sentence-transformers/squad huggingface dataset:
Passage: His father encouraged Bell's interest in speech and, in 1863, took his sons to see a unique automaton, developed by Sir Charles Wheatstone based on the earlier work of Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen. The rudimentary "mechanical man" simulated a human voice. Bell was fascinated by the machine and after he obtained a copy of von Kempelen's book, published in German, and had laboriously translated it, he and his older brother Melville built their own automaton head. Their father, highly interested in their project, offered to pay for any supplies and spurred the boys on with the enticement of a "big prize" if they were successful. While his brother constructed the throat and larynx, Bell tackled the more difficult task of recreating a realistic skull. His efforts resulted in a remarkably lifelike head that could "speak", albeit only a few words. The boys would carefully adjust the "lips" and when a bellows forced air through the windpipe, a very recognizable "Mama" ensued, to the delight of neighbors who came to see the Bell invention.

Question: In what year did Bell's father take him to see an automaton?

Question: Who created the automaton Bell saw?

Question: What did the automaton mimic?

Question: Bell built his own automaton with who?

Question: What part of the automaton did Bell create?
Passage: Intrigued by the results of the automaton, Bell continued to experiment with a live subject, the family's Skye Terrier, "Trouve". After he taught it to growl continuously, Bell would reach into its mouth and manipulate the dog's lips and vocal cords to produce a crude-sounding "Ow ah oo ga ma ma". With little convincing, visitors believed his dog could articulate "How are you grandma?" More indicative of his playful nature, his experiments convinced onlookers that they saw a "talking dog". However, these initial forays into experimentation with sound led Bell to undertake his first serious work on the transmission of sound, using tuning forks to explore resonance.

Question: What living thing did Bell use in his research?

Question: What was Bell's pet's name?

Question: What phrase did people believe Bell's dog could say?

Question: Bell investigated resonance using what?

Question: What did Bell instruct his dog to do?
Passage: At the age of 19, he wrote a report on his work and sent it to philologist Alexander Ellis, a colleague of his father (who would later be portrayed as Professor Henry Higgins in Pygmalion). Ellis immediately wrote back indicating that the experiments were similar to existing work in Germany, and also lent Bell a copy of Hermann von Helmholtz's work, The Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music.

Question: Who did Bell get to read his work?

Question: What country was doing work similar to Bell's?

Question: Who wrote The Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music?

Question: How old was Bell when he wrote his paper?

Question: What fictional character is based on Alexander Ellis?
Passage: 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?

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

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

Question: What did Bell think he didn't know well enough?
Passage: 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?

Question: Where did Bell go in work in 1865?

Question: What building was Bell in?

Question: How did Bell sign his letters?

Question: In what year did Bell move home?
Passage: 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?

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

Question: Who died in 1870?

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

Question: What did Bell help his final student get rid of?
Passage: 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?

Question: What boat did Bell travel on?

Question: In what Canadian city did Bell first arrive?

Question: What city did Bell arrive at by train?

Question: How many acres was the farm the Bell's bought in Canada?
Passage: 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?

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

Question: What Native American language did Bell learn?

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

Question: Where was the Six Nations Reserve located?
Passage: 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?

Question: What is a melodeon a kind of?

Question: When did Bell go to Montreal?

Question: Who went with Bell to Montreal?

Question: How did Bell's reworked melodeon send music?
Passage: 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?

Question: What name does the Boston School for Deaf Mutes go by now?

Question: What month did Bell go to Boston?

Question: Bell trained who in Boston?

Question: What city was the American Asylum in?
Passage: 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?

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

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

Question: Where was Bell's home?
Passage: 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?

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

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

Question: Which of Bell's students is the most well known?
Passage: 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?

Question: What would happen so some children's hands in schools?

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

Question: What was the only language many deaf people had?
Passage: 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?

Question: What was Bell's discipline?

Question: What did Bell do late at night?

Question: What health condition did Bell start to have?

Question: In what year did Bell start to focus on research into sound?
Passage: 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?

Question: What was Georgie's father's name?

Question: What disease made Mabel deaf?

Question: How old was Mabel when she became deaf?
Passage: 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?

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

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

Question: What instrument is a phonautograph similar to?

Question: In what year was Bell really working on his telegraph?
Passage: 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?

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

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

Question: Thomas Edison and what other scientist were already asked to work on a better telegraph?
Passage: 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?

Question: Who ran the Smithsonian in 1875?

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

Question: Who did Bell meet in 1874?

Question: What kind of business did Watson work at?
Passage: 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?

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

Question: How many reeds did Bell conclude he needed?

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

Question: Who gave money to Bell and Watson?
Passage: 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?

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

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

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

Question: What kind of telegraph did Bell create?
Passage: 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?

Question: On what date did Gray and Bell both put in for a patent?

Question: On what day did Bell get to Washington?

Question: What office in Washington did Bell and Gray visit?

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

Question: On what date did Bell get his patent?

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

Question: On what day did Bell go back to Boston?

Question: Bell sketched a design that looked like the work of who?
Passage: 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?

Question: How did Bell refer to his partner in his well known line?

Question: What did the vibrations cause to change?
Passage: 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?

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

Question: Bell used his own design in all public demonstrations and what?