Alexander Graham Bell was an influential scientist engineer, and inventor who is considered to be the inventor of the first practical telephone. Bell’s mother and wife were both deaf, and this motivated his research on hearing and speech.
Bell experimented with sound, working with devices such as ‘harmonic telegraph,’ that is used to send multiple messages over a single wire. While trying to discover the secret to transmitting multiple messages on a single wire, Bell heard the sound of a plucked string along some of the electrical wire. This was caused because one of Bell’s assistants, Thomas A. Watson, was trying to reactivate a transmitter. It made Bell believe he could send the sound of a human voice over the wire.
After receiving a patent on March 7th, 1876, for transmitting sound along a single wire, he successfully transmitted human speech on March 10.
Bell’s first words with the working telephone were spoken to his assistant Watson. They were “Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.”
Bell also had a strong interest in other scientific fields, conducting medical research, searching for alternative fuel sources, developing hydrofoil watercraft and much more.