Pioneers

toc Read the texts about pioneers in the field of communication. Find out what each person invented. Gutenberg; Braille; Morse; Bell



Bell
A pioneer in the field of telecommunications, Alexander Graham Bell was born in 1847 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He moved to Ontario, and then to the United States, settling in Boston, before beginning his career as an inventor. Throughout his life, Bell had been interested in the education of deaf people. This interest lead him to invent the microphone and, in 1876, his "electrical speech machine," which we now call a telephone. News of his invention quickly spread throughout the country, even throughout Europe. By 1878, Bell had set up the first telephone exchange in New Haven, Connecticut. By 1884, long distance connections were made between Boston, Massachusetts and New York City. ===Bell imagined great uses for his telephone, like [|this model from the 1920s], but would he ever have imagined telephone lines being used to transmit video images? Since his death in 1922, the telecommunication industry has undergone an amazing revolution. Today, non-hearing people are able to use a special display telephone to communicate. [|Fiber optics] are improving the quality and speed of data transmission. Actually, your ability to access this information relies upon telecommunications technology. Bell's "electrical speech machine" paved the way for the Information Superhighway. ===

Gutenberg


//"In our time, thanks to the talent and industry of those from the Rhine, books have emerged in lavish numbers. A book that once would've belonged only to the rich -- nay, to a king -- can now be seen under a modest roof. ... There is nothing nowadays that our children ... fail to know."// - Sebastian Brant, written about the printing press just after 1500. 
 * In less than 50 years after the invention of the printing press, fifteen million books had been flung into a world where previously scholars would travel miles to visit a library stocked with twenty hand-written volumes. And those books reflected some thirty thousand titles.
 * Books produced in this period, between the first work of Johann Gutenberg in 1450 and the year 1500, are collectively referred to as incunabula.
 * Gutenberg changed plans at least three times while printing the Bible
 * The Bible that Gutenberg printed was a Latin translation from about 380 AD
 * There are many statues of Gutenberg in Germany -- one of the more famous being a work by Thorvaldsen, in Mainz, home to the Gutenberg Museum.


 * 

Samuel F. B. Morse
Once a portrait painter, turned to inventing to make his fortune. Morse had little training in electricity but realized that pulses of electrical current could convey information over wires. > Born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, the eldest child of the Reverend Jedidiah Morse and his wife, Elizabeth Ann Breese, Samuel Morse attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and entered[|Yale College] in 1805, graduating in 1810. > > Morse took out three patents on pumps in 1817 with his brother, Sidney Edwards Morse. Samuel Morse's interest in telegraphy began in 1832, and the elements of a relay system were worked out late in 1835. The equipment was gradually improved and was demonstrated in 1837. To support himself later in life Morse was largely dependent on dividends from telegraph companies.In 1858 several European countries combined to pay a gratuity of 400,000 francs as compensation for their use of his system.  Six dots. Six bumps. Six bumps in different patterns, like constellations, spreading out over the page. What are they? Numbers, letters, words. Who made this code? None other than Louis Braille, a French 12-year-old, who was also blind. And his work changed the world of reading and writing, forever. || ||
 * || ===Louis Braille (1809-1852)=== ||||  ||
 * [[image:http://www.afb.org/braillebug/clear_pix.gif width="2" height="5"]] ||
 * [[image:http://www.afb.org/braillebug/clear_pix.gif width="15" height="2"]] || Louis was from a small town called Coupvray, near Paris—he was born on January 4 in 1809. Louis became blind by accident, when he was 3 years old. Deep in his Dad's harness workshop, Louis tried to be like his Dad, but it went very wrong; he grabbed an awl, a sharp tool for making holes, and the tool slid and hurt his eye. The wound got infected, and the infection spread, and soon, Louis was blind in both eyes. ||
 * [[image:http://www.afb.org/braillebug/clear_pix.gif width="2" height="15"]] ||
 * [[image:http://www.afb.org/braillebug/clear_pix.gif width="15" height="2"]] || All of a sudden, Louis needed a new way to learn. He stayed at his old school for two more years, but he couldn't learn everything just by listening. Things were looking up when Louis got a scholarship to the Royal Institution for Blind Youth in Paris, when he was 10. But even there, most of the teachers just talked at the students. The library had 14 huge books with raised letters that were very hard to read. Louis was impatient. ||
 * [[image:http://www.afb.org/braillebug/clear_pix.gif width="2" height="15"]] ||
 * [[image:http://www.afb.org/braillebug/clear_pix.gif width="15" height="2"]] || Then in 1821, a former soldier named Charles Barbier visited the school. Barbier shared his invention called "night writing," a code of 12 raised dots that let soldiers share top-secret information on the battlefield without even having to speak. Unfortunately, the code was too hard for the soldiers, but not for 12-year-old Louis! ||
 * [[image:http://www.afb.org/braillebug/clear_pix.gif width="2" height="15"]] ||
 * [[image:http://www.afb.org/braillebug/clear_pix.gif width="15" height="2"]] || Louis trimmed Barbier's 12 dots into 6, ironed out the system by the time he was 15, then published the first-ever braille book in 1829. But did he stop there? No way! In 1837, he added symbols for math and music. But since the public was skeptical, blind students had to study braille on their own. Even at the Royal Institution, where Louis taught after he graduated, braille wasn't taught until after his death. Braille began to spread worldwide in 1868, when a group of British men, now known as the Royal National Institute for the Blind, took up the cause. ||
 * [[image:http://www.afb.org/braillebug/clear_pix.gif width="2" height="15"]] ||
 * [[image:http://www.afb.org/braillebug/clear_pix.gif width="15" height="2"]] || Now practically every country in the world uses braille. Braille books have double-sided pages, which saves a lot of space. Braille signs help blind people get around in public spaces. And, most important, blind people can communicate independently, without needing print. ||
 * [[image:http://www.afb.org/braillebug/clear_pix.gif width="2" height="15"]] ||
 * [[image:http://www.afb.org/braillebug/clear_pix.gif width="15" height="2"]] || Louis proved that if you have the motivation, you can do incredible things. ||