Headphone is the “electro-acoustic transducer for converting electric signals into sounds.” There are electronic devices shown in fig.1 and fig.2 that have similar function as headphone. However, it is not reasonable to call them headphones in modern society. In order to distinguish the headphone in this paper from other similar electronic devices, the headphone refers to the one that is held over the ear. The inventor of the first modern headphone is Nathaniel Baldwin. Baldwin was born in a pioneer family in Utah in 1878. In his childhood, he was able to make a bicycle and a steam engine by himself. Baldwin’s family was members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). After he received a degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University, he taught in the Brigham Young University, which was his alma mater. In 1904, the president of the LDS declared the manifesto to end polygamy. Baldwin’s …show more content…
“This instrument consisted of two supersensitive sound receivers affixed to an operator's headband. Within each earphone was coiled a mile of fine copper wiring and a mica diaphragm, giving the Baldwin headset the most sensitive reception yet possible.” Subsequently, Baldwin sold his headphone to the US Navy. The US Navy predicted that there would be an inevitable war, which was the World War I, and ordered 100 headphones from Baldwin. Later Hepburn suggested Baldwin to improve the desirability of his headphone. (Arthur Japy Hepburn was an admiral in the United States Navy) In his kitchen workshop, Baldwin had developed the modern headset and kept improving it for several years. However, when Hepburn suggested him to apply for a patent immediately, Baldwin replied that he would not demean himself by requesting a patent on such trivia. Hence, the only patent existed was the Baldwin’s improvement on the telephone receiver but not his
Radio waves were first discovered in 1887, but radio itself was initially invented by Italian Guglielmo Marconi in 1895 (1). His biggest mentioned success was in 1901, when he managed to broadcast the letter “S” across the Atlantic Ocean (1). However, he focused primarily on point-to-point transmissions, not large scale broadcasts from one point (F). As such, three American inventors - Lee De Forest, Edwin Howard Armstrong, and David Sarnoff - took credit for making radio as it is today a success (F). De Forest was born and raised in Alabama and he thought of everything in terms of patents and eventually held more than 300, but many claimed that he simply stole the inventions of others (2). In 1900, he patented a device to enhance weak signals and in 1902, he formed the De Forest Wireless Telegraph Company (1). In the same year. Reginald Fessenden, a Canadian, invented the “electrolytic detector”, which later became the spade detector that brought De Forest so much fame (F). In 1904, John Fleming invented the oscillation valve, which later became De Forest’s audion, and De Forest won the gold medal at the St. Louis World’s Fair for his “spade detector” (F). De Forest gained quite a bit of fame by broadcasting music live from the Eiffel Tower and from the Metropolitan Opera; however, many believed that this was a scam and that he had actually had the device broadcasting the signal only a few blocks away (F). In 1906, he envisioned bringing music and voices to all American households, but as it turns out Canadian inventor Fessenden had already broadcasted a Christmas greeting and music to the crew of a ship off the coast of Canada on Christmas Eve a year earlier (F). In 1912, Armstrong became prominent by inventing regeneration, wh...
Technology nowadays is getting more and more dangerous, especially to our ears. Every day we are subjected to videos, text sounds, alert sounds, alarms, and anything else that may be of use in life. These sounds seem to be happening more often which is damaging our ears. There is a solution to this damage though, and that is cochlear implants. These implants will bypass the damaged part of your ear to give you a sense of sound that can be made very useful to the patient. This paper will look into how the ear works, how hearing loss happens, why these cochlear implants are a good solution, how these implants work, cost and ethics related to these implants, and what the future holds for them.
All fields of science affects the lives of many people, but the inventors are left out. Inventors make many lives more comfortable and convenient. George Edward Alcorn, Jr. was a not so well-known inventor, but he...
Before 1925 recordings were made with an acoustical horn that would capture the sound of the musicians in front of it and transferred the vibration to a cutting stylus. No electricity was used. This process was called the acoustical process. In 1925, microphones were introduced to transfer the acoustical energy to an electric signal, which fed the cutting stylus. This electrical process ameliorated recordings sound.
internal structures of the body and returned to the transducer. The transducer converted the returning sound into electronic signals that were processed
The Alto Saxophone is a single-reed musical instrument that was invented in 1846 by Antoine-Joseph (Adolphe) Sax. Adolphe Sax was born on November 6, 1814 in Dinant, Belgium. During his childhood, he studied the clarinet and flute at Brussel’s Conservatory. His father was a renowned maker of musical instruments during that time. Since Adolphe grew up with his father making instruments and studying the clarinet and the flute, it was obvious that he would end up following in his father’s footsteps. The first instrument that Adolphe decided to look at was the bass clarinet; he wanted to improve the tone of the instrument. He came up with a single-reed instrument constructed from metal that had a conical bore and overblew at the octave, which translates to the saxophone.
Has the question of “who even thought to invent the telephone or metal detector?” ever came into your head? Or been going through the internet and came across the name Alexander Graham Bell and wondered who it was? Well Alexander was the inventor of many things like the telephone, and the metal detector. Bell was a very smart man who came from a very smart family.
A man named Thaddeus Cahill is said to have developed the first electronic instrument named the Telharmonium. This instrument was not made for the purpose of electronic music, it was used to broadcast music in restaurants and other public areas. “Cahill has never realized his plan, but his ideas were not so bad because today we make massive use of streaming media.” (The History Of Electronic Music, 2013)
At a young age, Bell started to recreate the sound of the human voice, “At the age of 16, he built a talking machine from rubber and strips of tin. He could make the device’s tin strips vibrate and produce bl...
The turntables are originally derived from the invention of the phonograph in 1877 and has been improvised since its announcement. Thomas Edison, a famous scientist, created the phonograph, an innovation which could essentially play sounds. Edison’s motive was to simplify relaying messages and daily activities. Although another invention had been concepted in France, Edison’s invention was entirely original. In 1881 Emile Berliner, a German scientist, created the gramophone which had better quality than the phonograph and played rubber discs. This replaced the use of cylinders and was optimized for multiple plays unlike the phonograph. The discs were mass produced and easier to create, and its popularity (which hadn’t sprouted until the 1950’s) spread like wildfire. Their inventions made record playback possible and Emile made it easier by simplifying the usage of records. The simplification of distribution made innovation and creation easier to culturally progress; this gave more people in the future access to such technology.
In Virginia Heffernan’s article “Against Headphones” she is arguing against the use of headphones. In her argument, she explains how the use of headphones leads to the risk of permanent hearing loss in teenagers and children. She also argues that headphones help isolate people and that people should start listening to music etc. together as a family. She uses several kinds of argumentative strategies which include: euphemism, propaganda such as the testimonial device, and the rhetorical appeals pathos, ethos, and logos. Heffernan’s argument in her article is effective because she has plenty of logic, facts, and statistics to support her thesis. She also tugs on her audience’s heartstrings by using their emotions. The strengths in her article such as the many facts she put in it greatly outweighed the weaknesses in it.
Thomas Edison than in 1877 invents a phonograph. Device that can capture sound and also play it back.
On June 21, 1890, Bell and his assistant Charles Sumner invented a wireless telephone, named a photo phone. This photo phone allowed the transmission of both sound and huma...
Despite the short amount of time since the introduction of the smartphone, the rapid development of the software and technology has had a tremendous effect on the everyday life of society today. The concept of communicating through a telephone was developed in the 1870s. Devices to transmit speech electrically were designed by Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell, but Bell's design was patented first. On March 10, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell achieved one of his greatest successes in the making of the telephone. This brought upon a major change in communication and gave leeway to the improvement of the telephone in the days to come (Bellis, 2013b).
Acoustics is a science that deals with the study of sound. It is known to be one of the branches of physics; studying oscillations and sound waves from the lowest to high frequencies. Acoustics is known to be one of the oldest sciences, and dates back to ancient times as people had the need to understand the nature of speech and hearing. The main reason acoustics was discovered and is one of the oldest sciences is because of the need for the knowledge of the sounds of music and musical instruments. Pythagoras, an ancient mathematician, was the first person to ever find out that tone height corresponds to the length of the sting or tube. While Aristotle, Pythagoras apprentice at the time, helped more to explain that an echo is created as the sound reflection from obstacles.