con for each of the claimants.  Each side has a POV of course, as with all disputes, but the article itself is not in dispute and is not the personal POV of its authors.  Rather the article reports on a pre-existing and well documented dispute. Greensburger (talk) 16:00, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: The dispute is not disputed

message: Near the end of this section it is stated that a certain Bill Carroll asked Meucci to produce a telephone for "scuba divers".  Since Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus (SCUBA) was developed during WW II by  Dr. Christian Lambertsen it would seem that this quote may need further investigation before it is allowed to remain in the article.Gtward513 (talk) 20:04, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a good point.  It may mean snorkel, but in the mean time I've removed the quote (which really must be a paraphrase, if it's not a complete hoax). Superm401 - Talk 14:23, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Chronology of Meucci's invention

message: Philip Reiss invented this telephone in 1863, but this is not the year it was tested by STC, since then AT&T didn't already exist.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.20.54.152 (talk) 15:10, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dates 

message: The article states, "An early version of the telephone was invented around 1860 by Antonio Meucci who called it teletrofono (telectrophone).
The first American demonstration of Meucci's invention took place in Staten Island, New York in 1854."
This chronology makes no sense.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Slipangle (talk • contribs) 15:13, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Meucci dates 

message: Alexander Graham Bell is quite possibly, the greatest liar and theif in history. Not only did he NOT invent the telephone, but from the looks of it, this article written by Wiki users are revisionists since they are in utter denial that Antonio Meucci is the only valid inventor of the telephone.
Its just more proof that Wikipedia is not a reliable source for accurate information. I'll stick with Encarta. --Yoganate79 (talk) 22:45, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Bell the Con-Artist and Thief

message: Below is a simplified article I edited several weeks ago, provided here for reference only. It provides credit to several others besides Bell, and briefly discusses other aspects such as conception; with much of the writing being based on this article (Invention of the Telephone) as well as the 'Alexander Graham Bell' article. Non-rhetorical comments are welcome at the bottom.....
:Alexander Graham Bell, a Scottish-born inventor, scientist, philanthropist and teacher of the deaf is the person most widely credited as the inventor of the electric telephone. On March 7th 1876 he became the first to receive a patent for this device, and at that time resided in Salem, Massachusetts.
:Alexander Graham Bell conceived of the telephone at his summer home in Brantford, Ontario and physically created his first phone in Boston, Massachusetts (where, he said, it was 'born'). This was a result of his research into improving the telegraph system. Bell was experimenting into improving the telegraph system so that multiple messages could be sent at the same time (his theory of the 'harmonic telegraph' was based on the principle that several messages could be sent simultaneously along the same wire if the different telegraph signals each had a different pitch). However at the same time he began working on the novel idea that speech could be transmitted electronically, as he accidentally discovered that the sound of a spring being twanged could be heard over his harmonic telegraph system. Almost a year later in March 1876 Bell uttered the first famous words into the device to his assistant in the next room: "Mr. Watson, come here -I want to see you".
:A young black man, Lewis Lattimer, was employed as a draughtsman by the patent law firm that Alexander Graham Bell used, and contributed to Bell's patent drawings. Lattimer become a successful inventor in his own right.
:As with many other important technological devices, several people often worked on and independently created the same, or similar devices in the same general time period -an example being the modern navigational quadrant or sextant. While Bell was the first to receive a patent for the telephone, several others preceded his research and credit for inventing the electric telephone remains in dispute.
:Despite the claims of those defending Alexander Graham Bell, its been suggested that both Antonio Meucci and then Elisha Gray successfully invented telephones in the United States before Alexander Graham Bell did in 1876. Some of the others who performed pioneering experimental work with electrical voice transmissions over wires included Thomas Edison, Innocenzo Manzetti, Charles Bourseul and Johann Philipp Reis.
:Ironically in 2001 the United States Congress passed a 'resolution' stating that given all the facts of the patent disputes between Gray and Bell, under no terms could Alexander Graham Bell have been awarded the patent for the telephone by the United States Patent and Trademark Office in 1876. However that Congressional resolution by itself served only as a declaration, and did not annul or modify the patent Bell received in 1876. The 2001 resolution was also subsequently followed by another legislative declaration upholding Bell's priority and his status as inventor of the telephone.
:The person who first successfully 'patented' the telephone was indisputably Alexander Graham Bell, however given what we currently know, earlier inventors of 'telephone-like' devices may have been Meucci, or even others before him.
:Interestingly, the commercialization of Alexander Graham Bell's telephone was actually performed by several independent businesses which eventually created the 'Bell System' (and later AT&T), to which 'Alec', as he preferred to be called, participated very little in. Alexander Graham Bell, who went on to become an eminent scientist, inventor and humanitarian, considered the telephone to be an intrusion into his real work and refused to have one in his study.
: Further readings:
: - Charlotte Gray, "RELUCTANT GENIUS: THE PASSIONATE LIFE AND INVENTIVE MIND OF ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL", HarperCollins/Phylilis Bruce, Toronto, 2006, ISBN: 0002006766, Dewey library code: 621.385092 Bell.
: - Wikipedia.org: 'Alexander Graham Bell' and 'History of the Telephone'
-- HarryZilber (talk) 20:27, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Simplified article version (suitable for a children's encyclopedia)

message: An editor this a.m. has tagged the lede as being too short ({Lead too short}), and admittedly given the complex history of the telephone's invention its two summary paragraphs would be better off being enhanced.  Suggestions are sought on what new material (maximum of two more paragraphs) should supplement the lede to provide a better intro to the lay reader, keeping in mind that early telephony research was also conducted in Europe.
I'd suggest that at least a third paragraph be added on to the bottom of the lede, contrasting Bourseul's 'make-and-break' theory with Bell's variable resistance described-wave model.  If Bourseul had not employed the fatal words 'make-and-break' in his writings and used a more general language, its entirely possible that others like Reis would not have gone down his path and might have invented a proper functioning telephone transmitter long before Bell. Thus a new third paragraph introducing that contrast between the methods might serve the lede well and allow readers to grasp the essential nature of the technological struggle to invent a functional telephone. Comments?  HarryZilber (talk) 13:48, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: "Variation of current with pressure.  It seems established that Reis utilized the phenomenon in his transmitter, long erroneously supposed to work only by makes and breaks.  Indeed, presuming that he was at the first unacquainted with, and to be adjusting his transmitter very finely, it would have been difficult for him not to have noticed that the current passed continuously with every light contact, and the wonderful change produced thereby, a harsh, disagreeable tone being replaced by a soft and smooth one, would be unmistakable.  And, in fact, he did transmit speech in this way with unbroken current.  If Reis had but employed carbon contacts instead of metallic, there can be little doubt that the practical introduction of telephony would have been much accelerated."
It was very important for the Bell company that Reis' transmitter be made to seem like a make-or-break device, because they wanted the courts to interpret the Bell patents as claiming all transmitters that produced undulating currents. When the court did interpret the claims broadly, one claim was infringed by Edison's carbon transmitter because it produced undulating current.  And another claim was infringed by Edison's transmitter because it controlled this current with variable resistance.  It was the court upholding of these two claims that persuaded Western Union to make a deal with the Bell company.  But this successful legal strategy 130 years ago should not blind us to Reis' role in history.  For this reason, it would not be accurate in the lead/lede to link Reis' transmitter to Bourseul's transmitter as make-or-break devices.  
As Heaviside said, carbon contacts would have worked much better than metallic contacts.  Perhaps unknown to Reis, the metallic contacts did have carbon on them, carbon soot from wood- and coal-burning fireplaces and furnaces in Reis' town.  It would have been difficult for the contacts not to have carbon on them.  Greensburger (talk) 03:10, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

text: "One device claimed by Meucci was apparently nothing more than an acoustic telephone, the so-called 'tin can' telephone.  Although Meucci managed to get his name in the history books, his proposals were not considered worthy of attention by the Bell Telephone Company, which had a policy of buying out or suing any potential telephone inventor... They were convinced that Meucci posed no threat to the Bell patent when they heard of his proposal that two persons could converse by sitting in insulated chairs and letting the electric current pass through their bodies! ... Meucci did not understand the basic principles of the telephone, either before or for several years after Bell invented it."   Greensburger (talk) 20:09, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lede shortness 

message: For readers who are surprised that the famous picture of a man speaking into an early telephone is now described as a silent movie actor and not Bell, I have repeated the following discussion from the Alexander Graham Bell article:  
The photograph of Alexander Graham Bell "1876_Bell_Speaking_into_Telephone.jpg" is not really of Bell. The caption lists it as "Bell speaking into prototype model of the telephone", but it is really a still image of an actor in 1926 playing Alexander Graham Bell for a silent film. 
The film itself can be viewed here: http://www.corp.att.com/history/other/watson.wmv which is linked to by here: http://www.corp.att.com/history under the link title "See a 1926 recreation of Alexander Graham Bell inventing the telephone."  PearlSt82 (talk) 15:37, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Photograph of Bell is not really of Bell 

message: What would be vandalism if a resolution of the U.S. House of Representatives (the 269) claims the priority of invention of Meucci phone?? This should be a free encyclopedia of free but I think there is very little .... anyway I just put a picture of a person already mentioned in the article!--93.45.78.97 (talk) 21:41, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Meucci's priority or not 

message: Quoting from Meucci's caveat:
The person "holds to his mouth an instrument analogous to a speaking trumpet, in which the word may easily be pronounced, and the sound concentrated upon the wire."... "a sound conductor" ... "continuous metallic conductors as a medium for sound."
The "effect may also be realized by a corresponding arrangement with a metallic tube"... or... "without the necessity for any hollow tube".
Meucci clearly describes his "telettrofono" as a speaking trumpet (also called a megaphone) that concentrates voice sound vibrations through a wire or through a metallic tube.  This was nothing like Bell's electromagnet invention.  Greensburger (talk) 02:36, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  What was Meucci's "telettrofono? 

message: Mrs. Bell was deaf and Mr. Bell was always trying to help those who could not hear. The telephone was one of his attempts to create a device for the deaf, to assist their ability to hear.
Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone so that people can communicate with other people anywhere in world.
To facilitate verbal communication over long distances.
He invented the telephone because he is an inventor and he wanted to find a way how to communicate with other people apart from talking to them face-to-face.
Bell originally started looking into the telephone as a way to speak to the spirit world. As with many inventors and inventions of the age, there seemed to be a great belief in spirits and the need to communicate 
with them so that items such as radio waves, telephones and televisions all started out as a means of communication with the other world.
Previous communication technology was limited to the telegraph. The telegraph was inefficient because it relied on Morse Code to relay messages. Only a few trained professionals were taught Morse Code, and not everybody could translate with it. Whereas a telephone would allow people to speak directly to one another without a step in-between. Bell sought to solve this problem.
There is a report that says that Alexander Graham Bell invented the phone to help his few family members as they suffered from hearing problems. But at the same time his father in law did not agree with it. He said it was a toy, that no child would be interested in.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mohammad2756 (talk • contribs) 22:35, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why did Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone? 

message: The citations to the Italian Society of Electrotechnics (cites 13 and 14) lead to a 404'd page. Just thought I'd point that out. Neoman4426 (talk) 13:41, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Make that all the links to Italian Society of Electrotechnics, so add cites 8, 10, 12, and 15 to that list. Neoman4426 (talk) 13:27, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Expired references 

message: This article needs to be scrapped and started over by someone who is not in either the "Bell" or "Meucci" camp.
Almost every line is dripping with innuendo, bias, and completely insupportable claims.
It raises a point for Wikipedia, where sometimes public editing fails, and Wiki editors need to take over.
I am all for people trying to rescue the reputations and credit due to those "lost" by history, but most of the contributors to this article should be ashamed of themselves.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.114.43.243 (talk) 14:53, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Its very easy to criticize other people's works, but largely meaningless. Its better to provide concrete examples of what you feel is incorrect and then propose changes.  Drive-by sniping isn't helpful, unless you only want to burnish your reputation as a sniper. HarryZilber (talk) 18:21, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article is perhaps the worst Wiki Article : here is why 

message: I was wondering if better images of the prototype voice transmitters are available?  The only good one is the one of the Bell transmitter at top, and that's a facsimile from a movie.  Besides the postage stamp of Reis, none of the other players' inventions are shown.  There were a lot of books on telephony published before 1923 that are now PD.  Has anyone looked on Google Books? --ChetvornoTALK 03:52, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Few images 

message: Why does it say that Jackie Chan had a hand in inventing the Telephone?189.163.54.31 (talk) 04:01, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jackie Chan? 

message: Currently it says "In the 2002 congressional resolution, it was inaccurately noted that Bell worked in a laboratory in which Meucci's materials had been stored, and claimed that Bell must thus have had access to those materials." with no clear citation. 
Now in The Nearly Men (Mike Green, 2007) this story was also mentioned, and I must say that that book does every attempt to argue both sides of the case, but still finds it very suspicious that Bell had visited the Western Union in NY laboratories, had then changed the course of his investigation, and that others who had seen the equipment there would later get high positions at Bell. 
So - regardless of the rest of the story - when & where was this particular accusation against Bell disproven?Spiny Norman (talk) 17:31, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Did Bell see Meucci's equipment?  

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: he was the worst  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.25.185.89 (talk) 16:30, 11 June 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  hello 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Regardless of who the true inventor was (I absolutely don't know enough to weigh in here), I found there to be remarkably little about the history of Bell's work, whether copied or not. At the time of writing he is mentioned by name just 3 times in the entire article. 2600:387:6:803:0:0:0:66 (talk) 00:17, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Very little on Alexander Graham Bell 

message: Avinash Tiwari 223.180.178.205 (talk) 02:41, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Invention of phone