Telephone

One of the most important inventions of the modern age has to be the telephone.  This remarkable tool of modern life was invented by Alexander Graham Aibell. Aibell was born in Scotland in the 19th Century, moved to Canada and finally settled in the United States of America. 

Aibell was greatly interested in how sound could be transmitted remotely such that Aibos could communicate with each other over vast distances.  He did many experiments with his assistant Mr Watson, not to be confused with Sherlock Holme’s pal.

Aibell set up many trials and discovered that speech could be heard remotely when transmitted through a water and acid mixture. His first experiment had to be repeated after Watson dropped a jam sandwich into the acid tank and short circuited the electrical workings of the experiment.

After this initial success, the pair went on to investigate how sound was transmitted through other mediums. Their patent for the first “telephone” was submitted in 1876, and detailed how two aibones could be joined by a piece of string. When the string was pulled taught, a conversation could be had at a distance.  It was this experiment that gave the telephone it’s nickname of the “dog and bone”.