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Annotations:

Tags:: #Memex2 #Annotations

Chapter 1:

  • Page 1-2: Nollet, ran an experiment that meant a huge deal to the research and start of electrical communication. He found that electrical can travel long distances extremely fast.

  • Page 3-4: A horse-borne message was much slower than other methods such as sound and light, but even those methods had their limits. Electricity was great as it could be transmitted around corners, underground, etc. extremely fast. Its downside was that it still only transmitted simple messages.

  • page 9: Chappe created the first telegraph using black and white panels to transmit messages. Telegraph stands for far writer.

  • page 10-11: Telegraph stations was a new invention that allowed 98 different combinations. It was quickly recognized for its military value as it could get a message around quickly. It worked by having a station a distance away in which the station can see the other and send messages in between with the symbols.

  • Page 15: The telegraph was seen as revolutionary and people began looking at its profitability.

  • Page 18: Many different inventions of an electrical telegraph were created but none ever came into fruition.

  • Page 20-21: The telegraph created by Chappe was limited as it was expensive to build and required skilled operators and having buildings all over the place. It also was unable to be used at night or during misty days and it was evident that an electric telegraph would preform much better.

Chapter 2:

  • Page 24: The Galvanometer which indicates the flow of current and the voltaic battery were created and both could be used as an electric telegraph.

  • Page 28-32: New inventors emerged, such as Morse and Cooke. Both after being introduced to the idea of a electromagnetism wanted to build a telegraph. Morse can up with the idea of bi-signal (Dots and Dashes). Both Ran into the same problem, they were unable to transmit a signal over longer distances.

  • Page 38-40: Morse began to make significant progress on the telegraph and improved the code it used to convert and receive messages. He was also quite confident it would become an everyday device. As he quickly noticed, convincing people that the device was useful was tough.

Page 68-72: Many countries began creating interconnections between them, so messages could be sent between them. Many agreements and rules were made to regulate the messages. Thus began the connection of Europe. The problem came when Britain wanted to connect as a wire would have to be successfully passed underwater, which had not been done before. They needed a way to coat the wire, so it could survive underwater. The gutta-percha tree matched the description and could be easily moulded. This new cable was a success and messages were able to be sent.

Chapter 5:

  • Page 74-75: People had the idea of building a transatlantic telegraph and knew that it would be extremely beneficial. The problem was that it was too risky and impossible to build at the time. There were too many factors that could result in the project failing.

  • Page 78-79: The job of coming up with the cable was given to a doctor who knew very little about the science aspect. The first attempt was a fail as the cable snapped. The second attempted they tried to meet halfway to half the time but the cable snapped. On the fourth attempt it was successful and a connection was made between Europe and North America.

  • Page 83-85: The cable worked for around a month before it failed. The public believed it was a hoax and that it never existed in the first place and was just a way to get money. The cable failed due to its design.

  • Page 87-89: Fields was tasked with laying a new cable and the Atlantic Telegraph company planned on improving its mistakes and had all the knowledge needed to build a working wire. They only ran into one problem when the cable snapped but soon after they were able to connect the cables and the two continents were again connected.

Chapter 12:

  • Page 202-205: The telegraph continued to grow overtime with new inventions and improvements. Morse lived a prosperous life and died a notable man and a fortune. Wheatstone moved on from the telegraph to other inventions and was recognized for may awards and was a wealthy man. Him and Cooke had a rivalry and while Wheatstone was successful and had a lot of money from his involvement in the telegraph, Cooke was the opposite. He struggled and was in debt for the better part of his life. Many inventions extended from the telegraph and it was a popular item in many households.

  • Page 206-208: The internet is similar to the telegraph as it allows people to communicate across great distances using interconnected networks. Internet: A group of interconnected networks. A computer uses a codebook similar to morse code called ASCII. One of the biggest similarities between the two are the social impacts. Public reaction to both the inventions was mixed between hype and skepticism. Another similarity is scam artists exist for both. People were worried about the security of the telegraph and its the same for the internet both turned to secret codes.

  • Page 209: There are many parallels between the telegraph and the internet showing how they impacted society in similar ways.