The Talking Wire

One day, in the year 1874, as Alexander Graham Bell was lying in a hammock hung between two birch trees, he was pondering an idea. He was in his Dreaming Place, and here he dreamt of a machine where the human voice could travel through an electric wire. He thought intently about this revolutionary idea: "He must find a current, or create it, that would vary in the same way as the air that carries sound waves varies. The current must undulate...This undulating current - did such a thing exist? And how could it be created? This was the key to the problem of electric speech, but he didn't know how to unlock the door." Sadly, Aleck lacked the money, time, knowledge and skill to build the invention that his creative mind had come up with. When he requested funding, most people told him it was impossible, a crazy idea, or just a toy with no real value! But he was sure that it was worth pursuing. How does Aleck persevere through these hardships to make the world-changing telephone, the precursor to so much of the communication technology that we use today? This book will take you on a fascinating journey of determination and discovery! Orlando John Stevenson is a wonderful storyteller and has written a terrific biography of Alexander Graham Bell's life; the people, experiences and ideas that led him to the discovery of the first telephone. This new, well-formatted edition is a fantastic living book, teaching history and technology.