American Bell Telephone

bell [bel]

1 noun

(a) (in church) cloche f; (handheld) clochette f; (on bicycle) sonnette f; (for cows) cloche f, clarine f; (on boots, toys) grelot m; (sound) coup m (de cloche);

∎ there goes the dinner bell c'est la cloche qui annonce le dîner;

∎ Religion has the first bell for vespers gone? a-t-on sonné le premier coup des vêpres?;

∎ Nautical to sound bells piquer la cloche ou l'heure;

∎ Nautical it sounded four/eight bells cela a piqué quatre/huit coups (de cloche);

∎ saved by the bell! sauvé par le gong!;

∎ Religion bell, book and candle instruments mpl du culte;

∎ bells and whistles accessoires mpl

(b) (electrical device → on door) sonnette f;

∎ there's the bell il y a quelqu'un à la porte, on sonne (à la porte);

∎ to ring the bell sonner

(c) British familiar (telephone call)

∎ to give sb a bell passer un coup de fil à qn

(d) Botany (of flower) calice m, clochette f; Music (of oboe, trumpet) pavillon m

(e) (of stag) bramement m; (of hound) aboiement m

2 intransitive verb

(a) (stag) bramer; (hound) aboyer

(b) (bloat, distend) ballonner

3 transitive verb

∎ figurative to bell the cat attacher le grelot

►► Nautical bell buoy bouée f à cloche;

American bell captain chef m chasseur;

Horticulture bell glass cloche f de verre;

Botany bell heather bruyère f cendrée;

Chemistry bell jar cloche f de verre;

Bell Laboratories, Bell Labs = centre américain de recherches scientifiques et techniques de haute renommée;

American Sport bell lap dernier tour m (de piste, de circuit);

American Botany & Cookery bell pepper poivron m;

bell push bouton m de sonnette;

bell rope (to call servant) cordon m de sonnette; (in belfry) corde f de cloche;

bell tent tente f conique;

bell tower clocher m

✾ Book 'The Bell Jar' Plath 'La Cloche de verre'

✾ Book 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' Hemingway 'Pour qui sonne le glas'

ⓘ The bells, the bells Dans The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, la traduction anglaise de Notre-Dame de Paris de Victor Hugo, Quasimodo s'exclame "the bells, the bells!" lorsqu'il entend sonner les cloches de la cathédrale. Pour plaisanter, il arrive que l'on prononce ces paroles en prenant une grosse voix lorsque l'on entend sonner des cloches, pour évoquer le personnage de Quasimodo.

SUBJECT AREA: Telecommunications

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Bell's grandfather was a professor of elocution in London and his father an authority on the physiology of the voice and on elocution; Bell was to follow in their footsteps. He was educated in Edinburgh, leaving school at 13. In 1863 he went to Elgin, Morayshire, as a pupil teacher in elocution, with a year's break to study at Edinburgh University; it was in 1865, while still in Elgin, that he first conceived the idea of the electrical transmission of speech. He went as a master to Somersetshire College, Bath (now in Avon), and in 1867 he moved to London to assist his father, who had taken up the grandfather's work in elocution. In the same year, he matriculated at London University, studying anatomy and physiology, and also began teaching the deaf. He continued to pursue the studies that were to lead to the invention of the telephone. At this time he read Helmholtz's The Sensations of Tone, an important work on the theory of sound that was to exert a considerable influence on him.

In 1870 he accompanied his parents when they emigrated to Canada. His work for the deaf gained fame in both Canada and the USA, and in 1873 he was apponted professor of vocal physiology and the mechanics of speech at Boston University, Massachusetts. There, he continued to work on his theory that sound wave vibrations could be converted into a fluctuating electric current, be sent along a wire and then be converted back into sound waves by means of a receiver. He approached the problem from the background of the theory of sound and voice production rather than from that of electrical science, and by 1875 he had succeeded in constructing a rough model. On 7 March 1876 Bell spoke the famous command to his assistant, "Mr Watson, come here, I want you": this was the first time a human voice had been transmitted along a wire. Only three days earlier, Bell's first patent for the telephone had been granted. Almost simultaneously, but quite independently, Elisha Gray had achieved a similar result. After a period of litigation, the US Supreme Court awarded Bell priority, although Gray's device was technically superior.

In 1877, three years after becoming a naturalized US citizen, Bell married the deaf daughter of his first backer. In August of that year, they travelled to Europe to combine a honeymoon with promotion of the telephone. Bell's patent was possibly the most valuable ever issued, for it gave birth to what later became the world's largest private service organization, the Bell Telephone Company.

Bell had other scientific and technological interests: he made improvements in telegraphy and in Edison's gramophone, and he also developed a keen interest in aeronautics, working on Curtiss's flying machine. Bell founded the celebrated periodical Science.

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сокр AT and T, AT&T

см тж Baby Bell, Bell System

SUBJECT AREA: Electronics and information technology, Telecommunications

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Colpitts obtained Bachelor's degrees at Mount Allison University, Sackville, New Brunswick, and Harvard in 1894 and 1896, respectively, followed by a Master's degree at Harvard in 1897. After two years as assistant to the professor of physics there, he joined the American Bell Telephone Company. When the Bell Company was reorganized in 1907, he moved to the Western Electric branch of the company in New York as Head of the Physical Laboratories. In 1911 he became a director of the Research Laboratories, and in 1917 he became Assistant Chief Engineer of the company. During this time he invented both the push-pull amplifier and the Colpitts oscillator, both major developments in communications. In 1917, during the First World War, he spent some time in France helping to set up the US Signal Corps Research Laboratories. Afterwards he continued to do much, both technically and as a manager, to place telephone communications on a firm scientific basis, retiring as Vice-President of the Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1937. With the outbreak of the Second World War in 1941 he was recalled from retirement and appointed Director of the Engineering Foundation to work on submarine warfare techniques, particularly echo-ranging.

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See also: Hartley, Ralph V.L.

1) Медицина: asian body therapy

2) Военный термин: Air-Breathing Target

3) Техника: automatic bus transfer

4) Сокращение: Air Breathing Threat, American Board of Trade, air blast transformer (трансформатор с охлаждением искусственной циркуляцией воздуха, трансформатор с принудительным [искусственным] воздушным охлаждением), American Ballet Theatre, Association of Building Technicians (Ассоциация техников-строителей (Великобритания)), automatic beacon transponder (автоматический радиомаяк-ответчик)

5) Электроника: Advanced Brightness Technology

6) Вычислительная техника: Automatic Bench Test

7) Иммунология: Applied Biological Technology, autologous blood transfusion

8) Транспорт: Active Brake Technology

9) Фирменный знак: American Bell Telephone

10) Расширение файла: Abort

11) Энергосистемы: тариф на основе готовности, тариф на основе эксплуатационной готовности, availability based tariff, availability-based tariff

12) Должность: All But Thesis

13) NYSE. Abbott Laboratories

14) Аэропорты: Al- Baha, Saudi Arabia

15) НАСА: Approximate Burn Time

1) Медицина: asian body therapy

2) Военный термин: Air-Breathing Target

3) Техника: automatic bus transfer

4) Сокращение: Air Breathing Threat, American Board of Trade, air blast transformer (трансформатор с охлаждением искусственной циркуляцией воздуха, трансформатор с принудительным [искусственным] воздушным охлаждением), American Ballet Theatre, Association of Building Technicians (Ассоциация техников-строителей (Великобритания)), automatic beacon transponder (автоматический радиомаяк-ответчик)

5) Электроника: Advanced Brightness Technology

6) Вычислительная техника: Automatic Bench Test

7) Иммунология: Applied Biological Technology, autologous blood transfusion

8) Транспорт: Active Brake Technology

9) Фирменный знак: American Bell Telephone

10) Расширение файла: Abort

11) Энергосистемы: тариф на основе готовности, тариф на основе эксплуатационной готовности, availability based tariff, availability-based tariff

12) Должность: All But Thesis

13) NYSE. Abbott Laboratories

14) Аэропорты: Al- Baha, Saudi Arabia

15) НАСА: Approximate Burn Time

SUBJECT AREA: Electronics and information technology, Weapons and armour

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Bode received his bachelor's and master's degrees from Ohio State University in 1924 and 1926, respectively, and his PhD from Columbia University, New York, in 1935. In 1926 he joined the Bell Telephone Laboratories, where he made many theoretical contributions to the understanding of the behaviour of electronic circuits and, in particular, in conjunction with Harry Nyquist, of the conditions under which amplifier circuits become unstable.

During the Second World War he worked on the design of gun control systems and afterwards was a member of a team that worked with Douglas Aircraft to develop the Nike anti-aircraft missile. A member of the Bell Laboratories Mathematical Research Group from 1929, he became its Director in 1952, and then Director of Physical Sciences. Finally he became Vice-President of the Laboratories, with responsibility for systems engineering, and a director of Bellcomm, a Bell company involved in the Moon-landing programme. When he retired from Bell in 1967, he became Professor of Systems Engineering at Harvard University.

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SUBJECT AREA: Electronics and information technology, Recording

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Nyquist (original family name Nykvist) emigrated from Sweden to the USA when he was 18 years old and settled in Minnesota. After teaching for a time, he studied electrical engineering at the University of North Dakota, gaining his first and Master's degrees in 1915 and 1916, and his PhD from Yale in 1917. He then joined the American Telegraph \& Telephone Company, moving to its Bell Laboratories in 1934 and remaining there until his retirement in 1954. A prolific inventor, he made many contributions to communication engineering, including the invention of vestigial-side band transmission. In the late 1920s he analysed the behaviour of analogue and digital signals in communication circuits, and in 1928 he showed that the thermal noise per unit bandwidth is given by 4 kT, where k is Boltzmann's constant and T the absolute temperature. However, he is best known for the Nyquist Criterion, which defines the conditions necessary for the stable, oscillation-free operation of amplifiers with a closed feedback loop. The problem of how to realize these conditions was investigated by his colleague Hendrik Bode.

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See also: Shannon, Claude Elwood

SUBJECT AREA: Electronics and information technology, Recording, Telecommunications

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He obtained a BSc in electrical engineering at Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York, in 1923 and an MSc from Yale University, and he did postgraduate work at Columbia University. Most of the time he was also on the staff of the Bell Telephone Laboratories. The Bell Laboratories and its predecessors had a long tradition in research in speech and hearing, and in a team of researchers under H.C. Harrison, Keller developed a number of definite improvements in electrical pick-ups, gold-sputtering for matrix work and electrical disc recording equipment. From 1931 onwards the team at Bell Labs developed disc recording for moving pictures and entered into collaboration with Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra concerning transmission and recording of high-fidelity sound over wires, and stereo techniques. Keller developed a stereo recording system for disc records independently of A.D. Blumlein that was used experimentally in the Bell Labs during the 1930s. During the Second World War Keller was in a team developing sonar (sound navigation and ranging) for the US Navy. After the war he concentrated on switching equipment for telephone exchanges and developed a miniature relay. In 1966 he retired from the Bell Laboratories, where he had been Director of several departments, ending as Director of the Switching Apparatus Laboratory. After retirement he was a consultant internationally, concerning electromechanical devices in particular. When, in 1980, the Bell Laboratories decided to issue LP re-recordings of a number of the experimental records made during the 1930s, Keller was brought in from retirement to supervise the project and decide on the selections.

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SUBJECT AREA: Broadcasting, Electronics and information technology, Telecommunications

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Hartley obtained his BA in 1909 from the University of Utah, then gained a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, England. After obtaining a further BA and a BSc in 1912 and 1913, respectively, he returned to the USA and took a job with the Western Electric Laboratories of the Bell Telephone Company, where he was in charge of radio-receiver development. In 1915 he invented the Hartley oscillator, analogous to that invented by Colpitts. Subsequently he worked on carrier telephony at Western Electric and then at Bell Laboratories. There he concen-trated on information theory, building on the pioneering work of Nyquist, in 1926 publishing his law that related information capacity, frequency bandwidth and time. Forced to give up work in 1929 due to ill health, he returned to Bell in 1939 as a consultant on transmission problems. During the Second World War he worked on various projects, including the use of servo-mechanisms for radar and fire control, and finally retired in 1950.

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SUBJECT AREA: Electricity, Land transport, Railways and locomotives, Telecommunications

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He was first apprenticed in Columbus as a machinist and blacksmith. In 1872 he moved to Missouri, where he was engaged as a fireman and then engine-driver on the Iron Mountain Railroad. In his spare time he devoted much time to the study of electrical engineering. In 1878 he went to sea for two years as engineer on a British vessel. He returned to Ohio, taking up his previous occupation as engine-driver, and in 1884 he achieved his first patent, for a locomotive firebox. However, the drive towards things electrical was too strong and he set up the Woods Electric Company in Cincinnati, Ohio, to develop and market electrical inventions. Woods gained some fame as an inventor and became known as the "black Edison ". His first device, a telephone transmitter, was patented in December 1884 but faced stiff competition from similar inventions by Alexander Graham Bell and others. The following year he patented a device for transmitting messages in Morse code or by voice that was valuable enough to be bought up by the Bell Telephone Company. A stream of inventions followed, particularly for railway telegraph and electrical systems. This brought him into conflict with Edison, who was working in the same field. The US Patent Office ruled in Woods's favour; as a result of the ensuing publicity, one newspaper hailed Woods as the "greatest electrician in the world". In 1890 Woods moved to New York, where the opportunities for an electrical engineer seemed more favourable. He turned his attention to inventions that would improve the tram-car. One device enabled electric current to be transferred to the car with less friction than previously, incorporating a grooved wheel known as a "troller", whence came the popular term "trolley car".

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SUBJECT AREA: Recording

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After arriving in the USA in 1870 and becoming an American citizen, Berliner worked as a dry-goods clerk in Washington, DC, and for a period studied electricity at Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York. He invented an improved microphone and set up his own experimental laboratory in Washington, DC. He developed a microphone for telephone use and sold the rights to the Bell Telephone Company. Subsequently he was put in charge of their laboratory, remaining in that position for eight years. In 1881 Berliner, with his brothers Joseph and Jacob, founded the J.Berliner Telephonfabrik in Hanover, the first factory in Europe specializing in telephone equipment.

Inspired by the development work performed by T.A. Edison and in the Volta Laboratory (see C.S. Tainter), he analysed the existing processes for recording and reproducing sound and in 1887 developed a process for transferring lateral undulations scratched in soot into an etched groove that would make a needle and diaphragm vibrate. Using what may be regarded as a combination of the Phonautograph of Léon Scott de Martinville and the photo-engraving suggested by Charles Cros, in May 1887 he thus demonstrated the practicability of the laterally recorded groove. He termed the apparatus "Gramophone". In November 1887 he applied the principle to a glass disc and obtained an inwardly spiralling, modulated groove in copper and zinc. In March 1888 he took the radical step of scratching the lateral vibrations directly onto a rotating zinc disc, the surface of which was protected, and the subsequent etching created the groove. Using well-known principles of printing-plate manufacture, he developed processes for duplication by making a negative mould from which positive copies could be pressed in a thermoplastic compound. Toy gramophones were manufactured in Germany from 1889 and from 1892–3 Berliner manufactured both records and gramophones in the USA. The gramophones were hand-cranked at first, but from 1896 were based on a new design by E.R. Johnson. In 1897–8 Berliner spread his activities to England and Germany, setting up a European pressing plant in the telephone factory in Hanover, and in 1899 a Canadian company was formed. Various court cases over patents removed Berliner from direct running of the reconstructed companies, but he retained a major economic interest in E.R. Johnson's Victor Talking Machine Company. In later years Berliner became interested in aeronautics, in particular the autogiro principle. Applied acoustics was a continued interest, and a tile for controlling the acoustics of large halls was successfully developed in the 1920s.

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SUBJECT AREA: Broadcasting, Electronics and information technology

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Ives gained his PhD in physics from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, and subsequently served in the US Signal Corps, eventually gaining experience in aerial photography. He then joined the Western Electric Engineering Department (later Bell Telephone Laboratories), c.1920 becoming leader of a group concerned with television-image transmission over telephone lines. In 1927, using a Nipkow disc, he demonstrated 50-line, 18 frames/sec pictures that could be displayed as either 2 in.×2 1/2 in. (5.1 cm×6.4 cm) images suitable for a "wirephone", or 2 ft ×2 1/2 ft (61 cm×76 cm) images for television viewing. Two years later, using a single-spiral disc and three separately modulated light sources, he was able to produce full-colour images.

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See also: Baird, John Logie; Jenkins, Charles Francis

SUBJECT AREA: Electronics and information technology, Recording, Telecommunications

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Black graduated from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Massachusetts, in 1921 and joined the Western Electric Company laboratories (later the Bell Telephone Laboratories) in New York City. There he worked on a variety of electronic-communication problems. His major contribution was the discovery in 1927 that the application of negative feedback to an amplifier, whereby a fraction of the output signal is fed back to the input in the opposite phase, not only increases the stability of the amplifier but also has the effect of reducing the magnitude of any distortion introduced by it. This discovery has found wide application in the design of audio hi-fi amplifiers and various control systems, and has also given valuable insight into the way in which many animal control functions operate.

During the Second World War he developed a form of pulse code modulation (PCM) to provide a practicable, secure telephony system for the US Army Signal Corps. From 1963–6, after his retirement from the Bell Labs, he was Principal Research Scientist with General Precision Inc., Little Falls, New Jersey, following which he became an independent consultant in communications. At the time of his death he held over 300 patents.

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See also: Bode, Hendrik Wade; Nyquist, Harry

SUBJECT AREA: Electronics and information technology, Telecommunications

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Following graduation from the University of Wisconsin in 1928 and a year of postgraduate study, Jansky joined Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey with the task of establishing the source of interference to telephone communications by radio. To this end he constructed a linear-directional short-wave antenna and eventually, in 1931, he concluded that the interference actually came from the stars, the major source being the constellation Sagittarius in the direction of the centre of the Milky Way. Although he continued to study the propagation of short radio waves and the nature of observed echoes, it was left to others to develop the science of radioastronomy and to use the creation of echoes for radiolocation. Although he received no scientific award for his discovery, Jansky's name is primarily honoured by its use as the unit of stellar radio-emission strength.

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See also: Appleton, Sir Edward Victor