The Original Hotline Bling: A Historical and Technical Analysis of Alexander Graham Bell's Journey to the Telephone

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to explore the technical and historical aspects of the design steps that Alexander Graham Bell took to create the telephone. This entails researching the experiments of his contemporaries that had an impact on his design process. In order to better understand the physical concepts behind telephony, I recreated several designs of Bell's like the empty coil and even tried to improve upon his results using elements of modern design. I used this opportunity to improve upon his results to immerse myself in the his design journey. I successfully optimized his empty helix design, but encountered several exciting discoveries along the way that pertained to the limitations of electromagnetism and the complex nature of sound production. Interacting with these unforeseen challenges allowed me to relate and value the design experience in the 1800s, a period without the extensive modeling and mathematical knowledge that exists in the present.