Stephen Kelly writes:
I recently watched QI and after hearing that Alexander Graham Bell "stole" the idea for the telephone from a "poor" Italian man, I decide to check that. What was that Bells patents were defended in court on over 800 occasions and that in general there is debate about who really invented a working telephone, but to state that he stole it, as a fact on the show seems a little irresponsible and naive, don't you think?
An Elf Replies:
QI stands by our assertion. It is correct to say that the Bell Telephone Company successfully defended themselves on a number of occasions (which just goes to show how many people were working on similar items at the time), but it is a fact that in the late 1880s the Supreme Court of the US had agreed to a trial against Bell on the grounds of fraud and misrepresentation: a lawsuit that was only dropped thanks to the death of Meucci.
More pertinent perhaps, if we're talking legal issues, is the House of Representitives Resolution 269 (actually issued in 2002 - after the recording of that episode of QI) that recognised the work of Meucci in the invention of the telephone. Specifically, it was resolved that:
"If Meucci had been able to pay the $10 fee to maintain the caveat after 1874, no patent could have been issued to Bell"
There is still some debate as to who invented the telephone, and much of this discussion was studied by the researchers at the time, however due to the nature of a 30 minute television show, what you finally see is often only the tip of the research iceberg.
More on QI's opinion on the telephone debate, and dozens of other contentious issues, can be found in our book: "The Book of General Ignorance."
Quibble Quashed
Source
http://www.hnn.us/articles/802.html
Do you have a bone to pick with QI? E-mail us here: elves@qi.com
Or watch us tweet at http://twitter.com/qikipedia
I recently watched QI and after hearing that Alexander Graham Bell "stole" the idea for the telephone from a "poor" Italian man, I decide to check that. What was that Bells patents were defended in court on over 800 occasions and that in general there is debate about who really invented a working telephone, but to state that he stole it, as a fact on the show seems a little irresponsible and naive, don't you think?
An Elf Replies:
QI stands by our assertion. It is correct to say that the Bell Telephone Company successfully defended themselves on a number of occasions (which just goes to show how many people were working on similar items at the time), but it is a fact that in the late 1880s the Supreme Court of the US had agreed to a trial against Bell on the grounds of fraud and misrepresentation: a lawsuit that was only dropped thanks to the death of Meucci.
More pertinent perhaps, if we're talking legal issues, is the House of Representitives Resolution 269 (actually issued in 2002 - after the recording of that episode of QI) that recognised the work of Meucci in the invention of the telephone. Specifically, it was resolved that:
"If Meucci had been able to pay the $10 fee to maintain the caveat after 1874, no patent could have been issued to Bell"
There is still some debate as to who invented the telephone, and much of this discussion was studied by the researchers at the time, however due to the nature of a 30 minute television show, what you finally see is often only the tip of the research iceberg.
More on QI's opinion on the telephone debate, and dozens of other contentious issues, can be found in our book: "The Book of General Ignorance."
Quibble Quashed
Source
http://www.hnn.us/articles/802.html
Do you have a bone to pick with QI? E-mail us here: elves@qi.com
Or watch us tweet at http://twitter.com/qikipedia
Bell "stole" the idea from a couple of people, including, but not only from Antonio Meucci. He had a fully functional telephone in front of him built by Philipp Reiss long before Bell was able to built one. The phone vaguely described by him in his patent file was not even able to work properly, as it turned out later.
This is not really relevant to the telephone debate, but it's quite interesting: Meucci once had as his house guest Garibaldi, the Italian revolutionary, in 1850 during one of Garibaldi's periods of exile. Oh, and by the way, the biscuits ARE named after him - but could someone tell me how they came about their name. Wikipedia's story of Garibaldi sitting on Eccles Cake is simply not credible, it smacks too much of urban myth...anyone got any Real Facts on that?
I'm italian and I'm astounded. May be there are many people in the world who don't know the story. When I was taking the P.E.T. exam in 2009, I received the questions 26-35 (the text without some words). It was an Alexander Graham Bell's biografy where they said he was the only one inventor of the teleprohe! In their opinion, Meucci didn't exist!
In Italy a telefilm about Meucci has been done. Everyone knows. Please be honest.
When I lived in the United States, the U.S. Patent Office ran a number of TV adverts one of which was that A.G.Bell was not the only inventor of the telephone, but he was the first to get to the patent office to file, (by 4 hours, I seem to remember )
Re: Invention of the telephone.
I would refer everyone to the book: "The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell's Secret" by Seth Shulman. Shulman's research shows that Bell did, indeed, steal the telephone patent but names Elisha Gray as the originator of the design Bell submitted.
I look forward to your comments.