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Philipp Reis was a German physicist, inventor, and schoolteacher. His inventions never seemed to make money, but one of them proved useful in his school.
Experimenting with electric current and the conversion of sound vibrations to electrical impulses, Reis designed a machine in 1860 that could conduct the sound of voices across wires. He promptly strung several wires across the school campus, connecting several classrooms. His students never knew when he might be listening in on them!
Reis's telephon used a steel rod about the size of a knitting needle to receive sounds. A coil of wire around the steel rod transformed it into an electromagnet. As current passed through the wire, the electromagnet made the needle vibrate, generating sound waves. Reis used a diaphragm made of animal skin in his transmitter. This distorted the sounds, because the skin would loosen or tighten depending on the amount of moisture in the air. Still, Reis could hear his students, and Reis telephones were manufactured and sold. German scientists, however, dismissed his invention as a toy.
Reis died in 1874, convinced that he had participated in the birth of a great invention that only future generations would appreciate. He was right.
Copyright ©2001 by Elaine Marie Alphin