Alexander Graham Bell
Who was Alexander Graham Bell? Find out by reading below.
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Alexander Graham Bell (1847 - 1922) was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and grew up to be an influential scientist, engineer, and inventor. Most famously, he is credited with having invented the modern telephone.
Alexander Graham Bell was interested in voice and sound from a young age, but it was the onset of his mother's hearing problems that stimulated a passion for acoustics and communication. When Alexander was 12, his mother began to lose hearing, until she eventually became almost deaf. His mothers impairment, and his father's work with the deaf, inspired Bell to work on technology for communication, and technology to help people with hearing problems or other disabilities. In fact, Bell would be a tutor to Helen Keller in later years. In 1870, both Alexander and his brother became sick with tuberculosis, a common disease at the time. Alexander's brother died, and the Bell family moved to Canada. While living in Canada, he began developing methods for teaching speech to the deaf, while also working on his interests in engineering to create new methods of long-distance communication. While teaching Bell also began researching how to improve the telegraph, which allowed only a single signal to travel down a wire at a time. The telegraph also only sent electrical pulses in code, not sound. On August 3rd, 1876, Bell made the first telephone call to a house 6 kilometers from his house, to Thomas Watson, the mechanic who had helped him develop and build the first telephone. By 1880, Bell had founded the Bell Telephone Company, today known as AT&T. Alexander Graham Bell would go on to develop many inventions, including the metal detector and the hydrofoil. He was also important in early avionics - the science of flight and flying machines. Bell died in 1922 in Canada, from diabetes. He left behind his wife and two daughters. |
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