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into practice was the German Philipp Reis, but his telephone was too primitive to find any practical application. A telephone that found the application was invented by the American Graham Bell. On March 10, 1876, he made an instrument that successfully transmitted a sentence. To his assistant who was in another room, Bell transmitted the message, "Mr. Watson, please come into my room".
Bell's telephone was very simple. It consisted of a metal diaphragm placed in the field of a horseshoe1 magnet. The diaphragm, vibrating under the impact2 of sound waves3, produced oscillations4 in the electric current5 transmitted along the wires. A similar device6 at the other end of the line turned the electric oscillations into sound.
The telegraph and the telephone were considered to be the "final" solution7 to the communication problem. But they were soon followed by an even more wonderful invention, which made communication possible without wires. It was the radio.
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