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The Telegraph Research Paper

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The telegraph not only united the nation with access to quicker communication, it was also the foundation for advanced technology like computers and phones. It took many physicists, inventors, scientists, and others to do research and experiments that lead to the telegraph- an invention that would change the world forever. In the 1780s, galvanism was unintentionally discovered by Luigi Galvani while he was doing experiments in animal physiology. Galvanism is an electric current made when two metals and a moist environment come into contact. Hans Christian Oersted made a discovery that a magnetized needle could be moved by an electric current. This was an important step toward the telegraph- by varying the current with electromagnets, a message could be sent through a wire! William …show more content…

He developed a telegraph that could send signals for over a mile. William F. Cooke and Charles Wheatstone constructed a telegraph that used 5 needles and 5 wires, then 2 needles and wires, and finally one needle and wire. The first practical telegraph, however, was made in 1837 by Samuel F. B. Morse. The making of his telegraph was thanks to all the research that took place for over decades. In November of 1832, Morse built his first model of the telegraph. The telegraph used a portrule to turn the electric current’s flow on and off. His original code was number sequences- each particular sequence representing a word. By 1835, his improved model was larger and on it was a small picture frame that held a pencil. The electromagnets would move the pencil to make dots and dashes on paper tape. A dot would be made by a smaller amount of electric current, while a dash is a larger amount. Morse started working with Leonard Gale, a chemistry professor, in 1836. Gale helped to upgrade the electromagnet and battery to allow messages to be sent farther. On Sep. 2,

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