Antonio Meucci

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Antonio 'Santi Giuseppe' Meucci, (born 13 April 1808, died 18 October 1896) was an Italian American inventor, and sometimes credited as the inventor of the telephone. He married Ester Mochi on 7 August 1834 with Esther Meucci.

Contents

Biography

He was born in San Frediano near Florence. He studied chemical and mechanical engineering at the Florence Academy of Fine Arts and worked thereafter at some various theatres as a stage technician, until 1835 when he accepted a job at Teatro Tacon in Havana, Cuba.

He was claimed to be part of the Italian Liberation Movement and was imprisoned around 1833-1834. The family then emigrated, first to Cuba, then to America.

Though his assets was large at the arrival to America, they was shrinking quite fast. Not only because he was helping countrymen to reach America, but also because of an accident in one of his laboratories. In a short while, his private finances was so scarce, that he had to live on public funds and other fundings from his friends. It has also been told that his wife sold some of his inventions, including the telephone, to raise cash.

He constructed a form of telephone around 1854 as a way to connect his bedroom to his office, since his wife had ache due to rheumatism. Before then he had constructed a kind of pipe-telephone (that transported sound through a pipe) as a way to communicate between the stage and control room at the theatre.

He had no children.

Death

He became ill in March of 1889, and died on October 18, 1889 in Clifton, Staten Island in New York City.[1][2]

Invention of the telephone

See also: Invention of the telephone

There exists much dispute over who deserves priority as the first inventor of the telephone, although Alexander Graham Bell was credited with being the first to transmit articulate speech by undulatory currents of electricity.

An Italian researcher in telecommunications Basilio Catania and the Italian Society of Electrotechnics "Federazione Italiana di Elettrotecnica" have devoted a Museum to Antonio Meucci making a chronology of his inventing the telephone and tracing the history of the two trials opposing Antonio Meucci and Alexander Graham Bell [1] [2]. They both support the claim that Antonio Meucci was the real inventor of the telephone[3] However, some scholars outside of Italy do not recognize the claims that Meucci's device had any bearing on the development of the telephone. Tomas Farley also writes that, "Nearly every scholar agrees that Bell and Watson were the first to transmit intelligible speech by electrical means. Others transmitted a sound or a click or a buzz but our boys [Bell and Watson] were the first to transmit speech one could understand."[4]

In 1834 Meucci constructed a kind of acoustic telephone as a way to communicate between the stage and control room at the theatre "Teatro della Pergola" in Florence. This telephone is constructed on the model of pipe-telephones on ships and is still working.[5]

In 1848 Meucci developed a popular method of using electric shocks to treat rheumatism. He used to give his patients two conductors linked to 60 Bunsen batteries and ending with a cork. He also kept two conductors linked to the same Bunsen batteries. He used to sit in his laboratory, while the Bunsen batteries were placed in a second room and his patients in a third room. In 1849 while providing a treatment to a patient with a 114V electrical discharge, in his laboratory Meucci heard his patient's scream through the piece of copper wire that was between them, from the conductors he was keeping near his ear. His intuition was that the "tongue" of copper wire was vibrating just like a leave of an electroscope; which means that there was an electrostatic effect. In order to continue the experiment without hurting his patient, Meucci covered the copper wire with a piece of paper. Through this device he heard inarticulated human voice. He called this device "telegrafo parlante" (lit. "talking telegraph").[6]

On the basis of this prototype, Meucci worked on more than 30 kinds of telephone. At the beginning he got inspiration from the telegraph model. Differently from other pioneers of the telephone, such as Charles Bourseul, Philipp Reis, Innocenzo Manzetti and others, he did not think about transmitting voice by using the principle of the telegraph key (in scientific jargon, the "make-and-break" method), but he looked for a "continuous" solution, which means without interrupting the electric flux.

In 1856 Meucci constructed the first electromagnetic telephone, made of an electromagnet with a nucleus in the shape of a horseshoe bat, a diaphragm of animal skin, stiffened with potassium dichromate and keeping a metal disk stuck in the middle. The instrument was hosted in a cylindrical carton box.[7] He constructed this as a way to connect his second-floor bedroom to his basement laboratory, and thus communicate with his wife who was an invalid.

Meucci separated the two directions of transmission in order to eliminate the so-called "local effect", adopting what we would call today a 4-wire-circuit. He constructed a simple calling system with a telegraphic manipulator which short-circuited the instrument of the calling person, producing in the instrument of the called person a succession of impulses (clicks), much more intense than those of normal conversation. As he was aware that his device required a bigger band than a telegraph, he found some means to avoid the so-called "skin effect" through superficial treatment of the conductor or by acting on the material (copper instead of iron). He successfully used an insulated copper plait, thus anticipating the litz wire used by Nikola Tesla in RF coils.

In 1864 Meucci realized his "best device", using an iron diaphragm with optimized thickness and tightly clamped along its rim. The instrument was housed in a shaving-soap box, whose cover clamped the diaphragm.

In August 1870, Meucci obtained transmission of articulate human voice at a mile distance by using as a conductor a copper plait insulated by cotton. He called his device "telettrofono". According to an Affidavit of lawyer Michael Lemmi drawings and notes by Antonio Meucci dated September 27, 1870 show that Meucci understood inductive loading on long distance telephone lines 30 years before any other scientists. The painting made by Nestore Corradi in 1858 mentions the sentence "Electric current from the inductor pipe".

It is claimed that about 1873 a certain Bill Carroll from Boston, who had news about Meucci's invention, asked him to construct a device to allow divers to communicate with people on the surface. In Meucci's drawing, this device appears to be an electromagnetic telephone, encapsulated to make it waterproof.

Other inventions

This list is also taken from Basilio Catania's historical reconstruction[8]

  • 1825 Chemical compound to be used as an improved propellant in fireworks
  • 1834 In the Florence's Teatro della Pergola, he sets up a "pipe telephone" to communicate from the stage to the maneuver trellis-work, at about eighteen meters height.
  • 1840 Improved filters and chemical processing of waters supplying the city of Havana, Cuba.
  • 1844 First electroplating factory of the Americas, set up in Havana, Cuba. Before, objects to be electroplated were sent to Paris.
  • 1846 Improved apparatus for electrotherapy, featuring a pulsed current breaker with rotating cross.
  • 1847 Restructuring of the Tacón Theater in Havana, following a hurricane. Meucci conceived a new structure of the roof and ventilation system, to avoid the roof to be taken off in like situations.
  • 1848 Astronomical observations by means of a marine telescope worth $280.
  • 1849 Chemical process for the preservation of corpses, to cope with the high demand for bodies of immigrants to be sent to Europe, avoiding decomposition during the many weeks navigation.
  • 1849 First discovery of electrical transmission of speech.
  • 1850-1 First stearic candle factory of the Americas, set up in Clifton, NY.
  • 1855 Realization of celestas, with crystal bars instead of steel, and pianos (one is on display at the Garibaldi-Meucci Museum, in Rosebank, NY)
  • 1856 First lager beer factory of Staten Island, the Clifton Brewery, in Clifton, NY.
  • 1858-60 Invention of paraffin candles. US Patent No. 22,739 on a candle mold for the same and US Patent No. 30,180 on a rotating blade device for finishing the same.
  • 1860 First paraffin candle factory in the world, the New York Paraffine Candle Co., set up in Clifton, NY, early in 1860, then moved to Stapleton, NY. It produced over 1,000 candles per day.
  • 1860 Experiments on the use of dry batteries in electrical traction and other industrial applications.
  • 1860 Process to turn red corals into a pink color (more valued), as requested by Enrico Bendelari, a merchant of New York.
  • 1862 US Patent No. 36,192 on a kerosene lamp that generates a very bright flame, without smoke, (therefore not needing a glass tube), thanks to electricity developed by two thin platinum plates embracing the flame.
  • 1862-63 Process for treating and bleaching oil or kerosene to obtain siccative oils for paint (US Patents No. 36,419 and No. 38,714). "Antonio Meucci Patent Oil" was sold by Rider & Clark Co., 51 Broad Street, New York, and exported to Europe. See expert comment.
  • 1864 Invention of new, more destructive ammunition for guns and canons, proposed to the US army and to General Giuseppe Garibaldi.
  • 1864-65 Processes to obtain paper pulp from wood or other vegetable substances (US Patents No. 44,735, No. 47,068 and No. 53,165). Associated Press was interested in producing paper with this process, which was also the first to introduce the recovery of the leaching liquor. See expert comment.
  • 1865 Process for making wicks out of vegetable fiber, US Patent No. 46,607.
  • 1867 A paper factory, the "Perth Amboy Fiber Co.," was set up, in Perth Amboy, NJ. The paper pulp was obtained from either marsh grass or wood. It was the first to recycle waste paper. See expert comment.
  • 1871 US Patent No. 122,478 "Effervescent Drinks," fruit-vitamin rich drinks that Meucci found useful during his recovery from the wounds and burns caused by the explosion of the Westfield ferry. See expert comment.
  • 1871 Filed a caveat for a telephone device in December
  • 1873 US Patent No. 142,071 "Sauce for Food." According to Roberto Merloni, general manager of the Italian STAR company, this Patent anticipates modern food technologies. See expert comment.
  • 1873 Conception of a screw steamer suitable for navigation in canals.
  • 1874 Process for refining crude oil (caveat)
  • 1875 Filter for tea or coffee, much similar to that used in present day coffee machines.
  • 1875 Household utensil (description not available) "combining usefulness to cheapness, that will find a ready sale."
  • 1875 US Patent No. 168,273 "Lactometer," for chemically detecting adulterations of milk. It anticipates by fifteen years the well-known Babcock test. See expert comment.
  • 1875 Upon request by Giuseppe Tagliabue (a Physical Instruments maker of Brooklyn, NY), Meucci devises and manufactures several aneroid barometers of various shapes.
  • 1875 Meucci decided not to renew his telephone caveat, thus enabling Bell to get a patent.
  • 1876 US Patent No. 183,062 "Hygrometer," which was a marked improvement over the popular hair-hygrometer of the time. He set up a small factory in Staten Island for fabrication of the same. See expert comment.
  • 1878 Method for preventing noise on elevated railways, a problem much felt at the time in New York.
  • 1878 Process for fabricating ornamental paraffin candles for Christmas trees.
  • 1880 US patent application "Wire for Electrical Purposes"
  • 1881 Process for making postage and revenue stamps.
  • 1883 US Patent No. 279,492 "Plastic Paste," as hard and tenacious to be suitable for billiard balls. See expert comment.

Meucci patents

US patent images in TIFF format

Patents

Besides electric voice transferral, he invented and patented many devices, based on chemical and mechanical processes.

References

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