''CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?'' - THE TELEPHONE (1876)

Sometimes you really have to stop and pinch yourself when it comes to a technology like the telephone. Honestly, how crazy is it that we literally pick up any old landline and have a conversation with freaking Australia in real time?? (I realise that if you’re reading this in Australia then this feat is slightly less impressive). Unfortunately since most of us have mobiles that we use every single day, the novelty of long distance chatting wears off surprisingly quickly and we forget just how much of an impact they have on our lives. But try to imagine just how differently this technology was received in the late 19th Century, when Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell worked on their independent designs to transmit the human voice with the magic of electricity. (Long story short, a persons’ voice is converted from sound energy in the transmitter of their phone to electrical energy, this process is then reversed to the person on the other end through a receiver, which converts its back to audible sound energy). This as it turns out, was one of the most hotly contested patent battles of all time – understandable, since the first man to get his design to the patent office would forever be remembered as the man who INVENTED THE TELEPHONE. You can therefore imagine the drama on February 14th 1876, the day where both men raced to be the first to claim credit and eternal bragging rights over their fierce rival. It’ll come as no great surprise that Alexander Graham Bell was the early bird on this particular occasion, since many people have sadly never even heard the name ‘Elisha Gray’ before. Yet despite the whole patent hullaballoo, it was clear that the benefits of this technology would be immense. Before the telephone, long distance communication could only be achieved through Morse code, which although I’m sure is great fun, could not hope to contend with a real human conversation, taking place over potentially thousands of miles.