Who knows the history of the telephone?

1876, Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, which started the communication revolution of mankind, and this revolution is still not over.

Before Bell invented the telephone, the fastest way to send information was to send a telegram in Morse code through the telegraph line. Telegraph, a communication method, has just come out at this time. Before that, urgent messages could only be delivered by post horses, fireworks, pigeons or boats. In the 1970s, many people were trying to improve the telegraph, and Bell had a unique advantage. When he was young, Bell devoted himself to helping the deaf and tried to get a lot of money by improving the telegraph. In the experiment, he heard a vibration spread from room to room along the wire. If other inventors hear the same slight sound, it is almost impossible for them to understand its meaning. Bell had a full understanding of the vibration principle of human ear, and he immediately found that it was feasible to transmit human voice through wires, and the telephone was born. Within 10 years, it spread all over the United States and soon spread all over the world.

Modern society is an information society, and people can quickly receive information from any corner of the world. In fact, information exchange is indispensable for any era. In ancient times, there were sayings such as geese passing books, burning fire in the sky, and ringing midnight, which reflected people's efforts to seek different ways of long-distance communication.

Since the invention of electricity, some people want to communicate with electricity. A man named Morrison once set up 26 wires, representing 26 letters, to transmit information. This can be said to be the earliest telegram. But its equipment is complex and the transmission distance is not far. Although some people continue to improve (such as replacing 26 lines with single lines, etc.). ), it has not yet reached the practical stage.

In the 1930s, due to the rapid development of railways, there was an urgent need for a communication tool that was not affected by the weather, had no time limit and ran faster than trains. At this time, the basic technical conditions for the invention of telegraph (battery, copper wire, electromagnetic inductor) have also been met. 1837, the first wired telegraph was designed and manufactured by Cook and Wheatstone in Britain, and it was continuously improved, and the speed of sending telegrams was continuously improved. This kind of telegram was quickly applied in railway communication. The characteristic of their telegraph system is that messages point directly to letters. At the same time, American Morse was fascinated by the telegraph. He is a painter. With his rich imagination and indomitable spirit of struggle, he realized many people's dreams. At the age of 4, he returned to the United States by boat after studying painting in France, and Dr. Jackson introduced him to the magical electromagnetic world. On the boat, Jackson showed him an "electromagnet", which is a device that attracts iron with electric energy. When the power is cut off, the iron will fall off. It is also said that "no matter how long the wire is, the current can pass quickly." This gadget made Morse daydream: Since current can pass through wires instantly, can it be used to transmit information? To this end, he wrote the word "telegram" in his picture book, determined to complete the invention of transmitting information by electricity.

After returning to America, he devoted himself wholeheartedly to the development of telegraph. He studied electromagnetism from the beginning and studied under the famous electromagnetist Henry. He bought all kinds of experimental instruments and power tools, turned the studio into a laboratory and worked day and night. He designed one scheme after another, drew another sketch, tried again and again, but failed again and again. In deep disappointment, he tried to return to his old job several times. However, every time he picked up the brush and saw the words "telegram" written by himself in the picture book, he was inspired by his vows and looked up from disappointment.

He calmly analyzed the reasons for the failure, carefully examined the design ideas, and found that new methods must be found to send signals. 1836, morse finally found a new method. He wrote down the new design in his notebook: "As long as the current stops for a moment, there will be sparks. Spark can be regarded as a symbol, no spark is another symbol, and the length of time without spark is another symbol. These three symbols can be combined to represent letters and numbers, so that words can be transmitted through wires. " How simple we look now! But Morse was the first person in the world to think about how difficult it is to represent letters with a combination of dots, dashes and spaces. How great and strange the idea of transmitting information through coding is! In this way, as long as two kinds of electrical symbols are issued, information can be transmitted, which greatly simplifies the design and devices. Morse's peculiar idea, the famous Morse code, is the earliest code in the history of telecommunications and a major breakthrough in the history of telegraph invention.

After the breakthrough, Morse immediately threw himself into intense work, turned his ideas into practical devices, and constantly improved them. 1844 May 24th is a glorious page in the world telecommunication history. Morse himself pressed the telegraph button in the lobby of the US Congress. With a series of clicks, the news quickly spread to Baltimore, dozens of kilometers away. His assistant translated the message accurately. The success of Morse's telegraph sensationalized the United States, Britain and other countries in the world, and his telegraph soon became popular all over the world.

/kloc-morse telegraph machine was widely used in the second half of the 9th century. However, Morse telegram also has its shortcomings, that is, it needs to be translated twice from the sender to the addressee, and the sender can't get the feedback from the addressee immediately. This makes communication still inconvenient. Therefore, in Europe and America, there has been an upsurge of inventing the telephone. For example, the French electrician Bourzer made the "transmitter" and the German teacher Rice made the telephone. Because the transmitter and receiver are unreasonable in structure, too small in size and unclear in speech, they do not meet the practical requirements. The inventor of the world's first telephone was an American Scotsman named Bell.

After analyzing the shortcomings of Morse telegraph, Bell came up with a bold idea: Can you make a device to transmit language directly? Can a person's voice travel far through wires?

Bell used to be a professor engaged in phonetics teaching. In the experiment of studying a "visual language" for the deaf, he accidentally discovered a new phenomenon: when the current is cut off or turned on, the spiral coil in the circuit will make a slight rustle, just like the ticking of Morse telegraph. Bell noticed details that ordinary people didn't care about at all and tried many times. Inspired by this phenomenon, a novel idea gradually floated in Bell's mind: first, try to change the air vibration of sound into a continuous change of current, and then use the change of current to simulate the change of sound. This is the original principle of inventing the telephone. However, how to realize the conversion between "sound change and electric current change" and "current change and sound change" Bell consulted several geniuses in the field of electricity. Some people laughed it off, and some people advised him to give up his fantasy. This situation only strengthened Bell's confidence, and he was determined to learn electricity from scratch. So he rushed to Washington and asked joseph henry, the most prestigious physicist at that time. Old Henry listened carefully to Bell's ideas, enthusiastically encouraged Bell to learn and master the knowledge of electromagnetism, and boldly began to work. He said, "Young man, you have an amazing invention ideal. Go! " Bell said hesitantly, "Sir, I am still a layman in electricity!" " The great scientist firmly encouraged Bell: "Master it!"

Bell will never forget his teaching and encouragement to this veteran scientist. Since the spring of 1875, Bell and his young assistant, the electrician Watson, have set up a humble laboratory in a hot hut in Leng Xia in winter. While exploring the principle of acoustic-electrical conversion, we often design practical devices day and night, forgetting to eat or sleep. Seek, fail, seek again, fail again, seek again ... Whenever setbacks and difficulties make them give up, the firm words of the old scientists make them regain the courage to move on!

Finally, two rough prototypes were made, which realized the purpose of transmitting sound waves by electricity. But its voice is so weak that it can't be heard clearly. "How to increase the volume?" Bell fell into hard thinking again. One night, there was melodious guitar sound in the evening breeze, like crying. Listening and thinking, he suddenly realized that the original sound of guitar music is loud and beautiful because it uses the principle of * * * *. Why can't you build a * * * speaker? So he immediately designed and produced a modified phone with speakers.

Bell and Watson didn't stop there. They improved the prototype several times, made a permanent magnet telephone and applied for a patent. Interestingly, two hours later, the inventor Gray also applied for a patent for his telephone. 1876, Edison, a great inventor, invented the carbon microphone and obtained a patent for the invention. Carbon microphone Bibel permanent magnet microphone is more sensitive. Therefore, the modern telephone is basically a combination of Edison microphone and Bell receiver.

Nowadays, telephone has become an indispensable communication tool in people's daily life. There are many kinds of telephones, but the basic principle of the telephone has not changed. What are we thinking when we look back on the arduous journey of pioneers such as Morse and Bell to create telegraph and telephone? How does this affect the investigation we will participate in today?

First of all, I remembered Marx's famous saying: "There is no royal road to science, and only those who climb along steep mountain roads can hope to reach the glorious summit." "At the entrance of science, just like at the entrance of hell, it must be demanded that all hesitation must be eradicated here, and any cowardice here will not help."

The invention of telegraph and telephone, like the invention of thousands of new things in Qian Qian, is a process of turning ideas into reality and people's ideas into objects, that is, a process of creating new things. At this point, scientific invention is different from scientific discovery. As mentioned above, the discovery of the periodic law of elements belongs to scientific discovery, and it is a process of finding the law that has existed for a long time but has not been discovered, and it is a process of making people's thoughts conform to objective laws. However, both have the same characteristics. Whether it is scientific invention or scientific discovery, people need to be brave in climbing, and they need to work hard to achieve results and' climb the glorious peak'.

Today, we stand in the "population department" of research study, just like standing at the entrance of science, and we must put forward such requirements to ourselves:

First of all, we must eradicate all hesitation, devote all our energy to various autonomous learning activities, and make up our minds to strive for the success of the research through our hard study and practice. Any cowardice will not help here. Just like Mendeleev, Morse and Bell, they practiced bravely, imagined boldly, were not afraid of difficulties and failures, and strived for the success of the research with indomitable fighting spirit.

Second, the history of the invention of telegraph and telephone tells us that scientific inventions can only be successful through creative thinking. The process of invention generally presents two stages, the first is to obtain a new technical principle, and the second is to concretize this principle into reality. Whether it is the acquisition of principles or the structure of objects, creative thinking such as intuition, inspiration, imagination, analysis and synthesis is needed in the two processes of invention. In the whole process of invention, there will be accidents and opportunities that people need to seize keenly.

You see, Morse was inspired by Jackson's electromagnet and came up with the basic idea of "transmitting information by current". Bell realized the basic principle of acoustoelectric change from the rustle of the coil when the current was cut off or turned on. The inventor's imagination is here, and so is the inventor's creative thinking!

Morse summed up the reasons for the failure and made clear the new method of finding signals. When his thoughts are highly concentrated in this direction and he is eager for a new way to send signals, he will only be inspired if he is exposed to electric sparks. He suddenly thought of using the combination of dots and strokes to represent letters and numbers, thus creating "Morse Code". Similarly, it was when Bell was thinking about the key problem of "how to increase the volume" day and night that he occasionally heard loud guitar music, which inspired some association and got an innovation: "Why don't we build a box?" Therefore, every student who participates in research study and carries out project research must actively learn all kinds of creative thinking modes in daily study, work and life, and learn to imagine, divergent thinking and reverse thinking. When solving the key problems in research, we should highly concentrate our thoughts, carefully observe and seize unexpected phenomena, and keenly seize fleeting opportunities.

Third, people who are good at creating and inventing like Morse and Bell all have distinct personalities. In the way of thinking, they all have strong and lasting curiosity and imagination, like to think in different ways, be good at observing, and be good at asking and analyzing questions. In terms of personality, they are good at questioning, like asking questions, aggressive, extremely confident, and have indomitable will and perseverance.

Therefore, every student who participates in research-based learning and project research must seriously study outstanding scientists and inventors, learn their scientific spirit and excellent character, and take their personality as an example to devote themselves to research-based learning activities in order to cultivate their innovative consciousness and practical ability!