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Philipp Reis: Transmitting Sound Electrically in 1861

By Infinite Creation · Profile

At a Glance

Johann Philipp Reis (1834-1874) built an apparatus in 1861 that transmitted musical tones electrically, and demonstrated it publicly to the Physical Society of Frankfurt. He called it the Telephon. Whether it could carry intelligible speech is disputed and was disputed at the time. He died of tuberculosis at 40, two years before Bell's patent.

Lived: 1834-1874, Germany
Anchor year: 1861, the Telephon demonstrated
Strand: overlooked, a contested precursor

Career

The problem as it stood

The telegraph could send discrete symbols. Sending a continuously varying signal. Sound, required a transducer converting acoustic pressure into a proportionally varying electrical quantity, and no accepted way of doing that existed.

What he actually did

Reis built a transmitter using a membrane with a contact that made and broke a circuit as it vibrated, and a receiver in which a coil around an iron rod produced sound by magnetostriction. He demonstrated it publicly and distributed instruments to other researchers.

How it worked

This is the crux of the dispute. A make-and-break contact is fundamentally a switch, so the device transmits frequency well and amplitude poorly: excellent for musical tones, marginal for speech. Later experimenters found that a slightly maladjusted Reis transmitter can behave as a loose imperfect contact and pass recognisable speech. Bell's variable-resistance transmitter varies continuously by design rather than by accident.

What it made possible

Reis instruments circulated among European physicists through the 1860s, establishing that electrical sound transmission was a live research problem. His work was cited in later telephone patent litigation, where the question of whether his apparatus transmitted speech was argued at length.

What happened to him

He remained a schoolteacher, was not taken seriously by much of the German scientific establishment, and died of tuberculosis in 1874 at 40: two years before Bell filed.

Where the credit landed

Reis built and publicly demonstrated electrical transmission of musical tones in 1861, and whether his apparatus transmitted intelligible speech is genuinely contested rather than settled either way. German accounts have tended to claim him as the telephone's inventor and Anglophone accounts to dismiss him. The defensible position is narrower: he demonstrated electrical sound transmission first, and Bell built the first device designed to carry speech reliably.

Known For

A make-and-break contact transmits pitch well and loudness badly: that is the whole dispute.
His instruments circulated widely, so the idea was not obscure when Bell worked.
Neither the strong German claim nor the flat Anglophone dismissal survives scrutiny.

Knowledge Base

What You'll Learn

The telephone dispute is a good rehearsal for every priority dispute that follows.

Why "did it transmit speech" is hard to answer

The question is not purely historical. Surviving and reconstructed Reis instruments behave differently depending on contact adjustment. Some pass recognisable speech, especially when imperfectly set. So the honest answer is that it could sometimes, unreliably, and not by design. Bell built a transmitter whose operating principle produces a continuously varying current, which is why his worked consistently.

Where This Fits

Reis sent tones electrically in 1861, an early transmission link in the chain traced in A History of Broadcast Technology.

FAQ

Q: Did Philipp Reis invent the telephone?
A: He built and publicly demonstrated electrical transmission of musical tones in 1861, fifteen years before Bell's patent. Whether his apparatus transmitted intelligible speech is contested. He demonstrated electrical sound transmission first. Bell built the first device designed to carry speech reliably.

Q: What is the difference between his transmitter and Bell's?
A: Reis used a make-and-break contact, which conveys frequency well but amplitude poorly. Bell used variable resistance, in which the current varies continuously with sound pressure, which is what speech requires.

Sources

The volume was located in a library scan, and the article reference comes from a separate catalogue. Both halves are named so you can see which is which. Checked 20 August 2026.

Jahresbericht des Physikalischen Vereins Frankfurt am Main, 1860/61. The Munich Digitisation Centre record confirms the publication, the issuing body and the accounting year 1860 to 1861. The German Wikisource catalogue of Reis's works places his article, Ueber Telephonie durch den galvanischen Strom, at page 57 of this volume, and booksellers' records give its extent as pages 57 to 64. This is the 1861 publication the anchor year above refers to.