Bell, Alexander Graham

Alexander Graham Bell was born on March 3, 1847 in Edinburgh (Scotland). He studied at the University of Edinburgh, studied rhetoric under the guidance of his grandfather, the founder of the school of oratory. At the age of 16 he became a teacher of rhetoric and music at Weston House Academy (Scotland). In 1865 he moved to London, worked as an assistant to his father, professor of rhetoric at the University of London. In 1870 he moved to Canada with his family. In 1871-1873 he worked at the Boston School for the deaf and dumb, from 1873 Professor of Physiology of the Organs of Speech at Boston University.

Having studied the acoustics and physics of human speech Alexander Bell began to experiment with an apparatus in which a membrane vibrating under the action of sound waves transmitted vibrations to a needle that recorded them on a rotating drum. Gradually Bell came up with the idea of creating a device which will make it possible to transmit various sounds. He thought that multiple metal reeds tuned to different frequencies like a harp would be able to convert the undulating currents back into sound. Experimenting with the “musical telegraph” he discovered the phenomenon that led to the invention of the telephone. February 14, 1876 Bell filed a patent application for the invention of the telephone.

Bell's other inventions included an improvement on Edison's phonograph, the use of flexible ailerons, along with a rigid ground surface to control aircraft flight. Totally Bell has published more than 100 articles and received 30 patents.

In 1880 Alexander Bell received the Volta Prize named in honor of Alessandro Volta, with Bell becoming the second recipient of the grand prize in its history.