Speakout Advanced p 77. Mobile Phones. Extra Cloze

THE TELEPHONE

In the 1870s, two inventors Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell both (1) _____________________ designed devices that could transmit speech electrically (the telephone). Both men rushed their respective designs to the patent office within hours of each other; Alexander Graham Bel patented his telephone first. Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell entered into a famous legal battle over the invention of the telephone, which Bell won.

Alexander Graham Bell – Evolution of the Telegraph into the Telephone

The telegraph and telephone are both wire-based electrical systems, and Alexander Graham Bell’s success with the telephone came as a direct (2) _____________________ of his attempts to improve the telegraph.

When Bell began experimenting with electrical signals, the telegraph had been an established means of communication for some 30 years. (3) ______________________ a highly successful system, the telegraph, with its dot-and-dash Morse code was basically limited to receiving and sending one message at a time. Bell’s extensive knowledge of the nature of sound and his understanding of music (4) ______________________ him to conjecture the possibility of transmitting multiple messages over the same wire at the same time. Although the idea of a multiple telegraph had been in existence for some time, Bell offered his own musical or harmonic approach as a possible practical solution. His “harmonic telegraph” was based on the principle that several notes could be sent simultaneously along the same wire if the notes or signals differed in pitch.

Alexander Graham Bell – Talk with Electricity

By October 1874, Bell’s research had progressed to the (5) _____________________ that he could inform his future father-in-law, Boston attorney Gardiner Greene Hubbard, about the possibility of a multiple telegraph. Hubbard, who resented the absolute control (6) ______________________ exerted by the Western Union Telegraph Company, instantly saw the potential for breaking such a monopoly and gave Bell the financial (7) ______________________ he needed. Bell proceeded with his work on the multiple telegraph, but he did not tell Hubbard that he and Thomas Watson, a young electrician whose services he had enlisted, were also exploring an idea that had occurred to him that summer – that of developing a (8) ______________________ that would transmit speech electrically.

While Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson worked on the harmonic telegraph at the insistent urging of Hubbard and other backers, Bell nonetheless met, in March 1875, Joseph Henry, the respected director of the Smithsonian Institution, who listened to Bell’s ideas for a telephone and offered (9) _____________________ words. Spurred on by Henry’s positive opinion, Bell and Watson continued their work. By June 1875 the goal of creating something that would transmit speech electrically was about to be (10) ______________________.

Adapted from: http://inventors.about.com/od/bstartinventors/a/telephone.htm



KEY


1. INDEPENDENTLY



2. RESULT



3. ALTHOUGH



4. ENABLED



5. EXTENT



6. THEN



7. BACKING



8. DEVICE



9. ENCOURAGING



10. ACHIEVED


If you are interested in the origins of the mobile phone, why don't you visit The BBC Archive?