Alexander Graham Bell patented his “electrical
speech machine” 140 years ago. A few months later he tried unsuccessfully to
sell the patent to Western Union. Apparently the company didn’t think the
invention had much promise.
I think Bell would have bet the ranch
that it was plain crazy to imagine that people would someday be able to walk
down the street while they were talking to a friend on the other side of the
world. One story has it that Bell thought folks would use the telephone primarily
to listen to distant musical performances.
In his youth Bell was a dedicated
tinkerer, with a steady penchant for inventing gadgets and stuff. Before the
telephone became a reality, he and his brothers “built a working model of a
mouth, throat, nose, and movable tongue, and attached a set of bellows for
lungs. They were so successful in getting the model to wail 'MaMa' that the neighbors began to search for a child in distress.”
What are your kids inventing these
days?
Copyright © Richard Carl
Subber 2012 All rights reserved.
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