Talk:Antonio Meucci

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The whole of this article is in very poor English and is presented in an editorial "style". The biographical section has very little information on the actual life of Mr. Meucci. Would anybody scrapping it altogether and start anew, please ? Roligpolig 02:00, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Since Italy was established Italy does not allow Patents for Public Interest products and technologies. And Antonio Meucci for consequence had to leave the Italian country because of this problem with the Italian Laws, not protecting but discriminating his research and commercial development. This is still happening today, in the current Italian Republic, and should be written clear. The UPICA Office of any Italian Chamber of Commerce may provide the Italian Patent form, and you can read the list of intellectual restrictions. Also the Italian Consulates may be asked concerning the Italian Patent form, so document yourself and verify your sources Benattiluca 12:54, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

The resolution stated that MEUCCI did a permanent electronic telephone communication in 1860. Bell patented the telephone 16 years later. Meucci was too poor to pay for the patent. This should be written Pierpaolo.Dondio

The movie citations is quite ridicolous.. imagine it in an encyclopedia.. very sad.

I added the text of the reslution. Maybe it is too long, but very clear. I suggest maybe to erase something, but I think it is very interesting to understand life and work of Meucci...and what he really did Pierpolo Dondio.

To be honest, citation of Godfather and "Soprano" (any other movies?) are not serious in an article about an inventor... I removed it, anybody has a comment? We should mention that Basilio Catania found the historycal evidences about the attribution of the invention. From the web (need to find a better reference to confirm, then i'll put online): "Professor Basilio Catania, recipient of the 1988 Eurotelecom and 1991 Marconi Prizes, said the new truths about the invention's ownership are contained in the record of an 1887 trial ordered by the US Government (United States v Bell Telephone Company and Alexander Graham Bell) to strip Bell of his patents for fraud and misrepresentation."

and that the City of Florence, in Italy, eqach 18 April assigned an prize called "Antonio Meucci".

There are many places called 'Clifton' in the United States. Which one did he live in? --Smack (talk) 18:19, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

The one in Staten Island, NY. :) -Jen Moakler 22:00, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

There are no news on the net about the Parliament of Canada and Bell. This is only a piece of stupid nationalism, localism or campanilism.

Miky Dalton

Wrong. I have restored your deletions and added the appropriate citations. --phh 09:16, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

What about his other inventions? Thought the telephone was very probably the best known, Meucci spent a whole lifetime inventing things that also deserve mention. Leszek 01:23, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

About the movie citations -- Whether or not they are a problem could be a question of how they are used. To use them to support the claim for Meucci's accomplishment would indeed be ridiculous. However, the version of the article in which I'm seeing them at the moment seems to be using them only to illustrate that Meucci's story has been a part of Italian-American lore for a while. Given that these references may occasionally be the impetus for a reader to visit the article to find out "the real deal," they seem worth including IN THE PROPER CONTEXT (i.e., as pop-culture or media references to this lesser-known story about the development of the telephone). So long as we don't cite them as proof of the facts of the story, merely of its popularity, I have no problem with it. Lawikitejana 13:33, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I separated the movie references into a popular culture section. It obviously didn't fit in the main discussion of his invention, so hopefully that clears things up.Highway99 02:38, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 Neutrality problems. Lack of citations... 2 Acoustic telephones in the 1840's and doubtful claims in the 1880s 3 The House of Representatives resolution 4 Recent removal of mention in the Simpsons 5 The "electronic" telephone in 1876? 6 Some suggestions. 7 Citations needed?

[edit] Neutrality problems. Lack of citations...

Meucci's contribution to the development of the telephone is a matter of considerable controversy and debate. This article acknowledges the controversy, barely, but all of the claims made on Meucci's behalf are presented as matters of simple fact.

Not only is the article elliptical and unclear on that Meucci really did (was the "telephone" it says he built in his house an electric telephone as we understand it, or merely a speaking tube? What does a form of telephone mean?), it is vague and contradictory on how he is regarded.

One sentence says that "In all the world, he is recognized as the inventor of the telephone."

Another says that "For more than a century, everywhere but in Italy, Alexander Graham Bell has been considered the inventor of the telephone."

Neither statement is referenced or otherwise supported.

Because of the degree of controversy and the issues of national pride and politics involved here, great care needs to be taken in the handling of this subject. Dpbsmith (talk) 09:51, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Properly substantiated with adequate citations or not, this article is really exciting for me. I mean, I'm biased - you would be too if you're great great great uncle was credited often with inventing the telephone and otherwise with contributing significantly to its invention. I wish I knew this man - and, if he did truly make invaluable contributions to the telephone's invention, I wish my family had something (financially) to show for it, haha.

We must distinguish between "Many people believe that Anthony Meucci deserves credit for the development of the telephone," which is a fact, with "Anthony Meucci invented the telephone," which is not. I'm not an expert, but it bothers me is that so much of the material that could prove Meucci's claims (drawings, models, etc.) seem to have been mysteriously lost. Meucci advocates have, to my way of thinking, much too great a tendency to hint at conspiratorial explanations for this lack of evidence. Dpbsmith (talk) 18:59, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

"Success has a thousand fathers" is illustrated by this claim. Legislation does not establish scientific truth. Every important invention has a myriad of claimants who spring forward after a later inventor proves the practicality, sometimes inspired by earlier failures. They may even have friends, family, descendants, or fellow nationals who claim so and so really invented such and such, based on unverifiable claims, or they may be tools of patent infringers seeking to void a patent. If Meucci is known to have used a speaking tube for communication over short distances, this may be the device he used in the 1840's. There is no contemporary drawing, no contemporary working model. Without these, Gray and Bell must be given credit for electric transmission of recognizable articulate speech by a continuously varying current, rather than earlier make-and-break transmitters, string telephones, mechanical voice boxes in automata, and speaking tubes.Edison 18:06, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

There's also the distinction between a laboratory proof-of-concept and a practical realization... to take another much-debated example, it is clear that Santos-Dumont flew a heavier-than-air craft successfully and very conspicuously in public, at a time when the Wright Brothers' flights had been observed only by a very small number of people. However, Santos-Dumont's craft was extremely finicky and unstable, and probably could only be flown by a man of extraordinary skill, while part of the Wrights' genius was that they understood both that the craft needed to be flyable by a person of ordinary skill and that there needed to be a way to learn to acquire that skill safely. By the time the Wrights were making big public demonstrations, their machine was a much more practical craft than Santos-Dumont's. Or so I've concluded from my occasional readings of popular books on the subject... very likely there are some French and Brazilians who have read different books and believe something different. Dpbsmith (talk) 18:59, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Idiot the airplane was invented by Santos Dumont. (Unsigned entry by 24.123.189.2)

Yeah, and the motion picture was invented by Friese-Greene, and the light bulb by Joseph Swann, and the first successful perpetual motion machine by Robert George Adams. I know. I know. Dpbsmith (talk) 14:49, 10 May 2006 (UTC) P. S. 24.123.189.2, you wouldn't, by any wild chance, happen to be French or Brazilian, would you? Dpbsmith (talk) 14:50, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Almost all my changes of yesterday were deleted!!! What happened??? I provided every quotation as possible --S vecchiato 09:37, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Acoustic telephones in the 1840's and doubtful claims in the 1880s

Documents created during Meuccis lifetime are more credible than those created in the 21st century like some of the references, in determining what he did or did not invent. The 1849 phone had no electromagnet and no carbon or other microphonic transmitter, per the reference cited to the Scientific American of 1885, wherein Meucci makes his claims. The 1849 phone in Figs 1 and 2 of the Sci Am article is clearly just an acoustic telephone, 2 "pasteboard cones" connected by a wire, with a copper paddle inside the cone to touch the tongue, and largely irrelevant to the history of the telephone. The 1852 phone in Figs 3 and 4 is a pair of tin cans connected by a wire, with a copper paddle inside to touch the tongue. There is copper wire wrapped around the can, but it is shorted out by the copper paddle, so again it is an acoustic telephone. The acoustic telephone needs no electricity: just take 2 tin cans or 2 paper cups, connect them with a string or wire, stretch it between distant points, using pulleys to go around corners, and you can communicate very well over surprising distances. That Meucci's phone in the 1840-s thru 1860's worked with a slack wire is just his sayso, as is the claim that it worked at all, absent other verifiable contemporary sources.It would have still worked with insulating thread as well as with wire so it is not an electric telephone. There is a reference to Meucci telling a newspaper repoerter mentioned in one of the references. The original article and a good translation would add pro-Meucci evidence.

The reference in the article http://chem.ch.huji.ac.il/~eugeniik/history/meucci.html says that the 1849 phone worked by “the "electrophonic" effect. A description and references should be added for that term, which is not part of electric telephone history or development. Electrophonic sound was a term coined in 1937 for people hearing sounds when a meteorite passed over, which should not have been heard per the physical principles of sound (http://inamidst.com/notes/electrophonic). People can hear sound from vibrations conducted through the teeth or bones, as Thomas Edison did, or when large electrostatic fields are present near the ear (http://homepages.tesco.net/~John.Dawes2/extract.htm )

The reference http://chem.ch.huji.ac.il/~eugeniik/history/meucci.html also says "The phenomenon, later known as physiophony, employs nerve responses to applied currents of very specific nature. As the neural mechanism in the body employs impulses of infinitesimal strengths, so Meucci had accidentally introduced similar "conformant" currents. These conformant currents contained auditory signals: sounds. The strange method of "hearing through the body" bypassed the ears completely and resounded throughout the delicate tissues of the contact point. In this case, it was the delicate tissues of the mouth."

“Physiophony” a term which on Google refers back only to Meucci proponents: the idea that if audio frequency voltages are applied to the body (the mouth in his case) that the recipient hears sound. Clearly that played no role whatsoever in the development of the phone as it was invented in the late 19th century and as it continues today, and I haven’t seen any reference to where the phenomenon exists or can be demonstrated outside the claims of Meucci proponents. They should create a Wikipedia article to cite the verifiable sources for “physiophony’.

The most parsimonious explanation for the Meucci 1849-1852 phones working is mechanical vibration.

Many supposed telephone inventors were brought forward during the 1880s patent litigation between the Bell companies, with the Berliner patent for "loose contact" and the Western Union, with the Edison carbon transmitter patent. All the supposed inventors, who were found and coached by the opponents lawyers, had family to swear to how well their phones worked, and brought in models amazingly similar to the Bell/Berliner or Edison inventions. The burden was on them to prove priority by more than their say so. It was very easy to build a model and claim it was decades old, and it is easy to replicate the inventions of Berliner, Bell, and Edison and claim one invented them decades before. There were scores of rival claimants, whose testimony filled 150 volumes. Where are the Meucci phone patents, and the public demonstrations?. If Meucci invented something, the burden was on him to patent it, to write about it publicly, and to demonstrate it. He spent $20 for a caveat. Meucci's caveat is so vague it could be anything, per the Scientific American 1885 article. For another $20 ( the amount Scientific American publishers charged to file a patent in the 1880's)he could have obtained a patent and we would not be having this discussion. He did find enough money to patent all the following of his inventions before Bell filed for the telephone patent: 1859 - US Patent No. 22,739 - candle mold 1860 - US Patent No. 30,180 - candle mold 1862 - US Patent No. 36,192 - lamp burner 1862 - US Patent No. 36,419 - improvement in treating kerosene 1863 - US Patent No. 38,714 - improvement in preparing hydrocarbon liquid 1864 - US Patent No. 44,735 - improved process for removing mineral, gummy, and resinous substances from vegetables 1865 - US Patent No. 46,607 - improved method of making wicks 1865 - US Patent No. 47,068 - improved process for removing mineral, gummy, and resinous substances from vegetables 1866 - US Patent No. 53,165 - improved process for making paper-pulp from wood 1872 - US Patent No. 122,478 - improved method of manufacturing effervescent drinks from fruits 1873 - US Patent No. 142,071 - improvement in sauces for food 1875 - US Patent No. 168,273 - method of testing milk 1876 - US Patent No. 183,062 - hygrometer

It strains credulity that he had a functioning telephone with improvements from 1849 on and never took out a patent on it, but he did patent these other things (per http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bl_Antonio_Meucci.htm )

Claiming that his wife sold his models to the junk man and a fire burned his notes is right up there with “the dog ate my homework.’ Ditto for claims in some Meucci sites that Bell saw his models. Where is the verifiable source?

The most parsimonious explanation of the Meucci phones which look like the Bell and Edison phones is that they were made to do so in the 1880's. Edison 17:28, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I am not an expert of telecommunication and relied on Basilio Catania's work, available on the net. However, through helping for this article I discovered how many pioneers of telephone were there at the very same time. The word "telephone" was used for everybody. Look at wikipedia articles about:

• Emile Berliner
  
• Charles Bourseul
  
• Thomas Edison
  
• Elisha Gray
  
• Innocenzo Manzetti
  
• Philipp Reis
  

What should the name "telephone" only be precluded to Meucci, if many scientists developed several models of telephones at the same time? --S vecchiato 21:03, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I answer to Edison you are quite right, I was also surprised in discovering the list of inventions Meucci got a US patent for. However there is information missing: US patent all costed the same amount of money? Have a look for example at this page: http://www.uspto.gov/main/faq/index_feefaq.html --82.52.183.188 21:55, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The House of Representatives resolution

...says nothing about Meucci being "the true inventor of the telephone."

It does not even say in so many words that he invented a telephone.

It says he worked on an invention, and it retails a long chain of circumstances which prevented Meucci from obtaining a patent on a telephone.

It says specifically that the courts never determined the underlying issue of the true inventor of the telephone from a legal standpoint. Dpbsmith (talk) 17:34, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I would like to know on what ground relies this sentence "The Parliament of Canada retaliated by passing a resolution recognizing Canadian immigrant Alexander Graham Bell as the "real inventor of the telephone." as the quotation coming after does not direct the use to a resolution ! User:S_Vecchiato

Add a {{citation needed}} tag if it doesn't have one already. Dpbsmith (talk) 20:40, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I just looked at it. It looks OK to me. For some reason the two URL's seem to refer to identical pages, but in any case if you search for the word "baddeck" you find this interchange:

Hon. Sheila Copps (Minister of Canadian Heritage, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the House for unanimous consent on the following motion, which has been discussed with all parties, regarding Alexander Graham Bell. I move:

This House affirms that Alexander Graham Bell of Brantford, Ontario and Baddeck, Nova Scotia is the inventor of the telephone.

The Speaker: Does the hon. Minister of Canadian Heritage have the unanimous consent of the House to propose this motion?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Speaker: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

(Motion agreed to)

Assuming you think the page is legitimate, which I do, it seems to me to support the statement that on Friday, June 21, 2002, the Canadian Parliament passed a motion affirming that "This House affirms that Alexander Graham Bell of Brantford, Ontario and Baddeck, Nova Scotia is the inventor of the telephone." Obviously this wasn't a very seriously researched motion. Dpbsmith (talk) 21:14, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

It is ok I found the passage and put on a link which redirects to the precise passage about AGB. Thank you. --S vecchiato 11:15, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[S_Vecchiato]

[edit] Recent removal of mention in the Simpsons

Re:

In the television series The Simpsons, the family visits a museum of inventors and a picture of Alexander Graham Bell is placed on top of a plaque reading "Inventor of the telephone" with a small picture of Antonio Meucci beside him with a plaque saying "You stole it from me." Graham Bell then replies "Read the patent, bitch."^{[citation needed]}

I added the "citation needed" tag. The item was then recently removed by User:Profonix. I believe it should stay removed pending a good citation, because a query atTalk:The_Simpsons#Antonio_Meucci yielded on response: a website that mentions such a joke, but gives Elisha Gray, not Meucci, as the rival. Dpbsmith (talk) 20:13, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The "electronic" telephone in 1876?

"Bell patented the electronic telephone in 1876."

Le mot juste? I understand the point here: "telephone" in the sense of an electro-mechanical device that transmits speech by conduction of a varying electric signal over wires... as opposed to acoustic "telephones" like those used on shipboard that transmit sound over long distances by confining them to pipes, or string-and-tin-can "telephones." But it seems to me to be stretching the definition of "electronic"

"1. Of or relating to electrons. 2. Of, based on, operated by, or otherwise involving the controlled conduction of electrons or other charge carriers, especially in a vacuum, gas, or semiconducting material..." [1]

In the 1960s, it was customary to draw a distinction between "electric" and "electronic," the latter involving the participation of active amplifying or rectifying devices such as vacuum tubes and transistors.

And I don't think the word "electronic" was coined until the development of vacuum tubes.

How about "electro-acoustical?" Dpbsmith (talk) 18:04, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I am not an expert of telecommunication and relied on Basilio Catania's work, available on the net. However, through helping for this article I discovered how many pioneers of telephone were there at the very same time. The word "telephone" was used for everybody. Look at wikipedia articles about:

Emile Berliner Charles Bourseul Thomas Edison Elisha Gray Innocenzo Manzetti Philipp Reis

What should the name "telephone" only be precluded to Meucci, if many scientists developed several models of telephones at the same time?--82.52.183.188 21:01, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Some suggestions.

I came here looking for information on Meucci, and take away the idea of an argument about who invented the telephone. The biographical notes are quite scant scant, so that main value ends up being the references to other writings on the internet. The long paragraph from the 1910 book by Casson is of no interest to me, and completely irrelevant to Meucci's biography. I see no mention of his friendship with Giuseppe Garibaldi, nor of his contribution to Garibaldi's struggle. The extent of his effort to help fellow Italians, both in the USA and in Italy, is not described, so that the reasons for his regard in Italian circles does not become clear. Seejyb 19:49, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citations needed?

Why is the entire article marked with citations needed, in a big header across the top as if to warn reads what follows may not be true... and then the only individual items marked as citations needed are brief mentions in a TV show and a film? Its slightly unfair imo. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.71.107.7 (talk) 01:26, 17 December 2006 (UTC).

Because people complain if you tag every individual fact that needs a citation in an article that needs them almost everywhere. Dpbsmith (talk) 03:14, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with [User talk:83.71.107.7].