The hypothesis of plagiarism has been advocated by authors like Edward A. On that day a legal, technical and historical battle began which has kept scholars occupied for almost a century and a half trying to answer various questions: Which patent arrived first at the patent office? Which of the two inventions was first? And, above all, did Bell copy Gray’s idea for a liquid transmitter after having access to his rival’s patent caveat? Was this the key that enabled Bell to convey his first words by telephone on March 10th, 1876? Bell’s liquid telephone transmitter and receiver (replica of 1876 invention) / Photo Credit: Spark MuseumĬompetition was so tight that on the same day that Bell presented his patent application in the Washington patent office, on February 14th, 1876, another person did the same it was the engineer Elisha Gray(Aug– January 21, 1901), who, in his patent caveat –a sort of provisional patent valid for one year– included a liquid transmitter of variable resistance, a breakthrough in the quest for a functional telephone. “It seems clear that Philipp Reis transmitted voice through his device several years before Bell,” said Finn, who has written several books on the history of electrical technologies.
The term “telephone” owes its existence to the German Johann Philipp Reis, whose first sentence in a device that he never succeeded in perfecting was much more extravagant than that of Bell: “ Das Pferd frisst keinen Gurkensalat“, or “The horse does not eat cucumber salad.” This statement, and not that of Bell, should receive credit for being the first telephone voice transmission in history, according to what Bernard Finn, the Curator Emeritus of the Electricity Collections at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, has told OpenMind. In the case of the telephone, there were several pioneers who made advances toward the goal of the simultaneous transmissions of sounds and voices. It is often said that science advances on the shoulders of giants the great discoveries and inventions rarely occur because of the isolated achievements of one great mind, but are built on the prior progress of many. However, summarized in this way, the story of the invention of the telephone would be to forget history. And the man who clearly heard his message in the next room was his assistant, Thomas Watson. The man who uttered these words was Alexander Graham Bell (March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922), the American born in Edinburgh (UK) who is often cited as the inventor of the telephone. I want to see you.” Popular knowledge assumes that these were the first words transmitted and heard on a telephone, on March 10th, 1876.
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