Johann Philipp Reis - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Johann Philipp Reis was a self-taught German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

scientist and inventor. In 1861, he constructed the first make-and-break telephone

Telephone

The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...

, today called the Reis telephone

Reis telephone

The Reis telephone, was an invention by Philipp Reis inspired by a French article in 1854 on how to create microphone-like devices...

Early life and education

Reis was born in Gelnhausen

Gelnhausen

Gelnhausen is a town and the capital of the Main-Kinzig-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. It is located approx. 40 kilometers east of Frankfurt am Main, between the Vogelsberg mountains and the Spessart range at the river Kinzig...

, Germany

Germany

. Reis's mother died while he was an infant, and he was raised by his paternal grandmother, a well-read, intelligent woman. At the age of six Reis was sent to the common school of his home town of Gelnhausen. Here his talents attracted the notice of his instructors, who advised his father to extend his education at a higher college. His father died before Reis was ten years old. His grandmother and guardians placed him at Garnier's Institute, in Friedrichsdorf

Friedrichsdorf

Friedrichsdorf is a town of the Hochtaunuskreis, some north of Frankfurt am Main in Hesse, Germany.-Location: Friedrichsdorf is located in the Taunus area, ranking third among the Hochtaunuskreis boroughs after Bad Homburg vor der Höhe and Oberursel...

, where he showed a taste for languages, and acquired both French and English, as well as a stock of miscellaneous information from the library.
At the end of his fourteenth year, Reis was accepted to a Hassel Institute, at Frankfurt am Main

Frankfurt

Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...

, where he learned Latin and Italian. A love of science became apparent, and his guardians were recommended to send him to the Polytechnic School of Karlsruhe

Karlsruhe

The City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states...

. His uncle wished him to become a merchant, and on March 1, 1850, Reis was apprenticed as a paints dealer in the establishment of J. F. Beyerbach, of Frankfurt, against his will. He told his uncle that he would learn the business chosen for him, but would continue his preferred studies as he could.

By diligent service he won the esteem of Beyerbach, and devoted his leisure to self-improvement, taking private lessons in mathematics

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

and physics

Physics

Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...

and attending the lectures of Professor R. Bottger on mechanics at the Trade School. When his apprenticeship ended, Reis attended the Institute of Dr. Poppe, in Frankfurt. As neither history nor geography was taught there, several of the students agreed to instruct each other in these subjects. Reis undertook geography, and believed he had found his true vocation in the art of teaching. He also became a member of the Physical Society of Frankfurt.

In 1855, he completed his year of military service at Kassel

Kassel

Kassel is a town located on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Kassel Regierungsbezirk and the Kreis of the same name and has approximately 195,000 inhabitants.- History :...

, then returned to Frankfurt to qualify as a teacher of mathematics and science by means of private study and public lectures. His intention was to finish his training at the University of Heidelberg, but in the spring of 1858 he visited his old friend and master, Hofrath Garnier, who offered him a post in Garnier's Institute.

On 14 September, 1859, Reis married, and shortly after he moved to Friedrichsdorf, to begin his new career as a teacher.

The telephone

Reis imagined electricity could be propagated through space, as light can, without the aid of a material conductor, and he performed some experiments on the subject. The results were described in a paper, "On the Radiation of Electricity", which, in 1859, he mailed to Professor Poggendorff for insertion in the then well-known periodical, Annalen der Physik. The manuscript was rejected, to the great disappointment of the sensitive young teacher.

Reis, like Bell

Alexander Graham Bell

Alexander Graham Bell was an eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone....

would later do, had studied the organs of ear and the idea of an apparatus for transmitting sound by means of electricity had floated on his mind for years. Inspired by his physics lessons he attacked the problem, and was rewarded with success. In 1860, he constructed the first prototype of a telephone

Telephone

, which could cover a distance of 100 meters. In 1862, he again tried to interest Poggendorff with an account of his "telephon", as he called it. His second offering was also rejected, like the first. The learned professor, it seems, regarded the transmission of speech by electricity as a chimera; Reis bitterly attributed the failure to his being "only a poor schoolmaster."

Reis had difficulty interesting people in Germany in his invention despite demonstrating it to (among others) Wilhelm von Legat, Inspector of the Royal Prussian Telegraph Corps in 1862. It aroused more interest in the United States In 1872, when Professor Vanderwyde demonstrated it in New York.

Prior to 1947, the Reis device was tested by the British company Standard Telephones and Cables (STC). The results also confirmed it could faintly transmit and receive speech. At the time STC was bidding for a contract with Alexander Graham Bell's American Telephone and Telegraph Company, and the results were covered up by STC's chairman Sir Frank Gill to maintain Bell's reputation.

Previous experimenters

Since the invention of the telephone, attention has been called to the fact that, in 1854, M. Charles Bourseul

Charles Bourseul

Charles Bourseul was a pioneer in development of the "make and break" telephone about 20 years before Bell made a practical telephone....

, a French telegraphist, had conceived a plan for conveying sounds and even speech by electricity:
Bourseul deserves the credit of being perhaps the first to devise an electric telephone and try to make it; but Reis deserves the honor of first realising the idea as a device to transmit and receive sounds electrically.

Bourseul's idea seems to have attracted little notice at the time, and was soon forgotten. Even the Count du Moncel, who was ever ready to welcome a promising invention, evidently regarded it as a fantastic notion. It is very doubtful Reis had ever heard of it. Reis was led to conceive a similar apparatus by a study of the mechanism of the human ear, which he knew contained a membrane which vibrated due to sound waves, and communicated its vibrations through the hammer-bone behind it to the auditory nerve. It therefore occurred to him, if he made a diaphragm to imitate this membrane and caused it, by vibrating, to make and break the circuit of an electric current, he would be able through the magnetic power of the interrupted current to reproduce the original sounds at a distance.

During 1837-38 Professor Page of Massachusetts had discovered that a needle or thin bar of iron, placed in the hollow of a coil or bobbin of insulated wire, would emit an audible 'tick' at each interruption of a current, flowing in the coil, and if these separate ticks followed each other fast enough, by a rapid interruption of the current, they would run together into a continuous hum, to which he gave the name galvanic music. He also found that the pitch of this note corresponded to the rate of the current's interruption. These faint sounds were due to magnetostriction

Magnetostriction

Magnetostriction is a property of ferromagnetic materials that causes them to change their shape or dimensions during the process of magnetization. The variation of material's magnetization due to the applied magnetic field changes the magnetostrictive strain until reaching its saturation value, λ...

. From these and other discoveries by Noad, Wertheim, Marrian, and others, Reis knew that if the current which had been interrupted by his vibrating diaphragm were conveyed to a distance by wires and then passed through a coil like that of Page's, the iron needle would emit notes like those which had caused the oscillation of the transmitting diaphragm. Acting on this knowledge, he constructed his rudimentary telephone. Reis' prototype is now in the museum of the Reichs Post-Amt, Berlin.

Shortcomings

Another of his early transmitters was a rough model of the human ear, carved in oak, and provided with a drum which actuated a bent and pivoted lever of platinum

Platinum

Platinum is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Pt and an atomic number of 78. Its name is derived from the Spanish term platina del Pinto, which is literally translated into "little silver of the Pinto River." It is a dense, malleable, ductile, precious, gray-white transition metal...

, making it open and close a springy contact of platinum foil in the metallic circuit of the current. He devised some ten or twelve different forms, each an improvement on its predecessors, which transmitted music fairly well, and even a word or two of speech with more or less fidelity.

The discovery of the microphone by Professor Hughes has demonstrated the reason of this failure. Reis' transmitter was based on interrupting the current, and the spring was intended to close the contact after it had been opened by the shock of a vibration. So long as the sound was a musical tone it proved efficient, for a musical tone is a regular succession of vibrations. The vibrations of speech are irregular and complicated, and in order to transmit them the current has to be varied in strength without being altogether broken. The waves excited in the air by the voice should merely produce corresponding waves in the current. In short, the current ought to undulate in sympathy with the oscillations of the air. The Reis phone was poor at transmitting articulated speech, but was able to convey the pitch of the sound.

It appears from the report of Herr von Legat, an inspector with the Royal Prussian Telegraphs, which was published in 1862, Reis was quite aware of this principle, but his instrument was not well adapted to apply it. No doubt the platinum contacts he employed in the transmitter behaved to some extent as a crude metal microphone, and hence a few words, especially familiar or expected ones, could be transmitted and distinguished at the other end of the line. If Reis' phone was adjusted so the contact points made a "loose metallic contact", they would function much like the later telephone invented by Berliner

Emile Berliner

Emile Berliner or Emil Berliner was a German-born American inventor. He is best known for developing the disc record gramophone...

or the Hughes microphone, one form of which had iron nails in loose contact. Thus the Reis phone worked best for speech when it was slightly out of adjustment.

A history of the telephone from 1910 records that, "In the course of the Dolbear lawsuit, a Reis machine was brought into court, and created much amusement. It was able to squeak, but not to speak. Experts and professors wrestled with it in vain. It refused to transmit one intelligible sentence. ‘It can speak, but it won't,’ explained one of Dolbear's lawyers." It is now generally known that while a Reis machine, when clogged and out of order, would transmit a word or two in an imperfect way, it was built on the wrong lines. It was no more a telephone than a wagon is a sleigh, even though it is possible to chain the wheels and make them slide for a foot or two. Said Judge Lowell, in rendering his famous decision:
Reis does not seem to have realised the importance of not entirely breaking the circuit of the current; at all events, his metal spring was not practical for this, for it allowed the metal contacts to jolt too far apart, and thus interrupt the electrical current.

His experiments were made in a little workshop behind his home at Friedrichsdorff; and wires were run from it to an upper chamber. Another line was erected between the physical cabinet at Garnier's Institute across the playground to one of the classrooms, and there was a tradition in the school that the boys were afraid of creating an uproar in the room for fear that Philipp Reis would hear them with his "telephon".

Publication

Reis' new invention was articulated in a lecture before the Physical Society of Frankfurt on 26 October 1861, and a description, written by himself for Jahresbericht a month or two later. It created a good deal of scientific excitement in Germany; models of it were sent abroad, to London, Dublin, Tiflis, and other places. It became a subject for popular lectures, and an article for scientific cabinets.

Reis obtained brief renown, but rejection soon set in. The Physical Society of Frankfurt turned its back on the apparatus which had given it lustre. Reis resigned in 1867, but the Free German Institute of Frankfurt, which elected him as an honorary member, also slighted the instrument as a mere "philosophical toy".

Reis believed in his invention, even if no one else did; and had he been encouraged by his peers from the beginning he might have perfected it. He was already stricken with tuberculosis

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

, however. After Reis gave a lecture on the telephone at Gießen

Gießen

Gießen, also spelt Giessen is a town in the German federal state of Hesse, capital of both the district of Gießen and the administrative region of Gießen...

in 1854, Poggendorff, who was present, invited him to send a description of his instrument to the Annalen. Reis, it is said, replied: "Ich danke Ihnen sehr, Herr Professor, aber es ist zu spät. Jetzt will ich ihn nicht schicken. Mein Apparat wird ohne Beschreibung in den Annalen bekannt werden" ("Thank you very much, Professor, but it is too late. Now I do not want to send it. My apparatus will become known without any description in the Annalen.")

Final days

Later, Reis confined his teaching and scientific studies, but his failing health become a serious impediment. For several years it was only by the exercise of his strong will that he was able to carry on with his duties. His voice began to fail as his lung disease became more pronounced, and in the summer of 1873 he was obliged to forsake his tutoring duties for several weeks. An autumn vacation strengthened his hopes of recovery and he resumed his teaching, but it was to be the last flicker of his expiring flame. It was announced that he would show his new gravity-machine at a meeting of the Gesellschaft Deutscher Naturforscher und Ärzte (Society of German Scientists and Physicians) of Wiesbaden in September, but he was too ill to appear. In December he lay down and, after a long and painful illness, breathed his last at five o'clock in the afternoon of January 14, 1874.

In his Curriculum Vitae he wrote:
Philipp Reis was buried in the cemetery of Friedrichsdorff, and in 1878, after the introduction of the electric telephone, the members of the Physical Society of Frankfurt erected an obelisk of red sandstone bearing a medallion portrait over his grave.

Recognition and technological assessment

In 1878, four years after his death and two years after Bell received his first telephone patent, European scientists dedicated a monument to Philip Reis as the inventor of the telephone.

Documents of 1947 in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

's Science Museum

Science Museum (London)

The Science Museum is one of the three major museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is part of the National Museum of Science and Industry. The museum is a major London tourist attraction....

later showed that after their technical adjustments, engineers from the British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

firm Standard Telephones and Cables

Standard Telephones and Cables

Standard Telephones and Cables Ltd was a British telephone, telegraph, radio, telecommunications and related equipment R&D manufacturer. During its history STC invented and developed several groundbreaking new technologies including PCM and optical fibres.The company began life in London as...

(STC) found Reis' telephone dating from 1863 could transmit and "reproduce speech of good quality, but of low efficiency".

Sir Frank Gill, then chairman of STC, ordered the tests to be kept secret, as STC was then negotiating with AT&T

AT&T

AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...

, which had evolved from the Bell Telephone Company

Bell Telephone Company

The Bell Telephone Company, a common law joint stock company, was organized in Boston, Massachusetts on July 9, 1877 by Alexander Graham Bell's father-in-law Gardiner Greene Hubbard, who also helped organize a sister company — the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company...

, created by Alexander Graham Bell. Professor Bell was generally accepted as having invented the telephone and Gill thought that evidence to the contrary might disrupt the on-going negotiations.

Johann-Philipp-Reis Preis (Award)

The VDE (the German electrical engineering association), Deutsche Telekom

Deutsche Telekom

Deutsche Telekom AG is a telecommunications company headquartered in Bonn, Germany. It is the largest telecommunications company in Europe....

and the cities of Friedrichsdorf and Gelnhausen biannually present the Johann-Philipp-Reis Preis (prize) to scientists for "....distinguished scientific achievements in the area of communication technology".

Telephone invention controversies

Besides Reis and Bell

Alexander Graham Bell

Alexander Graham Bell was an eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone....

, many others claimed to have invented the telephone. The result was the Gray-Bell telephone controversy, one of the United States' longest running patent interference

Interference proceeding

An interference proceeding, also known as priority contest, is an inter partes proceeding to determine the priority issues of multiple patent applications. It is a unique procedure in the patent law of the United States. Unlike in most other countries which have adopted the first-to-file system,...

cases, involving Bell, Thomas Alva Edison, Elisha Gray

Elisha Gray

Elisha Gray was an American electrical engineer who co-founded the Western Electric Manufacturing Company...

, Emil Berliner, Amos Dolbear

Amos Dolbear

Amos Emerson Dolbear was an American physicist and inventor. His patents interfered with Guglielmo Marconi's planned activities in the U.S. Dolbear researched electrical spark conversion into sound waves and electrical impulses. He was a professor at University of Kentucky in Lexington from 1868...

, J. W. McDonagh, G. B. Richmond, W. L. Voeker, J. H. Irwin, and Francis Blake Jr

Francis Blake (telephone)

Francis Blake, Jr. was born in Needham, Massachusetts, the son of Caroline Burling and Francis Blake, Sr. and died in Weston, Massachusetts....

. The case started in 1878 and was not finalised until February 27, 1901. Bell and the Bell Telephone Company

Bell Telephone Company

triumphed in this crucial decision, as well as every one of the over 600 other court decisions related to the invention of the telephone. The Bell Telephone Company never lost a case that had proceeded to a final trial stage.

Another controversy arose over a century later when the U.S. Congress passed a resolution in 2002 recognizing Italian-American Antonio Meucci

Antonio Meucci

Antonio Santi Giuseppe Meucci was an Italian inventor, a compatriot of revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi. He was best known for developing a voice communication apparatus which several sources credit as the first telephone....

's contributions in the invention of the telephone (not for the invention of the telephone), a declaration that bore no legal or other standing at the United States Patent and Trademark Office

United States Patent and Trademark Office

The United States Patent and Trademark Office is an agency in the United States Department of Commerce that issues patents to inventors and businesses for their inventions, and trademark registration for product and intellectual property identification.The USPTO is based in Alexandria, Virginia,...

(USPTO). Canada's Parliament quickly followed with a tit-for-tat declaration

Canadian Parliamentary Motion on Alexander Graham Bell

The Canadian Parliamentary Motion on Alexander Graham Bell, in the first session of Canada's 37th Parliament was unanimously passed by all four parties of its federal government on June 21, 2002, to affirm that Alexander Graham Bell, who had lived in both Brantford, Ontario and Baddeck, Nova Scotia...

, which clarified: "....that Alexander Graham Bell of Brantford, Ont., and Baddeck, N.S., [was] the inventor of the telephone." Prior to his death, Meucci had lost his only concluded Federal lawsuit trial related to the telephone's invention

Invention of the telephone

The invention of the telephone is the culmination of work done by many individuals, the history of which involves a collection of claims and counterclaims. The development of the modern telephone involved an array of lawsuits founded upon the patent claims of several individuals...

External links

The "Telephon" of Philipp Reis by Basilio Catania
"Bell 'did not invent telephone'" - BBC News article

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