Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922) was a Scottish-born American inventor and teacher of the deaf. Second only to Thomas Edison as the greatest modern inventor, Bell is best known for perfecting the telephone to transmit vocal messages by electricity. The telephone launched a new age in communication technology.
Although best known as the inventor of the telephone, Bell investigated a wide range of technical subjects—phonetics, acoustics, aviation, architectural engineering, animal husbandry, and genetics.
Born in Edinburgh to a family of experts in elocution and speech correction, Bell first worked with his father, who was the inventor of the ‘visible speech’ system for educating the deaf. After the family moved to Canada in 1870 and America in 1971, Bell taught speech at Boston University 1873–77.
Bell’s work on the transmission of sound by electricity, led to the invention of the telephone in 1876. His prototype consisted of a liquid transmitter: a diaphragm that triggered a needle to vibrate in water, resembling how sound waves vibrate in air. His first words were “Mr. Watson—come here—I want to see you,” addressed to his electrical design-assistant, Thomas A. Watson, who was in the next room.
Bell won a 50,000-franc prize for his invention, which he invested in founding the Volta laboratory for research into deafness. When Western Union declined the opportunity to buy Bell’s patent for $100,000 after judging the telephone as no more than a toy, Bell started the Bell Telephone Company in 1877. Interestingly, Bell found his invention annoying and declined to have a telephone installed in his home.
Bell also invented the gramophone (1897) as an improvement to Thomas Edison’s phonograph.
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A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with — a man is what he makes of himself.
—Alexander Graham Bell
Topics: Greatness, Strength, Responsibility
The achievement of one goal should be the starting point of another.
—Alexander Graham Bell
Topics: Goals
Sometimes we stare so long at a door that is closing, that we see too late the one that is open.
—Alexander Graham Bell
Man is an animal which, alone among the animals, refuses to be satisfied by the fulfillment of animal desires.
—Alexander Graham Bell
Topics: Desire, Animals
Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.
—Alexander Graham Bell
Topics: Action, Work
Great discoveries and improvements invariably involve the cooperation of many minds. I may be given credit for having blazed the trail, but when I look at the subsequent developments I feel the credit is due to others rather than to myself.
—Alexander Graham Bell
Topics: Science, Discovery
Ordinary people who know nothing of phonetics or elocution have difficulties in understanding slow speech composed of perfect sounds, while they have no difficulty in comprehending an imperfect gabble if only the accent and rhythm are natural.
—Alexander Graham Bell
Topics: Communication
What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it.
—Alexander Graham Bell
Topics: Persistence, Power, Goals, Determination
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