The next time your phone rings, you can thank Scotsman Alexander Graham Bell.
Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1847, Bell was a teacher of the deaf as a young man. He learned his profession from his father, who taught the hearing impaired and wrote schoolbooks on speech. In 1870, Bell’s father moved the family to Canada. Two years later Bell moved to Boston, where he gave private instruction to the deaf (including his future wife). His work with the deaf led to an interest in how sounds are produced by vibrations in the air. At age 29, Bell patented what he called the “speaking telegraph.” That was nearly 150 ago. Today, most phones rely on a different technology from the one Bell used. Even so, his work made phones part of our lives.