Telegraph, the first device to allow people to finally “text “ one-another even an ocean away. I would be writing about more specifically about the electric telegraph.Basically a telegraph is a machine that is able to send information through Morse’s code. The telegraph was the first to send information to one place to another no matter the distance and in a matter of minutes! This means that important information like treaties, war status, etc could be sent without waiting weeks for a letter. 
The invention of the electric telegraph is mostly thank by two set of researchers: Sir William and Sir Charles Wheatstone also Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail. Morse and Vail helped to develop what now we know as Morse’s code which is made up of dots and dashes for each letter of the alphabet. While William and Charles are credited with building the machine itself in 1830s after the discovery of the first battery by Alessandro Volta and Hans Christian Oersted discovery of the connection between electricity and magnets. Soon their machine was used in British railroads station to the rest of the world in matter of time and grew since then.
In a basic wired electric telegraph, the setup is fairly simple. The is the telegraph key which basically is a switch. This mean that when the lever is pushed down the circuit is complete, creating a dot or a dash. This signal is then transmitted through the wire and then to a receive were the wire is wrapped around a metallic object creating an electromagnet. This could either attract an arm with a pencil on the end that is spring load, so when the circuit is complete it would bring the arm down causing the pencil to draw a dot or a dash on an piece of paper. The other way is allow the electromagnet to attract a metal object causing the “click” and “clack” sound. And of course all of this is power by a battery of some sort.
What does the electric telegraph serve in today’s world? Nothing.... It is as effective now as smoke signals. There is so much better options now like the internet, telephones, even pagers. It is still used in airplanes and such when voice communication become distorted because signals from a electric telegraph are difficult to become distorted. So at least the telegraph still has that going for it.
FUN FACT: Most common letters like the letter "e" have less complicated string of code while less common letters are the opposite.
Got any recommendations? Feel free to send it in the comments what other technology you would like for me to cover!
source:http://www.history.com/topics/inventions/telegraph
http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2014/02/04/granville-woods-and-induction-telegraphy/id=47767/
I’ve been telling you for years that we need to get some of these. It would be awesome to learn morse code! Anyways great blog! I look forward to next week’s.
ReplyDeleteMorse code is something which I have always been interested in, and your analysis pretty much answered all inquiries I had on the subject. I loved your title, though it embarrassingly took me a little while to understand what it meant!...
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting to know about Morse code and the process of how it is utilized. I also have always been interested in Morse code and have been wanting to know to use it. Great blog!
ReplyDeleteWhen I first saw the title of your post, I thought that it hadn't loaded right! Of all forms of communicating, morse code is definitely one of the more intriguing ones. How do Asian languages utilize it?
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