Johann Philipp Reis (German: [ʁaɪs]; 7 January 1834 – 14 January 1874) was a self-taught German scientist and inventor. In 1861, he created the first make-and-break telephone, now known as the Reis telephone. This device was the first to send a voice using electronic signals. Some people consider it the first telephone. Reis also introduced the word "telephone."

Early life and education

Reis was born in Gelnhausen, Germany, to Marie Katharine (Glöckner) and Karl Sigismund Reis, a respected baker. His father was a member of the Evangelical Lutheran church. Reis's mother died when he was very young, and he was raised by his grandmother on his father's side, a well-educated and intelligent woman. At the age of six, Reis attended the public school in his hometown of Gelnhausen. His teachers noticed his abilities and encouraged his father to provide him with more advanced education. His father died before Reis turned ten years old. His grandmother and guardians then placed him at Garnier's Institute in Friedrichsdorf, where he developed an interest in languages and learned French and English. He also gained knowledge from the library by reading a variety of books.

At the end of his fourteenth year, Reis was admitted to the Hassel Institute in Frankfurt am Main, where he studied Latin and Italian. His interest in science grew, and his guardians were advised to send him to the Polytechnic School in Karlsruhe. His uncle wanted him to become a merchant, and on March 1, 1850, Reis was apprenticed as a paint dealer at J. F. Beyerbach's shop in Frankfurt, even though he did not want this job. He told his uncle he would learn the trade but would continue studying subjects he preferred.

Through hard work, Reis earned the respect of his employer, Beyerbach. In his free time, he studied mathematics and physics privately and attended lectures on mechanics by Professor R. Bottger at the Trade School. After completing his apprenticeship, Reis attended the Institute of Dr. Poppe in Frankfurt. Since history and geography were not taught there, some students agreed to teach each other. Reis taught geography and believed this was his true calling. He also joined the Physical Society of Frankfurt.

In 1855, Reis completed his one-year military service in Kassel and returned to Frankfurt to prepare for a teaching career through private study and public lectures. He planned to finish his training at the University of Heidelberg, but in the spring of 1858, he visited his former teacher, Hofrath Garnier, who offered him a teaching position at Garnier's Institute.

On September 14, 1859, Reis married. Soon after, he moved to Friedrichsdorf to begin his new career as a teacher.

The telephone

Reis believed electricity could travel through space, like light, without needing a material conductor. He tested this idea and wrote a paper titled "On the Radiation of Electricity." In 1859, he sent it to Professor Poggendorff for publication in a well-known science journal, Annalen der Physik. The paper was not accepted, which upset Reis deeply.

Reis, like Bell later did, studied the human ear and thought about using electricity to send sound. He worked on this idea for many years and finally succeeded. In 1860, he built the first telephone prototype that could send sound over 100 meters. In 1862, he tried again to share his invention with Poggendorff, but his work was rejected once more. Poggendorff did not believe electricity could transmit speech, and Reis felt the rejection was because he was only a schoolteacher.

Despite showing his invention to people like Wilhelm von Legat, a telegraph official in Germany, Reis struggled to gain interest in his work. However, in 1872, a professor in the United States demonstrated the device in New York, which sparked more attention.

Before 1947, the British company Standard Telephones and Cables tested Reis's device. It could faintly send and receive speech. At the time, the company was competing with Alexander Graham Bell's telephone company, and the results were hidden to protect Bell's reputation.

Before Bell invented the telephone, a French telegraphist named Charles Bourseul had imagined using electricity to send sound and speech. Bourseul is credited with being the first to think of an electric telephone, but Reis is credited with creating the first working device.

Bourseul's idea was not widely noticed, and even some experts thought it was fanciful. Reis, however, was inspired by the human ear, which uses a membrane to send vibrations to the brain. He designed a diaphragm that could mimic this process, using vibrations to interrupt an electric current. This current could then be used to recreate sounds at a distance.

In the 1830s, Professor Page discovered that an iron needle inside a coil of wire would make a ticking sound when an electric current was interrupted. If the interruptions happened quickly, the sound became a continuous hum, which he called "galvanic music." Reis used this knowledge to build his telephone. His early models included a wooden copy of the human ear with a drum that moved a platinum lever to open and close an electric circuit. He made many versions of his device, each improving on the last.

Later, the invention of the microphone by Professor Hughes explained why Reis's telephone had trouble sending speech. Reis's device relied on breaking the electric current, which worked for musical tones but not for speech. Speech requires the current to change in strength without being completely interrupted. Reis's phone could send the pitch of sounds but not clear words.

A report from 1862 by Herr von Legat, a telegraph official, noted that Reis understood the need for a smooth current but his device was not well designed for this. His platinum contacts acted like a basic microphone, allowing some words to be sent if the device was slightly misaligned.

In 1910, a court case involving a telephone dispute brought Reis's machine into the courtroom. It could make strange noises but not clear speech. Experts struggled to use it, and one lawyer said, "It can speak, but it won't." A judge later explained that Reis's device broke the electric current too much to work properly.

Reis tested his inventions in a small workshop near his home. Wires connected his workshop to other rooms, and his device was used in school experiments. Students were quiet in class, fearing Reis might hear them through his "telephon."

In 1861, Reis presented his invention to the Physical Society of Frankfurt. He later wrote about it for a science journal. His work caused excitement in Germany, and models were sent to other countries. Scientists and the public became interested in his device, and it was discussed in lectures and articles.

Final days

Later, Reis continued his teaching and scientific work, but his poor health became a serious problem. For several years, he used his strong will to continue his duties. His voice started to weaken as his lung disease worsened, and in the summer of 1873, he had to stop his tutoring work for several weeks. A vacation in the autumn gave him hope that he might recover, and he returned to teaching. However, this was his final chance to continue his work. It was announced that he would present his new gravity-machine at a meeting of the Gesellschaft Deutscher Naturforscher und Ärzte (Society of German Scientists and Physicians) in Wiesbaden in September, but he was too ill to attend. In December, he stopped moving and, after a long and painful illness, died at five o'clock in the afternoon on January 14, 1874.

In his Curriculum Vitae, he wrote: Philipp Reis was buried in the cemetery of Friedrichsdorf. In 1878, after the electric telephone was introduced, members of the Physical Society of Frankfurt built a red sandstone obelisk with a medallion portrait over his grave.

Recognition and technological assessment

In 1878, four years after his death and two years after Bell received his first telephone patent, European scientists built a monument to Philip Reis, honoring him as the inventor of the telephone.

In 1947, documents at London's Science Museum showed that engineers from the British company Standard Telephones and Cables (STC) tested a telephone made by Reis in 1863. After making improvements, they found that the device could transmit and reproduce speech clearly, though it was not very efficient.

Sir Frank Gill, who was the leader of STC at the time, ordered the test results to remain secret. This was because STC was negotiating with AT&T, a company that had developed from the Bell Telephone Company, which Alexander Graham Bell had created. Bell was widely believed to have invented the telephone, and Gill feared that proving otherwise might harm the negotiations.

Today, the VDE (a German electrical engineering group), Deutsche Telekom, and the cities of Friedrichsdorf and Gelnhausen give the Johann-Philipp-Reis Preis (prize) to scientists who make important contributions to communication technology.

Telephone invention controversies

In addition to Reis and Bell, several other individuals claimed to have invented the telephone. This led to the Gray-Bell telephone controversy, a long legal dispute in the United States. The case involved Bell, Thomas Alva Edison, Elisha Gray, Emil Berliner, Amos Dolbear, J. W. McDonagh, G. B. Richmond, W. L. Voeker, J. H. Irwin, and Francis Blake Jr. The case began in 1878 and was finally decided on February 27, 1901. Bell and the Bell Telephone Company won this important case, as well as all over 600 other court decisions related to the invention of the telephone. The Bell Telephone Company never lost a case that reached a final trial.

A later dispute occurred more than 100 years later when the U.S. Congress passed a resolution in 2002 to acknowledge Italian-American Antonio Meucci’s contributions to the invention of the telephone. This resolution had no legal effect at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Canada’s Parliament later issued a similar statement, stating that Alexander Graham Bell of Brantford, Ontario, and Baddeck, Nova Scotia, was the inventor of the telephone. Before his death, Meucci had lost the only completed federal court trial related to the invention of the telephone.