Philipp Reis

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Philipp Reis

Johann Philipp Reis (born January 7, 1834 in Gelnhausen , Electorate of Hesse , † January 14, 1874 in Friedrichsdorf ) was a German physicist and inventor . With the development of the first functioning device for the transmission of tones via electrical lines, he is considered to be the central pioneer of the telephone . In the course of this development, Reis also invented the contact microphone and in 1861 named his device the telephone , which later became internationally established. Another invention by Reis were roller skates , an early type of inline skating that was known before.

Life

Philipp Reis came as the son of the Gelnhausen citizen and master baker Karl Sigismund Reis (1807–1843) and Marie Katharine nee. Glöckner (1813-1835) and was baptized Evangelical Lutheran. His mother died a year after his birth, and in 1843 he lost his father. Due to the early death of the parents, the godfather and namesake Philipp Bremer (1808–1863) was appointed guardian for the orphan . Reis came to live with his grandmother Susanne Maria Fischer (1769–1847) and attended the Gelnhausen public school. In 1845 he left his hometown and went to Friedrichsdorf in Hesse . There he was a student at the Louis Frédéric Garnier Institute , the predecessor of today's Philipp Reis School, until he was 14 . Then he attended the Hasselsche Institute in Frankfurt am Main .

On March 1, 1850, Reis began a commercial apprenticeship at the Frankfurt color goods dealer Johann Friedrich Beyerbach and attended a commercial school. In addition to his professional training, he conducted scientific studies at a polytechnic pre-school and at the venerable physical association in Frankfurt am Main, of which he became a member in 1851. As early as 1852, Reis had the idea of ​​researching voice transmission using electric current.

After his military service with the Hessian hunters in Kassel in 1855, Reis went on various study trips. He then went on to study natural sciences again in Frankfurt and wanted to begin teacher training in Heidelberg.

House in Friedrichsdorf. Today it houses a museum, the Philipp Reis House .

In 1858, during a stay in Friedrichsdorf, Reis received a job from Director Garnier as a teacher of French, physics , mathematics and chemistry at his boys' institute. In Gelnhausen he married Margaretha Schmidt (1836–1895), the daughter of master tailor Christian Schmidt and Susanne Bell, in 1858, bought a house in Friedrichsdorf and continued to work in mechanics and electrical engineering in his free time. He not only developed roller skates, but also a velocipede, an early form of the bicycle that could be set in motion with the help of hand-operated levers. In further experiments he researched solar power. His daughter Elise († 1920) was born on February 14, 1861, and his son Karl (1863–1917) two years later.

In order to enable his students to have a challenging lesson, he built clear models from simple means. One was the replica of an auricle that inspired Reis to his important invention. Overcoming the difficulties of electrical voice transmission became his life's work.

From 1858 to 1863 he worked in Friedrichsdorf on the first prototypes of his installations and also invented the contact microphone. After initial failure, he achieved his breakthrough in 1860 by studying various physiological and physical writings, including those by Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894). Reis called his invention the telephone - based on the telegraph . In total, three improved further developments of his apparatus were made during this time. On October 26, 1861, he publicly demonstrated a prototype of his telephone to numerous members of the Physikalischer Verein in Frankfurt for the first time. The title of his lecture was: About the propagation of tones over any distance by means of galvanic current . Thereupon appeared in the annual report 1860/61 of the association on page 57 a scientific report by Reis on the telephone: About telephony through the galvanic current.

Drawing of Reis' music telegraph from the magazine Die Gartenlaube , 1863

Encouraged by these initial successes, Reis improved his apparatus considerably by 1863 and had his models manufactured in large quantities by Johann Valentin Albert , a Frankfurt merchant and mechanic, in order to sell them internationally as a scientific demonstration object for 8 to 12 thalers. This is how the German inventor became known worldwide in the professional world. A far-reaching economic benefit was denied to rice.

The reason was mainly the public attitude towards the telephone in Germany, particularly influenced by the generally negative scientific opinion. A major exception was a communications practitioner, the influential Wilhelm von Legat, head of the Prussian Telegraph Inspection VIII in Frankfurt am Main. He recognized the potential of the invention and placed an article on Reis' invention in a renowned specialist journal. But without a scientific reputation, this publication also found no response. Johann Christian Poggendorff, for example, resisted the publication of the invention in his Annals of Physics and Chemistry and, despite Legat's advocacy, did not include the article in his Biographical-Literary Concise Dictionary of Exact Natural Sciences .

On September 6, 1863, Reis presented his telephone to Emperor Franz Josef of Austria in the Goethe House in Frankfurt am Main . During this demonstration he transmitted musical tones. Even before the high-ranking meeting of natural scientists in Gießen on September 21, 1864, he was again able to arouse great interest and got the editor of the Annalen der Physik und Chemie , who had refused to print his paper over the telephone in 1860, now to pay attention to him. However, this time Reis rejected an article - in the certainty that his invention would become known even without the support of Johann Christian Poggendorff. The most recently developed telephone already had an electromagnetic call facility.

However, Reis was unable to make further improvements. Having contracted tuberculosis at an early age , he was repeatedly confined to bed and was unable to develop his invention further. The inventor of the first working telephone died on the afternoon of January 14, 1874 at the age of 40 as a result of his illness. He was buried in the Friedrichsdorf cemetery.

His son became an accountant in the Ferd. Stemler rusk factory and merchant in Homburg.

Invention of the telephone

Drawing of the experimental setup
Replica of Philipp Reis' telephone in the Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum

During his time at the Garnier Institute in Friedrichsdorf, in 1860/61 he developed electrical voice transmission - the telephone . The basis for his device for electrical sound transmission was the wooden model of an auricle that he had developed for physics lessons. In this school model, he used a piece of natural intestine ( sausage skin ) with a fine strip of platinum to replace the ossicles as a modeled ear drum . If sound waves hit this eardrum, they caused it to vibrate, so that the circuit between the metal strip and a wire spring was broken.

In the course of his experiments, Reis realized that instead of the ear model, a horn covered with a membrane could also be used. This bell ended in a case. He now provided the membrane with a contact made of platinum, which, when at rest, just touched another contact that was fixed in the housing. This contact and an external resistor is DC passed. If there was an alternating sound pressure on the membrane, it began to vibrate, which led to the contacts being more or less compressed depending on the movement of the sound waves . With this experimental set-up, Reis invented the contact microphone - the basis for the later carbon microphone , which was also used in the early days of broadcasting.

The minimum and maximum values ​​of the reproducible sound wave range, which were quickly exhausted due to the simple technology for today's conditions, could lead to a power interruption. The sound pressure level was therefore only partially mapped in the current curve. Modern studies show, however, that speech can be understood when the current fluctuations of the Reis contact microphone are reproduced through headphones or loudspeakers. However, even during Reis' lifetime, the effectiveness of his invention was successfully tested abroad. Overall, however, the transmission of music was better than that of speech.

Reis served as a receiver with a copper wire spool that was wound around a knitting needle ( speaking knitting needle ). The current impulses sent by the transmitter now flowed over the coil, with the moving needle converting the impulses back into sound waves. To amplify the sound, Reis used a wooden box as a soundboard .

Some copies of his apparatus also came to Russia, Great Britain, Ireland and the USA. In 1865 the British-American inventor David Edward Hughes (1831–1900) achieved good results with the German telephone and in the summer of 1865 he demonstrated the invention to the Russian Tsar Alexander II in his summer residence, Tsarskoye . In the autumn of the same year Stephen M. Yeates (1832-1901), a technology-loving instrument maker from Dublin , successfully demonstrated Reis' invention in front of a select group, which was also attended by the Irish physicist William Frazer (1824-1899), who demonstrated the efficiency confirmed in writing. From 1868 the German invention was used in the USA.

Alexander Graham Bell had already got to know an early model of the Reis telephone set in Edinburgh in 1862 . His father promised him and his brothers a price if they would develop this speaking machine further. In March 1875, Bell experimented at the American research and educational establishment Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC with a newer telephone model of the German and benefited from its basic research. In addition to the documents of the inventor Antonio Meucci , which Bell also evaluated, the studies by Philipp Reis are among the key pioneers of the first commercially viable telephone.

reception

Recognition of the inventor in the 19th century

Grave of Philipp Reis in the Friedrichsdorf cemetery
Monument in Frankfurt am Main
Monument in Gelnhausen
Monument in Friedrichsdorf
  • Nature , the world's most respected journal for natural sciences, described as early as 1878 the structure of various stages in the development of Reis' invention.
  • In 1883 the first major English-language biography with numerous details, original documents and translations was published under the title Philipp Reis: Inventor of the telephone . The author, the British physicist Silvanus Phillips Thompson , was convinced of Reis and saw him as the inventor of the telephone.

Monuments

  • After the introduction of the telephone, the members of the Physikalischer Verein zu Frankfurt erected an obelisk on his grave in 1878.
  • The Philipp Reis Memorial in Frankfurt am Main is located in the Eschenheim facility , it was erected in 1919.
  • A bust of the inventor stands on the Untermarkt in his hometown Gelnhausen .
  • The memorial in the Philipp-Reis-Passage in Friedrichsdorf consists of a series of aluminum steles that represent a three-dimensional sine curve and thus symbolize the transmission of sounds through the telephone.

Museums

  • The Philipp-Reis-Haus at Hugenottenstraße 93 in Friedrichsdorf is the former home of the inventor. Today it is a listed building and serves as a museum. At regular events, children are also brought closer to Reis' telephone.
  • In the department for telecommunications technology of the Deutsches Museum in Munich there is a bust that is very similar to the monument in Gelnhausen. Telephone number 50 from 1863 is also on display.
  • An original device can be seen in the treasury of the Museum for Communication in Berlin .

Namesake

  • The Federal Post Minister donated the Philipp Reis plaque in 1952 .
  • The VDE , Deutsche Telekom and the cities of Friedrichsdorf and Gelnhausen have been awarding the Johann Philipp Reis Prize every two years since 1987 for special scientific achievements in the field of communications technology.
  • Philipp Reis House in Friedrichsdorf (see above under museums )
  • Philipp Reis School in Friedrichsdorf
  • Philipp Reis Passage in Friedrichsdorf
  • Philipp-Reis-Strasse in various locations (there is an administration building of Deutsche Telekom on Philipp-Reis-Strasse in Karlsruhe )

Postage stamps and commemorative coin

bibliography

  • Philipp Reis: About telephony through galvanic current , reprints from the annual reports of the Physikalischer Verein zu Frankfurt a. M. in supplements to the annals of physics ; Barth, Frankfurt a. M., 1897
  • Philipp Reis: Message over the phone, reprints from the annual reports of the Physikalischer Verein zu Frankfurt a. M. in supplements to the annals of physics ; Barth, Frankfurt a. M., 1897

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Philipp Reis  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Werner Rammert: Technology from a sociological perspective , Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen, 1993, ISBN 3-531-12421-8 , p. 249.
  2. ↑ Nature Vol. 140 No. 3535, July 31, 1937, p. 188
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Rudolf Vierhaus (editor): German biographical encyclopedia , 2nd revised edition, KG Saur Verlag, Munich and Leipzig 2007, ISBN 978-3-598-25030-9 , p. 303.
  4. ↑ Oskar Blumtritt: "Rice, Johann Philipp." In: New German Biography 21 Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2003. ISBN 978-3-428-00290-0 . P. 381.
  5. ^ Otto Renkhoff : Nassau biography. Short biographies from 13 centuries. Historical Commission for Nassau, Wiesbaden 1992, ISBN 3-922244-90-4 , p. 638.
  6. ^ A b c d e Oskar Blumtritt: "Reis, Johann Philipp." In: New German Biography 21 Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2003. ISBN 978-3-428-00290-0 . P. 382.
  7. ↑ a b c Bernd Fleßner: Ingenious thinkers and clever inventors , Beltz & Gelberg publishing house, Weinheim 2007, ISBN 3-407-75329-2 , p. 73
  8. ↑ Physikalischer Verein (Ed.): Commemoration for Philipp Reis, the inventor of the telephone , October 26, 1961, Frankfurt am Main 1972
  9. ↑ Physikalischer Verein, Frankfurt am Main: Annual report of the Physikalischer Verein zu Frankfurt am Main , Frankfurt am Main 1896, p. 86
  10. ↑ friedrichsdorf.de: Margarethe Reis ( Memento of the original from October 12, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.friedrichsdorf.de
  11. ^ Historical-eschborn.de: Elise Reis
  12. ^ A b c d Silvanus P. Thompson: Philipp Reis: Inventor of the telephone. E. & FN Spon, London 1883.
  13. ↑ a b Horst Kant: A "mightily stimulating circle" - the beginnings of the Physical Society in Berlin , Preprint 2002, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin 2002
  14. ^ Ferdinand Rosenberger: The history of physics , Verlag Georg Olms, Frankfurt am Main 1882, p. 792.
  15. ↑ Joint union catalog: Annual report of the Physikalischer Verein Frankfurt am Main
  16. ↑ Physikalischer Verein, Frankfurt am Main: Annual report of the Physikalischer Verein zu Frankfurt am Main , Frankfurt am Main 1896, ISBN 3-407-75329-2 , p. 78.
  17. ^ Hermann Julius Meyer: Meyers Konversationslexikon , Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig, 1894, p. 314.
  18. ^ Werner Rammert: Technology from a sociological perspective , Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen, 1993, ISBN 3-531-12421-8 , p. 234.
  19. ^ Society for German Postal History: Archive for German Postal History , 1994, p. 53.
  20. ↑ Ferdinand Trendelenburg: Introduction to acoustics? , Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, 1950, p. 150.
  21. ↑ U. Troitzsch, G. Wohlauf (editor): Technik Geschichte , Frankfurt 1977, p. 286.
  22. ↑ ECS: Calendar of Scientific Pioneers , Nature 120, September 3, 1927, pp. 350f.
  23. ↑ a b c d Joachim Beckh: Blitz und Anker, Volume 1: Information technology - history and backgrounds , Books on Demand, 2005, ISBN 3-8334-2996-8 , p. 223
  24. ↑ The Gazebo, 1893
  25. ↑ a b c Joachim-Felix Leonhard, Armin Burkhardt, Gerold Ungeheuer, Herbert Ernst Wiegand, Hugo Steger, Klaus Brinker: Medienwissenschaft, 2nd part , Verlag Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-11-016326-8 , p. 1255.
  26. ↑ Nature 51, April 4, 1895, pp. 537f.
  27. ↑ ECS: Calendar of Scientific Pioneers , Nature 106, January 13, 1921, pp. 650f.
  28. ^ Rolf Bernzen: The telephone from Philipp Reis. An apparatus story. Marburg 1999. ISBN 3-00-004284-9 . P. 133.
  29. ↑ WF Barrett: Early Electric Telephony . In: Nature . tape 17 , 1878, p. 510-512 , doi : 10.1038 / 017510a0 .
  30. ^ German Chemical Society: Reports of the German Chemical Society 11 , Verlag Chemie, 1878, p. 997. doi : 10.1002 / cber.187801101263
  31. ^ Nicola Netzer: Monument. In: kunst-im-oefflichen-raum-frankfurt.de. 2015, accessed September 1, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Reis, Philipp
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Reis, Johann Philipp (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physicist and inventor
DATE OF BIRTH January 7, 1834
PLACE OF BIRTH Gelnhausen , Electorate of Hesse
DATE OF DEATH January 14, 1874
Place of death Friedrichsdorf