Introduction
In 1875, Alexander Graham Bell, a Scotsman working with deaf children in Boston, MA, had rigged up a complex apparatus to transmit sound by electric current. As his assistant Thomas Watson recalled, all was disappointment until one day a tiny contact jammed.
ONE of the transmitter springs I was attending to stopped vibrating and I plucked it to start it again. It didn’t start and I kept on plucking it, when suddenly I heard a shout from Bell in the next room, and then out he came with a rush, demanding, “What did you do then? Don’t change anything. Let me see!” I showed him.
It was very simple. The contact screw was screwed down so far that it made permanent contact with the spring, so that when I snapped the spring the circuit had remained unbroken.* That undulatory current had passed through the connecting wire to the distant receiver, but what was still more fortunate, the right man had that mechanism at his ear during that fleeting moment, and instantly recognized the transcendent importance of that faint sound. The shout I heard and his excited rush into my room were the result of that recognition. The speaking telephone was born at that moment.
Bell used multiple springs or reeds, and battery-powered circuit interruptors. The variable sound Bell heard when Watson twanged a reed showed Bell two things: first, that this additional circuitry, which was jammed in an ‘on’ position, was superfluous; and second, that a single reed and receiver could handle a range of tones.
Précis
The idea behind the first working telephone was discovered by accident in 1875 in Boston, USA, when Thomas Watson struggled with a jammed component in an early experiment by Scottish tutor to the deaf, Alexander Graham Bell. Watson inadvertently sent a sound signal over a wire which Bell heard, and recognised as the breakthrough he craved. (56 / 60 words)
The idea behind the first working telephone was discovered by accident in 1875 in Boston, USA, when Thomas Watson struggled with a jammed component in an early experiment by Scottish tutor to the deaf, Alexander Graham Bell. Watson inadvertently sent a sound signal over a wire which Bell heard, and recognised as the breakthrough he craved.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 60 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 50 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: about, besides, must, not, or, otherwise, unless, until.
Word Games
Sevens Based on this passage
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Variations: 1.expand your answer to exactly fourteen words. 2.expand your answer further, to exactly twenty-one words. 3.include one of the following words in your answer: if, but, despite, because, (al)though, unless.
Jigsaws Based on this passage
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
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