Abstract
On January 7 occurs the centenary of the birth of the German physicist, Johann Philipp Reis, one of the earliest pioneers of the telephone. Reis was born in Gelnhausen, and died at Friedrichsdorf near Homburg on January 14, 1874 at the early age of forty years. Left an orphan, he had to struggle against many difficulties and it was while an apprentice to a painter that he laid the foundation of his knowledge of chemistry and physics. Eventually he was offered a post as a teacher at the Institut Gamier in Friedrichsdorf, which he had attended as a boy. It was in his own private workroom that he made the apparatus which he called the “Telephon”. His work was based on the true theory of telephony, and he probably designed ten distinct forms of transmitter and four forms of receiver. On October 26, 1861, he exhibited his apparatus before the Physical Society of Frankfort-On-Main and a year or two later lectured on it at Giessen. His apparatus was also placed on the market, and when D. E. Hughes went to Russia in 1865 in connexion with his printing telegraph, he took one of Reis's telephones with him and exhibited it to the Emperor Alexander II at Czarsko-Zelo. But in spite of the correctness of his views and his ingenuity, Reis failed to impress others of the value of his invention. Towards the end of the 'sixties he was attacked by consumption and this led to his early death. He passed away entirely unnoticed, but after the telephone came into common use his country attempted to make some amends for the neglect he had suffered, and the Government erected a monument over his grave in the cemetery at Friedrichsdorf. His biography was written in 1883 by Silvanus Thompson, and on January 7, 1884 the Electrotechnische Gesellschaft of Frankfort held a special meeting followed by a banquet to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of his birth.
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Centenary of Philipp Reis, 1834–1874. Nature 133, 18 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/133018c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/133018c0