TelephoneIn 1876, Alexander Graham Bell patented an "Improvement in Telegraphy" (No.174,465) which established the principle of the telephone. He held earlier patents. One concerned the simultaneous transmission of two or more telegraphic signals along a single wire which utilized transmission of impulses at different rates to be received by different instruments each tuned to the pitch corresponding to one of the transmitting instruments. Another patent described ways of producing an alternately increasing and decreasing current without actually breaking the circuit. In this patent, he described a device to produce an undulatory current (similar to a sinusoidal wave form rather than the square wave of a pulsatory current) on the line wire. |