Biggest Contributors to Modern Communication
Alexander Graham Bell
Our world is one heck of a technologically advanced place - but it didn't start out that way. Read on and learn about the inventors who made huge contributions to the field of communications.
Guglielmo Marconi
Communication - Johannes Gutenberg
A German goldsmith named Johannes Gutenberg created the printing press (a printing machine with moveable letters and characters) in 1455. Before this invention, everything had to be written out by hand, which could take many years. But the printing press made it possible to produce books quickly and cheaply. This greatly impacted society by allowing everyone, including the poor, to have access to books and other literary works of art.Communication - Christopher Latham Sholes
In 1867, C.L. Shores, an American mechanical engineer, invented the modern-day typewriter with the help of his friends and business partners, Carlos Glidden and Samuel Soulé. Before the computer, the typewriter was the most important everyday business tool. When Sholes' typewriter keys kept jamming, he created a keyboard with separate keys. It was originally called the Sholes keyboard, but is now known as the standard QWERTY keyboard (the name comes from the first six letters in the top alphabet row), which is a universal fixture on all computers and word processors.Communication - Alexander Graham Bell
Ever wonder what life would be like without a phone? You'd have to walk or bike over to your friends' houses just to talk to them - what a drag! Well thank goodness for Alexander Graham Bell, who invented the telephone. According to the famous story, the first call occurred on March 6, 1876 when Bell called his assistant in another room and said, "Come here, Watson, I want you." Watson heard him through the receiver and came running. Soon after, the Bell Telephone Company (renamed AT&T and later Rogers) was founded and grew to be the largest telephone company in the world. And in 1924, they invented the first mobile phones to be used in New York City police cars.Communication - Nikola Tesla and Guglielmo Marconi
Peeps still argue over the original inventor of the wireless telegraph, or radio. Some claim it was Nikola Tesla, a Serbian scientist, while others say it was an Italian inventor named Guglielmo Marconi. Although Marconi was awarded the radio patent (the grant of a property right to the inventor) in 1897, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned it in 1943 and credited Tesla with inventing the modern radio based on his earlier work.Communication - Philo Farnsworth
In 1921, 14 year-old Philo Farnsworth conceived the world's first all-electronic television. He developed the image dissector device, the basis of all current electronic TVs, and in 1927, he became the first person to transmit a television image made up of 60 horizontal lines. Today, his repuation as one of the fathers of television remains strong in a sea of cable, satellite, digital and HD-TV.Communication - Walter Atanasoff and Clifford Berry
Professor John Atanasoff and graduate student Clifford Berry built the world's first electronic-digital computer at Iowa State University between 1939 and 1942. The Atanasoff-Berry Computer was the size of a desk, weighed 700 pounds and contained a mile of wire! The ABC could calculate about one operation every 15 seconds - compare that to today's computers, which calculate 150 billion operations in 15 seconds.Related Stories:
