Silvanus P. Thompson

“ But hardest of all is it to believe that when at last attempts were made to give to him, whose name and fame had thus been permitted to languish, the credit of the splendid researches in which he wore his life away, those attempts could be met on the one hand by an almost complete apathy, and on the other by a chorus of denial, not only that any such invention was made, but that the inventor had ever intended to invent anything of the kind. ”

“ But Bell’s thin steel tongue, though it has its own fundamental note (and so has every tympanum, for that matter) when left free to vibrate in its own time, will reproduce any other note or sound that may be forced upon it by the varying attraction of the electro-magnet. There is, indeed, the whole difference between “free” and “forced” vibrations. One of the strangest delusions that has somehow grown up in recent telephonic discussions is the almost incredible proposition that a tongue cannot talk because it is a tongue. ”

“ A speech is none the less a speech, even if the orator sneeze once or twice while speaking. Nay, we may go further, and say that an undulatory current is an undulatory current, even though the finer ripples of the waves are lost in transmission. This is what seems to have been the case with Reis’s instruments as they were in 1861 and 1862. The consonants were satisfactorily transmitted, and so were all musical tones within the range of the instrument. But the finer ripples of the vowels were lost somehow in transmission. ”

“ Philipp Reis, the inventor of the Telephone, the first to scheme, and carry out into execution, an instrument for conveying to a distance by means of electric currents the tones of human speech and human song, is no longer amongst the living. He cannot [36] reclaim for himself the honours that have been showered upon the heads of others, who, however worthy of those honours they were—none will deny that—were only not the first to deserve them. ”

“ Reis was perfectly well aware, as his curves show, that a complicated sound-wave does not consist invariably of one condensation followed by one rarefaction, but that there are all sorts of degrees of condensation which may follow one another, and all capable of being represented by a curve. If all sounds consisted of one rarefaction following immediately after each one condensation there might be some propriety in proposing that after each “make” of contact there should be a “break” in the sense of an abrupt or complete breach in the continuity of the current. ”

“ Though he chiefly employed one metal for his contact-pieces, he did not limit himself to that one, but left us to infer that the principle of variable contact was applicable to any good conductor, metallic or non-metallic. He knew better, indeed, than to limit himself in any such fashion; better, indeed, than some of the eminent persons who are now so willing to ignore his claims. Modern practice has taught us to improve the tympanum part of Reis’s invention, and to obviate the inconveniences to which a membrane is liable: in that part we have gone beyond Reis. ”

“ Still, in practice, to judge by the instruments used in the telephone exchanges of Great Britain, the Blake transmitter with its liability to make-and-brake abruptly is a more satisfactory instrument than the Bell transmitter, which is not used at all. Now the Bell transmitter [169] working on the principle of which Bell is the first and undisputed inventor, is one in which the degree of contact in the circuit is never changed: for it works by the principle of “induction,” whereby currents are set up in a circuit that is never opened or closed, either partially or wholly. ”

“ So I then went up into the room where stood the telephone, and purposely uttered some nonsensical sentences, for instance: ‘Die Sonne ist von Kupfer’ (The sun is made of copper) , which Reis understood as, ‘Die Sonne ist von Zucker’ (The sun is made of sugar) ; ‘Das Pferd frisst keinen Gurkensalat’ (The horse eats no cucumber-salad) ; which Reis understood as ‘Das Pferd frisst....’ (The horse eats ...) . This was the last of these experiments which we tried. Those who were present were very greatly astonished, and were convinced that Reis’s invention had opened out a great future. ”

“ Our ear can perceive absolutely nothing more than is capable of being represented by similar curves, and this method is completely sufficient to bring before our clear consciousness every tone and every combination of tones. ”

“ If some unprejudiced person ventures to speak of Reis’s instrument as having, as a matter of history, transmitted speech, all the contemptuous reply that he gets from the eminent somebody, who poses as an authority for the moment, is: Oh, but, you know, it was only a tone-telephone, a musical toy, and when some one was singing to it you fancied you caught the words of the song which, during singing, were occasionally projected along with the music. I’ve always regarded the accounts of its transmission of speech as a good joke ”

“ The numerous experiments which Reis made, and the many [153] forms of instruments which he devised, prove his conviction of the importance of his invention to have been very deeply rooted. He had indeed penetrated to the very soul of the matter. He did not confine himself to one kind of tympanum, he tried many, now of bladder, now of collodion, now of isinglass, and now of thin metal. He varied the forms of his instruments in many ways, introducing the element of elasticity by springs and adjusting-screws. ”

“ The function of the organs of hearing, therefore, is to impart faithfully to the auditory nerve, every condensation and rarefaction occurring in the surrounding medium. The function of the auditory nerve is to bring to our consciousness the vibrations of matter resulting at the given time, both according to their number and their magnitude. Here, first, certain combinations acquire a distinct name: here, first the vibrations become musical tones or discords (Misstöne) . ”

“ One cannot help thinking that some claims to great inventions are just a little “too previous.”
If it should still be said that Reis’s method of transmitting speech, whether it did its work by undulatory currents or no, was avowedly imperfect, and that therefore such a claim as that quoted above is justified by the subsequent invention of an instrument the articulation of which was more reliable, let us compare what each inventor has said about the imperfections [54] of his own instrument. ”

“ Anything more than that which is exhibited in this way or by similar curves our ear cannot in the least perceive, and this is sufficient to bring to our consciousness each single tone and each given combination of tones. For, if several tones are produced at the same time, the sound-conducting medium is put under the influence of several simultaneously acting forces which are subject to the laws of mechanics.
If all the forces operate in the same sense, then the magnitude of the motion is proportional to the sum of the forces. ”

“ It is no less significant that when a decade later Varley, Gray, and Bell, set themselves to invent tone-telephones for the purpose of multiple telegraphy, they abandoned tympanums as being unsuitable for tone-telephones, and in lieu [43] thereof employed vibrating tongues like those of tuning-forks. Reis’s use of the tympanum had a very definite meaning then; it meant nothing less than this: I intend my instrument to transmit any sound that a human ear can hear. ”

“ Apart from our ear, every tone is nothing more than the condensation and rarefaction of a body repeated several times in a second (at least seven to eight times [15] ) . If this occurs in the same medium (the air) as that with which we are surrounded, then the membrane of our ear will be compressed toward the drum-cavity by every condensation, so that in the succeeding rarefaction it moves back in the opposite direction. ”

“ Reis invented the telephone, in the year 1861. I was much interested in his experiments, and visited him daily, giving him help and making suggestions. His first idea was to imitate the construction of the human ear. He constructed a funnel-shaped instrument, the back of which was covered with a skin of isinglass, upon which was fastened a piece of platinum, against which rested a platinum point. As receiver of the electric current he used a common knitting-needle, surrounded by a coil of insulated green wire, which was at first merely laid on a table. ”

“ Speaking of the two parts of his invention, the Transmitter and the Receiver, Reis himself says: [5] “The apparatus named the ‘Telephone,’ constructed by me, affords the possibility of evoking sound-vibrations in every manner that may be desired. Electro-magnetism affords the possibility of calling into life at any given distance vibrations similar to the vibrations that have been produced, and in this way to give out again in one place the tones that have been produced in another place.” ”

“ But this is precisely what occurs in a Reis’s transmitter if one talks too loudly to it. It is obvious that if Berliner’s transmitter is a “make-and-break” instrument, so is Reis’s, because the principle of action is identical: and it is also obvious that if Berliner’s instrument is capable of varying the resistance at the contact-points by interrupting the current in a manner corresponding to the pressures of the air in the sound-waves, so also is Reis’s instrument. ”

“ Assuming, then, broadly, that the observed resistance at a point of contact is due to the number of molecules in contact and to their individual resistances, it is evident that the property of varying resistance at contact ought to be most evident, ceteris paribus, in those substances which are the best conductors of electricity. Unfortunately, the cetera are not paria, for the question of fusibility comes in to spoil the comparison; and carbon, which has less fusibility than the metals, is commonly credited with giving a better result than any. ”

“ But in the question of contact-points for opening and closing the circuit in correspondence with the vibrations, we are only beginning to find how much Reis was a-head of us. We have been thrown off the track—blinded perhaps—by the false trail of the “semi-conductor” fallacy, or by the arbitrary and unnatural twist that has been given by telegraphists to Reis’s expression, “opening and closing the circuit,” forgetting that he practically told us that this operation was to be proportional to, “in correspondence with,” the undulations of the tympanum. ”

“ He started from a consideration of the mechanical structure of the human ear, and endeavoured to construct an instrument on those lines because the ear can take up all kinds of tones. Reis was not so foolish as to imagine that the construction of the human ear was solely designed for musical, to the exclusion of articulate tones. We are not aware that the epithet, Tone-Telephone, [39] was ever applied to Reis’s instruments until it became advisable (!) to seek a means of disparaging an old invention in order to exalt a new one. ”

“ We have now shown that Philipp Reis was the undisputed inventor of an instrument which he called the Telephone, which instrument can now be used to transmit speech; which was then used to transmit speech; and which was invented on purpose to transmit speech. So far the result of the examination into the facts of the case is conclusive enough. A more complete case could hardly be desired. No honest person could hesitate for want of proof, either greater in amount or more direct to the point. ”

“ As is known, tones arise from rarefactions and condensations of the air following quickly after one another. If these motions of the air, known as waves, strike upon the thin membrane, they press it against the little plate of platinum with which it is in contact, and immediately let it vibrate back again into the hollow cube (or so-called artificial ear) : they act so that the membrane now takes a form hollowed toward the cube, now bulged toward the outside. ”

“ We have seen above that by this is determined the number of interruptions of the electric current of our apparatus by means of the membrane and the platinum strip. The iron wire must therefore give out the tone in the same height or depth as that which struck the membrane. Now since a very far leading of the electricity makes it suffer scarcely any weakening in proper apparatus, it is intelligible that one can make the tone which acts on the membrane at one place audible, by means of the iron rod, at any desired distance. ”

“ Yet something more than a mere historic justice for the poor schoolmaster of Friedrichsdorf does the world owe; justice to the great invention that is now imperishably associated with his name: justice to the struggling family whom, instead of enriching, it impoverished ”

“ The lid is not wanted for this latter purpose—is an encumbrance; which, nevertheless, by its presence proves the more delicate functions of the instrument. Reis’s instructions in his ‘Prospectus,’ p. 86, are that pressing this lid down firmly upon the steel core increases the loudness of the sounds. Any one who wants not to succeed in receiving speech with Reis’s receiver has, as before, only to neglect reasonable precautions. He has only to use an imperfect or bad transmitter, or use it carelessly, or put the receiver to a sufficient distance from his ear, to attain this result. ”

“ Edison himself describes the contact-apparatus which Reis termed an “interrupter,” as a “circuit-closer,” or in another place as “circuit-breaking connections,” and, in his British Patent quoted above, as a “tension-regulator.” It is evident that if Reis could transmit speech by an interrupter which closed and opened the circuit (always in proportion to the vibrations) there is no reason why Edison seventeen years afterwards should not accomplish the same result by a similar means. ”

“ If, on the other hand, by altering the pressure or the amount of surface exposed, we change the degree of contact and cause fewer atoms of one piece to touch those of the other piece, the current meets with greater obstruction and cannot flow with such strength as before: it is partially “interrupted,” to use the expressive term employed by Reis.
Now this operation of varying the degree of pressure in order to vary the resistance of the interrupter or contact regulator, was distinctly contemplated by Reis. ”

“ That the tone is made audible at a distance by the electric agitations, and not by direct conduction of the sound-waves through the wires is proved in the most evident way of all, because one instantly hears no more the tone through the spiral when a good short circuit is made, as, for example, by laying upon the two wires which conduct the electricity a strip of sheet metal right in front of the spiral. ”