|
Posted by 127.0.0.1 on January 4, 2008, 5:35 pm
If you were Registered and logged in, you could reply and use other advanced thread options
By BRIAN BERGSTEIN, AP Technology Writer Wed Dec 26, 1:53 PM ET
BOSTON - A new book claims to have definitive evidence of a long-
suspected technological crime -- that Alexander Graham Bell stole ideas
for the telephone from a rival, Elisha Gray.
ADVERTISEMENT
In "The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell's Secret,"
journalist Seth Shulman argues that Bell -- aided by aggressive lawyers
and a corrupt patent examiner -- got an improper peek at patent
documents Gray had filed, and that Bell was erroneously credited with
filing first.
Shulman believes the smoking gun is Bell's lab notebook, which was
restricted by Bell's family until 1976, then digitized and made widely
available in 1999.
The notebook details the false starts Bell encountered as he and
assistant Thomas Watson tried transmitting sound electromagnetically
over a wire. Then, after a 12-day gap in 1876 -- when Bell went to
Washington to sort out patent questions about his work -- he suddenly
began trying another kind of voice transmitter. That method was the
one that proved successful.
As Bell described that new approach, he sketched a diagram of a person
speaking into a device. Gray's patent documents, which describe a
similar technique, also feature a very similar diagram.
Shulman's book, due out Jan. 7, recounts other elements that have
piqued researchers' suspicions. For instance, Bell's transmitter
design appears hastily written in the margin of his patent; Bell was
nervous about demonstrating his device with Gray present; Bell
resisted testifying in an 1878 lawsuit probing this question; and
Bell, as if ashamed, quickly distanced himself from the telephone
monopoly bearing his name.
Perhaps the most instructive lesson comes when Shulman explores why
historical memory has favored Bell and not Gray -- nor German inventor
Philipp Reis, who beat them both with 1860s telephones that employed a
different principle.
One reason is simply that Bell, not Gray, actually demonstrated a
phone that transmitted speech. Gray was focused instead on his era's
pressing communications challenge: how to send multiple messages
simultaneously over the same telegraph wire. As Gray huffed to his
attorney, "I should like to see Bell do that with his apparatus."
http://www.ihr.org/
|
| Similar Threads | Posted | | any idea about this error 'denial event 1097: MFC No Answer' | March 3, 2005, 2:12 am |
| Adtran 608, Partner, Conference Calling.... not a great idea | November 13, 2007, 10:58 pm |
| WAN Book | April 21, 2008, 2:00 pm |
| SWB circuit book | August 2, 2007, 9:07 pm |
| review a chapter, get a book on Business Data Communications | December 24, 2007, 8:07 pm |
| Use of Bell Logo: Qwest? SBC? | December 3, 2005, 12:55 pm |
| Bell Sonecor Caller ID ? | October 25, 2006, 7:39 pm |
| Bell Atlantic CID unit | February 10, 2008, 5:24 pm |
| bell system/we apparatus help needed | November 12, 2005, 3:02 am |
| Supply Telephone Voice Modular Adapters,Telephone Modular Couplers,Modular Duplex Jack,Triplex Adapters,Telephone extension Cord | November 12, 2005, 1:27 am |
|
|
Yahoo! 
Google 
Windows Live 
del.icio.us 
digg 
Netscape 
XML site map