Talk:Alexander Graham Bell

Antonio Meucci

please note Antonio Meucci as the real Developer of the telephone, start to rewrite history in the correct way:

« H. Res. 269 In the House of Representatives, U.S., June 11, 2002. Whereas Antonio Meucci, the great Italian inventor, had a career that was both extraordinary and tragic; Whereas, upon immigrating to New York, Meucci continued to work with ceaseless vigor on a project he had begun in Havana, Cuba, an invention he later called the 'teletrofono', involving electronic communications; Whereas Meucci set up a rudimentary communications link in his Staten Island home that connected the basement with the first floor, and later, when his wife began to suffer from crippling arthritis, he created a permanent link between his lab and his wife's second floor bedroom; Whereas, having exhausted most of his life's savings in pursuing his work, Meucci was unable to commercialize his invention, though he demonstrated his invention in 1860 and had a description of it published in New York's Italian language newspaper; Whereas Meucci never learned English well enough to navigate the complex American business community; Whereas Meucci was unable to raise sufficient funds to pay his way through the patent application process, and thus had to settle for a caveat, a one year renewable notice of an impending patent, which was first filed on December 28, 1871; Whereas Meucci later learned that the Western Union affiliate laboratory reportedly lost his working models, and Meucci, who at this point was living on public assistance, was unable to renew the caveat after 1874; Whereas in March 1876, Alexander Graham Bell, who conducted experiments in the same laboratory where Meucci's materials had been stored, was granted a patent and was thereafter credited with inventing the telephone; Whereas on January 13, 1887, the Government of the United States moved to annul the patent issued to Bell on the grounds of fraud and misrepresentation, a case that the Supreme Court found viable and remanded for trial; Whereas Meucci died in October 1889, the Bell patent expired in January 1893, and the case was discontinued as moot without ever reaching the underlying issue of the true inventor of the telephone entitled to the patent; and Whereas if Meucci had been able to pay the $10 fee to maintain the caveat after 1874, no patent could have been issued to Bell Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the life and achievements of Antonio Meucci should be recognized, and his work in the invention of the telephone should be acknowledged. Attest:

Clerk.[6] » — Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.28.83.58 (talk) 21:49, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Read the past archives, and also find out more about this resolution. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 22:49, 1 October 2011 (UTC).

For a detailed review of HRes 269, see: Canadian Parliamentary Motion on Alexander Graham Bell, where it's parsed and analysed in a bit of detail. HarryZilber (talk) 00:26, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

The definitive claim for Meucci as inventor made in this edit was referenced merely to a newspaper report of "joyous claims in [Antonio Meucci]'s home land" following the Congress hearing of June 2002. From the other reference: "Several Italian encyclopaedias define Meucci as the inventor of the telephone". RV, again. --Old Moonraker (talk) 06:57, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Nonsense. The inventor of the telephone is Philipp Reis. --131.220.136.195 (talk) 14:37, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Please see the Reis item below. HarryZilber (talk) 18:42, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from , 19 October 2011

Under the heading "Competitors", second paragraph, in the sentence

With a change in administration and charges of conflict of interest (on both sides) arising from the original trial, the US Attorney General dropped the law suit on November 30, 1897 leaving several issues undecided on the merits.[83]

The term "law suit" should be "lawsuit".

Note use of the term "lawsuit" in the first paragraph of this section. There should be consistency within the article. 68.111.254.93 (talk) 08:08, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Done. Consistency within articles is good: thanks for noticing. --Old Moonraker (talk) 09:45, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Pilipp Reis

No word about Pilipp Reis? The first time Bell saw the Reis Telephone was in 1862 in Edinburgh together with his father and his brothers. In March 1875 he started working with the Reis Telephone at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. The Institute owned one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.240.246.105 (talk) 20:06, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Although this is off-topic, readers and editors should remember that Reis'es 'make-and-break' telephone design worked so poorly that its transmissions were barely understood by recipients. The phone as created by Reis was unusable for normal commercial purposes. Reis failed to obtain a patent for his telephone, despite his numerous demonstrations in front of distinguished guests.

That Bell was shown a Reis telephone around 1873 at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington by its director has been well documented in multiple accounts and known for many decades. Many other people besides Bell had either examined Reis telephones or read its descriptions in Europe, North, Central and South America, but it did nothing for them as just copying the device just copied its non-functional results. It was an electromagnetic telephonic device on the road to a working telephone, but it was not a working electromagnetic telephone itself. HarryZilber (talk) 18:39, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Uncited family relation

RELATIVES (SURVIVING) Alexander Graham Bell is a late relative of Ceri Willoughby, originally of Pendine. Though it seems this honour does not bestow free line rental.

That's not too surprizing, since Bell resigned from the enterprise bearing his name about 1885. HarryZilber (talk) 00:53, 19 December 2011 (UTC)