wires; in fact, it was surprising that nobody had thought of it sooner.
C LOCKS AND COOKING pans hardly seem the stuff of which communications revolutions are made. But that was what Claude Chappe
ended up using for his first working signaling system.
Chappe was one of many researchers who had tried and failed to harness electricity for the purpose of sending messages from
one place to another. Rom into a well-to-do French family, he planned on a career as a member of the clergy but was derailed
by the French Revolution in 1789. He took up scientific research instead, concentrating on physics and, in particular, the
problems associated with building an electrical signaling system. Having made no more progress than anyone else, he decided
to try a simpler approach. Refore long he had figured out a way to send messages using the deafening "clang" made by striking
a casserole dish—a sound that could be heard a quarter of a mile away—in conjunction with two specially modified clocks. They
had no hour or minute hands, just a second hand that went twice as fast as usual, completing two revolutions per minute, and
a clock face with ten instead of the usual twelve numbers around its edge.
To send a message, Claude Chappe and his brother Rene, stationed a few hundred yards apart behind their parents' house, would
begin by synchronizing their clocks. Claude would make a "clang" as the second hand on his clock reached the twelve o'clock
position, so that his brother could synchronize his clock accordingly. Claude could then transmit numbers by going "clang"
as the second hand passed over the number on the clock face that he wished to send. Using a numbered dictionary as a codebook,
the Chappe brothers translated these numbers into letters, words, and phrases, and thus sent simple messages. It is uncertain
how their original code worked, but the brothers probably transmitted digits in twos or threes and looked up the resulting
two- or three-digit number in the codebook to see what word or phrase it corresponded to.
In other words, a complicated message could be sent using simple signals. However, the problem with this design (apart from
the incessant clanging noise) was that the person receiving the message had to be within earshot of the sender and, depending
on the direction of the wind, this was a few hundred yards away at most. Rather than replacing the copper pans with something
louder, Chappe realized that it would be simpler to replace the audible signal with a visible one.
So out went the casserole dishes, and in their place was substituted a pivoting wooden panel, five feet tall, painted black
on one side and white on the other. By flipping it from one color to the other as the second hand passed over a particular
number, Chappe could transmit that number. This improved design had the obvious advantage that it allowed messages to be sent
over very great distances very quickly—particularly if a telescope was used to observe the panel.
At 11 A.M. on March 2, 1791, Chappe and his brother used their black-and-white panels, clocks, telescopes, and codebooks to
send a message between a castle in their hometown of Brulon, in northern France, and a house in Parce, ten miles away. In
the presence of local officials, it took them about four minutes to transmit a phrase chosen by the local doctor—"si vous
REUSSISSEZ, vous SEREZ BIEN-TOT COUVERT DE GLOIRE" (IF YOU SUCCEED, YOU WILL SOON BASK IN GLORY)—from one location to the
other.
Chappe wanted to call his invention the tachygraphe— from the Greek for "fast writer"—to signify the unprecedented speed with which it transmitted information. However, he was
talked out of it by his friend Miot de Mélito, a government official and classical scholar, who suggested the name t é l é graphe, or "far writer," instead.
Et voilá: The telegraph was born.
Having shown that his invention worked, Chappe started to galvanize
C LOCKS AND COOKING pans hardly seem the stuff of which communications revolutions are made. But that was what Claude Chappe
ended up using for his first working signaling system.
Chappe was one of many researchers who had tried and failed to harness electricity for the purpose of sending messages from
one place to another. Rom into a well-to-do French family, he planned on a career as a member of the clergy but was derailed
by the French Revolution in 1789. He took up scientific research instead, concentrating on physics and, in particular, the
problems associated with building an electrical signaling system. Having made no more progress than anyone else, he decided
to try a simpler approach. Refore long he had figured out a way to send messages using the deafening "clang" made by striking
a casserole dish—a sound that could be heard a quarter of a mile away—in conjunction with two specially modified clocks. They
had no hour or minute hands, just a second hand that went twice as fast as usual, completing two revolutions per minute, and
a clock face with ten instead of the usual twelve numbers around its edge.
To send a message, Claude Chappe and his brother Rene, stationed a few hundred yards apart behind their parents' house, would
begin by synchronizing their clocks. Claude would make a "clang" as the second hand on his clock reached the twelve o'clock
position, so that his brother could synchronize his clock accordingly. Claude could then transmit numbers by going "clang"
as the second hand passed over the number on the clock face that he wished to send. Using a numbered dictionary as a codebook,
the Chappe brothers translated these numbers into letters, words, and phrases, and thus sent simple messages. It is uncertain
how their original code worked, but the brothers probably transmitted digits in twos or threes and looked up the resulting
two- or three-digit number in the codebook to see what word or phrase it corresponded to.
In other words, a complicated message could be sent using simple signals. However, the problem with this design (apart from
the incessant clanging noise) was that the person receiving the message had to be within earshot of the sender and, depending
on the direction of the wind, this was a few hundred yards away at most. Rather than replacing the copper pans with something
louder, Chappe realized that it would be simpler to replace the audible signal with a visible one.
So out went the casserole dishes, and in their place was substituted a pivoting wooden panel, five feet tall, painted black
on one side and white on the other. By flipping it from one color to the other as the second hand passed over a particular
number, Chappe could transmit that number. This improved design had the obvious advantage that it allowed messages to be sent
over very great distances very quickly—particularly if a telescope was used to observe the panel.
At 11 A.M. on March 2, 1791, Chappe and his brother used their black-and-white panels, clocks, telescopes, and codebooks to
send a message between a castle in their hometown of Brulon, in northern France, and a house in Parce, ten miles away. In
the presence of local officials, it took them about four minutes to transmit a phrase chosen by the local doctor—"si vous
REUSSISSEZ, vous SEREZ BIEN-TOT COUVERT DE GLOIRE" (IF YOU SUCCEED, YOU WILL SOON BASK IN GLORY)—from one location to the
other.
Chappe wanted to call his invention the tachygraphe— from the Greek for "fast writer"—to signify the unprecedented speed with which it transmitted information. However, he was
talked out of it by his friend Miot de Mélito, a government official and classical scholar, who suggested the name t é l é graphe, or "far writer," instead.
Et voilá: The telegraph was born.
Having shown that his invention worked, Chappe started to galvanize
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