The article focuses on the work of Harold Wilson, Robert Millikan and his students, in particular, Louis Begeman and Harvey Fletcher on determining the magnitude of an elementary electric charge. Attention is drawn to the priority of authorship in the publications of R. Millikan and H. Fletcher based on the results of joint research. A controversy was noted around the results of Millikan’s experiments to determine the electric charge of an electron. The situation with R. Millikan’s recommendation of his student Harold de Forest Arnold to the WECo research group for the development of a telephone electronic repeater is described.
The scientific ways that led the American radio engineer Michael Pupin to the development of telephone technologies aimed at improving the quality of an audio signal when it is transmitted over long distances are considered. Pupin’s important inventions in the field of long-distance telephony are investigated. His theories of using inductors to reduce the attenuation of the transmitted telegraph and telephone signal over the cable by artificially increasing its inductance are described. Attention is paid to the dispute between Pupin and Campbell in the primacy of the invention of load coils and its most significant consequences.
The choice of the development trend of the Bell System at the beginning of the 20th century in the conditions of fierce competition in the telephone market and the economic crisis of 1907 in the USA is studied. It shows in detail the restructuring of Bell’s scientific and technical activities, which contributed to attracting innovation and focusing spending on research, development and technological work. This made it possible in the future to create conditions for the development of a telephone tube repeater and to begin laying a transcontinental telephone line from New York to San Francisco. It is noted that the company’s emergence as a leader in the telephone business is largely due to the involvement of talented scientists and engineers in the project.
At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, long-distance telephone communication turned into a serious business, however, the cost of lines was high, and the practical commercial range of telephone signal transmission did not exceed 1600 km. As the lengths of long-distance telephone lines increased, two problems arose that were rec-ognized as particularly relevant, in particular, crosstalk and signal attenuation. AT&T researchers were engaged in solving these problems. This article examines the work of scientists and engineers who have led to real practical solutions to problems of long-distance telephone communication, in particular, Oliver Heaviside, John Stone and George Campbell.
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