Telegrams in large cities have long been replaced by e-mail, telexes by modern computers, and the chirping of teletypes has been replaced by the quiet hum of modern servers. But for decades, the dots and dashes of Morse code transmitted information about the most important events in people's lives. This material is a brief history of telegraph communications in Russia, which is fully presented in a special departmental museum of the Central Telegraph company.

The history of development

Short text messages appeared much earlier than telephone communication. If you "dig" very deep, then you can remember the signal fires that flickered on the tops of hills in ancient times, which were used to transmit military information, as well as various models of semaphores that were used in both the Old and New Worlds.

Models of semaphore telegraphs of the Chateau (left) and Chappe (right) systems.

The most efficient semaphore-type system is still the telegraph of the French inventor Pierre Chateau. It was an optical system of semaphore towers in direct visual communication with each other, usually located at a distance of 10-20 km. On each of them was installed a crossbar about three meters long, at the ends of which movable rulers were attached. With the help of traction, the rulers could be folded into 196 figures. Initially, its inventor was, of course, Claude Chappe, who chose 76 of the most clear and distinct figures, each of which denoted a certain letter, number or sign. The borders of the rulers were equipped with lanterns, which made it possible to transmit messages even at night. In France alone, by the middle of the 19th century, the length of optical telegraph lines was 4828 kilometers. But Chateau improved the system - instead of individual letters and signs, each combination in his interpretation began to denote a phrase or a specific order. Of course, the police, state authorities and the army immediately appeared with their own code tables.

An example of an encrypted report that had to be sent using a semaphore telegraph.

In 1833, the Chateau semaphore telegraph line connected St. Petersburg with Kronstadt. The main telegraph station was, oddly enough, right on the roof of the Emperor's Winter Palace. In 1839, the government telegraph line was extended to the Royal Castle in Warsaw for a distance of 1200 kilometers. 149 relay stations with towers up to 20 meters high were built along the entire route. Observers with spyglasses were on duty around the clock on the towers. In the dark, lanterns were lit at the ends of the semaphores. The line was serviced by over 1000 people. It existed until 1854.

All standards for the transmission of information were regulated by special instructions.

But the real breakthrough did not come until September 1837, when, at New York University, Samuel Morse demonstrated to an enlightened public his early designs for electric telegraphs - a legible signal was sent along a 1,700-foot-long wire. Now it would be called a presentation to potential investors, but then for Morse, who by education was, in fact, not an engineer, but an artist, this was the last chance to receive funding for his developments. Fortunately for him, the hall was attended by a successful industrialist from New Jersey, Stephen Weil, who agreed to donate two thousand dollars (at that time - a lot of money) and provide a room for experiments, on the condition that Morse would take his son Alfred as an assistant. Morse agreed, and it was the most successful step in his life. Alfred Vail possessed not only real ingenuity, but also a sharp practical instinct. Over the following years, Vail greatly contributed to the development of the final form of Morse code, the introduction of a telegraph key instead of a connecting rod, and the reduction of the apparatus to the compact model that has become generally accepted. He also invented the printing telegraph, which was patented in the name of Morse, in accordance with the terms of the contract between Vail and Morse.

Rare Morse apparatus - a demonstration of work and a description of the functionality.

One of the first phrases that Morse transmitted with the help of his apparatus is "Wonderful are Your works, Lord!"

In Russia, by the way, they managed without the invention of Morse - the telegraph of the Russian inventor Schilling was already in operation, however, the only line in St. reporting to the monarch. At the same time, a project was implemented to connect Peterhof and Kronstadt by telegraph, for which a special insulated electrical cable was laid along the bottom of the Gulf of Finland. By the way, this is one of the first examples of the use of the telegraph for military purposes.

Scheme of the first electric telegraph lines in Russia.

By the middle of the 19th century, there were several telegraph communication lines in the world, which were constantly being improved. After testing, the ordinary wire was rejected, and it was replaced by a braided cable. Interestingly, one of the great ideas that spurred the development of telegraph communication in the United States was the desire to transfer money throughout the country. To organize such a system, the Western Union company was organized, which is still alive today.

"Hat" of the imperial telegram.

In Russia, however, telegraph communication developed simultaneously with the construction of railways and at first was used exclusively for military and state needs. Since 1847, the first telegraph lines in Russia used Siemens devices, including a horizontal pointer with a keyboard. The very first telegraph station began to operate on October 1, 1852 in the building of the Nikolaevsky railway station (now Leningradsky and Moscow railway stations in St. Petersburg and Moscow, respectively). Now any person could send a telegram to Moscow or St. Petersburg, while the delivery was carried out by special postmen on carts and bicycles - everyone understood that this was not a letter and information had to be transmitted quickly. The cost of sending a message around the city was 15 kopecks for the fact of sending a message, and beyond that - a kopeck per word (at that time, the tariff was significant - as now a couple of minutes of conversation via satellite communications).

October 1852 - the first Moscow telegraph began operating at the Nikolaevsky railway station in Moscow.

If the message was intercity, then additional billing was already applied. Moreover, the service was highly intelligent - texts were accepted both in Russian and in French and German (try now to send a message from the regional telegraph office, at least in English!).

The telegraph from the station building is transferred to one of the buildings of the Moscow Kremlin.

True, it was not particularly convenient to work there, and in May 1856 the telegraph was transferred from the station building to one of the buildings of the Moscow Kremlin (a communication center would later be equipped there). At the station there was only a telegraph apparatus for the needs of the railway - we assure you that it did not stand idle. During the Emperor's stay in Moscow, the reception of private dispatches was carried out in one of the rooms at the Trinity Tower of the Kremlin. By the way, local telegraph lines were installed in the country as early as 1841 - they connected the General Headquarters and the Winter Palace, Tsarskoye Selo and the Main Directorate of Communications, the St. Petersburg station of the Nikolaevskaya Railway and the village of Aleksandrovskoye. From that time until the middle of the 20th century, Morse black writing machines from Siemens and Halske were used. The devices were widely used and a large number of modifications, the best of which was the version of the Digne brothers. And Yuz's direct-printing apparatus, invented in 1855, was used in Russia from 1865 until the Great Patriotic War of 1941.

Checking the correctness of the clock was established by a special decree.

By the end of 1855, telegraph lines had already connected cities throughout Central Russia and stretched to Europe (to Warsaw), the Crimea, and Moldova. The presence of high-speed data transmission channels simplified the management of state authorities and troops. At the same time, the introduction of the telegraph for the work of diplomatic missions and the police began. On average, a report the size of one A4 page "skipped" from Europe to St. Petersburg in an hour - a fantastic result for those times. A little later, with the help of telegraph stations, another useful service was organized - the exact setting of the time. It was still far from atomic clocks on communication satellites, therefore, with the help of telegraph stations located by the end of the 19th century in almost all major cities of the Russian Empire, a single time was set using the chronometer of the General Staff. Every morning for telegraph operators throughout the country began with the signal "Listen" from the Winter Palace, five minutes later the command "Clock" was transmitted and "clocks" all over the country started simultaneously.

October 1869 - Telegraph station on Myasnitskaya street.

In connection with the construction of the Moscow city telegraph network (a network of city telegraph stations), the telegraph station from the Kremlin was first moved to Gazetny Lane, and then to a specially adapted building on Myasnitskaya Street, next to the Post Office. Since the 1880s, Bodo, Siemens, Klopfer, Creed devices, as well as teletypes, have been used at the station. In December 1898, in the building of the Moscow Central Telegraph Station, a call center was set up for the first, longest in Russia, long-distance telephone line St. Petersburg-Moscow.

An example of a perforated tape.

At the same time, in the middle of the 19th century, C. Wheatstone developed a device with tape perforation, which increased the speed of the telegraph to 1500 characters per minute - operators typed messages on special typewriters, which were then printed on tape. And it was she who was then loaded into the telegraph office to be sent through communication channels. It was much more convenient and economical this way - one telegraph line could work almost around the clock (later, in the 70s of the 20th century, GRU special forces cipher machines worked on the same principle, "spitting out" an encrypted message in a fraction of a second). A little earlier, in 1850, the Russian scientist B. Jacobi created a direct-printing apparatus, which was perfected by the American D. Hughes in 1855.

The telegraph operator's workplace on the Bodo-duplex apparatus - he used two hands to print on five keys - two fingers on his left hand and three on his right, the combinations had to be pressed simultaneously and quickly.

The Bodo apparatus operates in duplex mode (in total, up to six working posts could be connected to one transmitter) - the response data was printed on paper tape, which had to be cut and pasted onto the form.

The telegraph signal amplification point for the Bodo apparatus was set at a distance of 600-800 km from the transmitting center in order to "drive" the signal further: for work, it was necessary to synchronize electricity in two channels and carefully monitor the parameters of information transmission.

The control panel of the telegraph signal amplification point for the Baudot apparatus.

Demonstration of the operation of the Bodo apparatus.

Another acceleration of technical thought happened in 1872, when the Frenchman E. Baudot created an apparatus that allows several telegrams to be transmitted simultaneously on one line, and data was no longer received in the form of dots and dashes (before that, all such systems were based on Morse code), and in the form of letters of Latin and Russian (after careful completion by domestic specialists) of the language. The Bodo apparatus and those created according to its principle are called start-stop. In addition, Bodo created a very successful telegraph code (the Baudot Code), which was subsequently adopted everywhere and received the name International Telegraph Code No. 1 (ITA1). The modified version of the code was named ITA2. In the USSR, on the basis of ITA2, the MTK-2 telegraph code was developed. Further modifications to the design of the start-stop telegraph apparatus proposed by Bodo led to the creation of teleprinters (teleprinters). In honor of Bodo, the unit of information transfer rate, baud, was named.

Telegraph in the Russian Empire and the USSR

The beginning of the 20th century for telegraph communications in Russia can be considered a full-fledged Golden Age. Half a century after the opening of the first telegraph, in Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as other large cities of the Empire, many telegraph branches are opened, distributed on a territorial basis. The media have the opportunity to release operational news, which are transmitted by correspondents from the scene. For the central telegraph, which has been located here since 1870, a separate floor is being built in the post office building on Myasnitskaya and about 300 communication lines from all over the country are being pulled there - now the Main Post Office of Moscow is located there. The connection between the telegram reception department and the computer room with the telegraph machines displayed there was carried out with the help of couriers - boys of 10-12 years old had to run for several hours between floors with telegraph forms.

The main working hall of the telegraph on Myasnitskaya in Moscow.

During the First World War, the newly created communications units, which were engaged in establishing telephone and telegraph lines, showed themselves well in the Russian army. By the beginning of the war, in 1914, the battalion was the highest military engineering unit - in the Russian army, one sapper battalion accounted for an infantry or cavalry corps. Moreover, out of the four companies of the battalion, one was telegraph. At the end of 1916, the Russian Supreme High Command created, with each corps, an entire engineering regiment of two battalions - a sapper (two sapper companies and one road-bridge) and a technical one (two telegraph companies and one searchlight), as well as a field engineering park. The infantry divisions received an engineering company each, which consisted of two half-companies, a telegraph department and a park platoon.

Rare portable telegraph - such models have been used in combat units since the Russo-Japanese War of 1905.

All devices had a personal number and release date; in this case, 1904.

The practice of operating a portable field telegraph based on Morse code.

With the establishment of Soviet power on the territory of the country, a significant part of the telegraph communication lines was given to party bodies, the NKVD, the army and the people's commissariats. In addition, the top of the People's Commissariat of Communications was staffed by state security officers - communications in peacetime was a strategic direction that needed to be protected and controlled. That is why, in the seventh year of Soviet power, the Central Committee decided to build a special building for the telegraph. It was supposed to be located not far from the Kremlin and the First House of the People's Commissariat of Defense (a special 4-storey building was built there for military communications), to contain a long-distance communication station (at that time - a very great value), the entire People's Commissariat of Communications, as well as the central telegraph station. This is how the historic building of the "Central Telegraph" appeared, occupying an entire city block on Tverskaya, 7 (formerly it was Gorky Street).

Commemorative plaque on the construction of the Central Telegraph building.

The bulk of the "Central Telegraph", 1948.

The modern view of the "Central Telegraph" 82 years after the start of construction.

Scheme of operation of pneumatic mail for sorting telegraph messages.

The building was erected with a large margin of safety (special attention was paid to the protection of communication lines in underground utilities) and in record time - construction took a year and a half and ended in 1927. The style of the building has different interpretations, but one of the most common is the transition from Art Nouveau to constructivism. The total area of ​​the premises is 60 thousand square meters. For about two years, the telegraph was equipped with various equipment, work premises were being arranged (only four internal mail systems were installed, including pneumatic mail). Officially, the new building on Tverskaya was called the "Communication House named after V.N. Podbelsky", but sometimes it lost to the unofficial - "Mechanized Palace". Here, the use of direct-printing devices by A.F. Shorin and L.I. Treml began, and since 1937, the domestic direct-printing device ST-35 began to be introduced.

3.1. History of telegraph communications (electric telegraph)

The discovery of electromagnetic waves formed the basis for the invention of the electric telegraph as the basis for long-distance communication.

In 1753, the Leipzig physicist Winkler discovered a method for transmitting electric current through wires, which allowed Lesage from Geneva to construct a bulky telegraph apparatus consisting of 24 insulated wires connected at the other end to a source of electric current. The indicators of the letters of this apparatus were the corresponding balls of elderberry, alternately attracted. Soon, Lemond and Beckman improved the Lesage apparatus, reducing the number of wires to two. The first step towards creating a slightly different way to create an electric telegraph was the brilliant experience of the Danish physicist, professor at the University of Copenhagen Hans Christian Oersted (1777 – 1851) by the deflection of a magnetic needle under the influence of a conductor carrying an electric current. The created device had two innovations that were used by many inventors in their future designs: a silk insulating winding of wires and a signaling device (bell) announcing the start of transmission. This experience was demonstrated in 1830.

The person who immediately realized that Oersted's discovery could be used for a practical telegraph was the Russian electrical engineer Pavel Lvovich Schilling (1786 – 1837), who in 1832 created a pointer telegraph apparatus, in which five arrows served as indicators.

In the autumn of October 21, 1832, the first public demonstration of the "Schilling telegraph system" took place at his apartment. At the demonstration, where the Russian Emperor Nicholas I himself was present, the first telegram consisting of 10 words was transmitted over a 100 m long line.

In the electromagnetic telegraph of P. L. Schilling, the main element was a multiplier containing an astatic pair of magnetized arrows, which were invented in 1821 by A. M. Ampère. Changing the polarity of the connection to the battery of wires of the communication line caused the rotation of the disk suspended on the same thread with the astatic arrows of the multiplier. One side of the disk was painted white, and the other – in black, thanks to this, the position of the disk could be used to judge the transmitted sign. The linear part of the device had eight wires (one common, one calling) connected to the electric battery using a special keyboard with eight pairs of white and black keys. The receiver had seven multipliers mounted on a common frame. To transmit letters and numbers, as well as to reduce the number of wires in a communication line, Schilling developed a special code containing combinations of a different number (from 1 to 5) of serial signals. It was the first non-uniform code in the history of telecommunications.

It is with the invention of this device that the era of the practical application of the electric telegraph begins, the evolution of which is represented by the devices for code transmission of messages by S. Morse, letter-printing

D. Yuz, facsimile D. Caselli, Trusevich's teletype, Neva phototelegraph apparatus, etc.

In 1835, Schilling made a presentation of his apparatus in Munich. On the

This presentation was attended by an English officer W. Cook, who immediately understood the importance of the new means of communication for the management and development of railways. Returning to England with a model of the Schilling apparatus, he attracted an English scientist to the implementation of the electromagnetic telegraph.

C. Wheatstone, who made a number of improvements to the Schilling pointer apparatus. The devices of W. Cook and C. Wheatstone were widely used in England for 50 years.

Schilling's invention was practically implemented by Academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences B. S. Yakobi. In 1841 he built the first telegraph line between the Winter Palace and the General Staff Building. B. S. Jacobi in 1850 developed the world's first telegraph apparatus (three years earlier than Morse) with letter printing of received messages, in which, as he said, "the registration of signs was carried out using a typographic font."

The German scientist K.A. Shteingel during the repair of the rail track (that is, when the electrical circuit was broken) discovered that the telegraph continued to work. Based on this, he concluded that the role of the "second wire" is performed by the earth. This allowed him in 1838 to become the inventor of the so-called "grounding". The work of Wheatstone, Cook, Steingel, Gauss and Weber completely exhausted the possibilities inherent in Schilling's invention.

The electromagnetic telegraph, created by the American artist Samuel Morse, gained practical worldwide distribution.

At first, Morse tried to build a telegraph, which required 26 separate lines between stations. – one for each letter of the alphabet. After several years of work, he managed to reduce the number of wires to one (ground was used instead of the other). Additionally, he introduced a relay into his invention, which was invented by the American physicist Joseph Henry. This made it possible to create repeaters of telegraph signals, which, using a relay installed at the end of each section of the communication line, ensured the connection of a battery supplying power to the next section of this line. The use of repeaters made it possible to significantly increase the length of telegraph lines.

In 1838, S. Morse invented an original non-uniform code. Its originality lay in the fact that frequently occurring letters of the English alphabet corresponded to short code combinations, and to rarely occurring letters, long code combinations. This property of the code fundamentally distinguished it from the uneven Schilling code, which used its code not to reduce the redundancy of messages, but to reduce the number of wires in the communication line. Morse code was the first example of an efficient entropy coding method for a message source. The general principles of statistical coding were established only 100 years later by K. Shannon – creator of information theory. In 1851, the Morse code was slightly modified and became the international code. It was used in all countries of the world in wired communication lines, and later became international in radio communications: in particular, hundreds of thousands of radio amateurs used it to exchange messages. Only at the very end of the 20th century, in connection with the development of satellite communication systems, the International Telecommunication Union decided to stop using the Morse code on all communication lines.

In May 1844, under the leadership of Morse, a telegraph line was built between Washington and Baltimore with a total length of 65 km. Through this line, S. Morse publicly demonstrated the transmission of the code message “What hath God wraght!” (“Oh, Lord, what have you done!”). This first Morse telegraph line (1844) provided a speed of 5 bps (0.5 letters).

Based on the discoveries of P. L. Schilling and B. S. Jacobi, the physicist D. Hughes and the French telegraph mechanic E. Baudot invented the first telegraph printing machine in 1855. The invention of the printing telegraph system in 1860 provided a speed of 10 bps (1 letter). In 1874, Baudot invented the multiple telegraph system with printing. This six-time Baudot telegraph system already provided an unprecedented transmission rate of 100 bps (10 letters per second). In 1858, Winston invented an apparatus that outputs information directly to a telegraph tape built into it (the prototype of the modern telegraph apparatus).

Telegraph - a set of methods that allow you to transmit text characters, writing, messages over long distances. It is assumed that both parties know the rules for the exchange of information, certain decryption rules. For example, a railway worker understands semaphore signals, drivers understand traffic lights. These are the simplest examples of the principle of operation of the telegraph. Historically, people used smoke, beacons, reflected light from a mirror.

Term

The words were introduced by the French inventor of the semaphore, Claude Chappe (semaphore, telegraph). Now the term habitually denotes an electrical variety of devices. Wireless telegraphy involves carrier modulation, as opposed to Hertz's earlier technique of observing the spark gap. Contradicting Chappe, Morse indicated the appropriateness of the term, denoting systems that transmit / record messages. Smoke should then be considered a semaphore.

The transmitted message became known as a telegram. A separate line is Telex, which reached the network.

Story

According to Morse terminology, the telegraph was invented by Pavel Schilling. Early models sent dot-dash signals, typewriter symbols.

Optical telegraph

The first optical telegraph was built by Robert Hook (1684) for the Royal Society of Great Britain. The experiments were continued by Sir Richard Lowell Edgeworth (1767). Chappe's 1793 semaphore network operated for half a century. The French Revolution contributed a lot to the popularity of the invention, demanding a reduction in the time for transmission of government reports. On March 2, 1791, at 11 am, the first message was sent, overcoming 16 km: "Continuing, you will soon be covered with glory."

The uncomplicated design contained an observation telescope, a pair of black and white panels. The operator, leafing through the book of codes, wrote out the letters. A year later, Claude was commissioned to build the 230 km Paris-Lille line. The idea is designed to simplify the management of the Austrian war. In 1794, the line brought news: Condé-sur-l'Escaut capitulated. 1 hour spent.

The Prussians are shocked by the possibilities of the new system, having built their own lines (1830s). The performance of the telegraph was set by weather conditions, time of day. The delivery speed was two or three words every minute. The last coastal variant was buried by Sweden (1880). France continued to use the invention, entrusting the semaphore to sailors who wanted to convey the message to the shore. The advantages of the technique are undoubted:

1. No energy costs, including solar. The system successfully resists cloudy weather.
2. Speed ​​will give 100% handicap points to runners (swimmers).

Electric telegraph

The first idea to utilize the useful properties of electricity was published by the Scots Magazine (1753). Enthusiasts proposed to allocate an individual wire to each letter of the alphabet (then silk threads were used). The source of electricity was a static generator. Early receivers used the phenomenon of charge interaction. The idea, devoid of prospects, remained to collect the dust of the archive.

George-Louis Le Sague built (1774) twenty years later according to the note the first electrostatic model. 26 wires made it possible to read letters to people who occupied neighboring rooms.

A new impetus to the development of the direction was given by Volta's invention of electrolytic current sources. The German scientist Thomas von Sömmering (1809) improved on the design of the mathematician Francisco Salva Campillo. Both held 35 parallel wires, continuing the idea described above. The novelty jokingly covered the distance of a couple of kilometers.

The receiving side, equipped with electrolytic flasks, observed hydrogen bubbles. The number of the retort corresponded to the letter, number. Visual observation helped the operator carrying the order to fix the message transmitted by the bubbles. The bitrate left much to be desired.

A suitable model was built by the English inventor Francis Ronalds (1816). The family estate (Hammersmith Mall) was adorned with a ditch 175 yards long. The 8-mile stretch outside was by air. The invention presented to the Admiralty was rated as "completely useless." The written work of Ronalds Description of the telegraph and some other electrical apparatus is considered by far the first manuscript on the subject. Along the way, Francis considered the retardation of signals, provoked by an induction unknown to science at that time.

Peter Strikes Back

Russian diplomat Pavel Schilling demonstrated (1832) the remote transmission of messages between adjacent rooms. A noteworthy point was the use of character encryption: an attempt to reduce the number of connecting wires. The role of receivers was played by 6 multipliers, there were 8 connecting lines:

1. Signal.
2. Returnable.
3. 6 information.

Gradually, the inventor guessed to replace the alphabetic code with a digital one. The new edition of the device contained 2 copper wires. The British government (1836) tried to buy out the patent. The inventor rejects the foreign proposal, accepting the conditions of Nicholas I. The length of the next erected line was 5 kilometers, connecting the Admiralty building, the royal palace of Peterhof, the Kronstadt naval base for official correspondence. The project ended with the death of the inventor.

Interesting! Earlier (1821) Adner-Marie Ampère expressed the idea of ​​realizing the telegraph by means of turning frames that control the Schweigger galvanometer. According to the scientist, he experimentally tested his own ideas. Peter Barlow (1824) repeated the steps taken by Ampère, finding the maximum distance of 200 meters achieved unpromising.

Carl Friedrich Gauss and Wilhelm Weber created (1833, Göttingen) the first electromagnetic telegraph, which united the observatory and the Institute of Physics, separated by a space of 1 km. Schilling used swivel frames, similar to Schweigger's design. German scientists used a real electromagnetic relay formed by a coil of wire. The elements of the code are positive, negative current flow directions. Gradually, the transmission of information began to encode pulses, increasing the speed. The scientists sponsored by Alexander von Humboldt continued their work, the first working model was equipped by Karl August Steinel (Munich - 1835-1836, then - the first German railway).

Commercial success

The Americans were developing in parallel. Some accuse David Alter of plagiarism. The doctor replied to the reporter: “I find it difficult to see the connection between Morse's invention and Elderton's telegraph communication. The professor also probably hadn't heard of the local messaging facilities."

Samuel Morse patented (1837) a writing electric telegraph. Assistant engineer, Alfred Vail designed the recorder: a stylus controlled by a magnet. Together, the searchers generated a new code. On January 11, 1838, Morse sent a message that covered 3 km of wire.

It is interesting! The Internet is full of misconceptions that the biblical phrase WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT? This message is dated 1844. Then the length of the telegraph network was 44 km.

May 1837 gave the planet the first paid messaging service. William Fothergil Cook and Charles Wheatstone patented the six-wire needle telegraph. The system could include an arbitrary number of sharpened steel rods. The inventors recommended using 5 pieces. The four-needle model connected the two districts of London. On July 25, 1837, a successful demonstration took place. Gauss made his way with sponsored money - Cook and Wheatstone earned by selling patented models.

The laid underground cable soon died: insulation breakdown. The product was replaced by a single residential, devoid of coverage. The device has been upgraded. After the reduction, 2 needles remained, the length of the code increased. The next installation (Slough, 1843) contained a two-wire cable, making do with a single tip. The first commercial success attracted the attention of enthusiasts, providing the industry with a steady increase in innovation.

Morse code

The new code conquered the USA for 20 years, on October 24, 1861, finishing off the Pony Express by crossing the continent through the line. Soon every postal office had a copy of the new service delivery system. Merchants saw a wide range of tasks:

1. Increase the transfer speed.
2. Reduce cost.
3. Reduce the amount of manual labor.

Wheatstone's ABC method (1840) helped to dismiss the telegraph workers. The inventor arranged the letters around the clock face. The receiving needle chose the right one. The recipient client had to write down the result. The speed has reached the limit of 15 wpm.

New achievements

Alexander Bain patented (Edinburgh, 1846) a chemical telegraph. The current moved a steel stylus across paper impregnated with a mixture of ammonium nitrate and potassium ferrocyanide. The received blue markers repeated the transmitted Morse code. The maximum speed was 1000 wpm. The message was decoded by the operator. The novelty came to an end: the furious Morse group sued the patent.

In parallel, Royal Earl House developed a printing system containing a keyboard. The receiving side automatically formed a paper message. Claimed speed was 2600 words/hour. There was a steam version in 1852.

The idea was picked up by David Edward Hughis. The keyboard, containing 26 characters, has won universal recognition. The technique was distinguished by enviable accuracy. The next novelty made us wait, revealing general satisfaction with the status quo. Émile Baudot (1874) introduced his own encoding. The symbol was transmitted by the position of five switches. The speed was 30 wpm.

Charles Wheatstone finally automated the process by inventing punched tape. The device, unsophisticatedly named the Stick Punch, resembled a typewriter. The operator sat down, stuffed the message, adjusted the tape, and passed it to the receiving side. The speed reached the level of 70 wpm.

Telex printers

Printers are late. The invention of Frederick Creed (1924) is considered the first successful version. The engineer produced a number of innovative mechanisms, including a tape puncher. The propellant was compressed air. The automated system scribbled 200 words every minute, rivaling the chemical model of the 19th century. An employee of the Creed company, Donald Murray, modified the Baudot code, taking the corresponding patent. Soon the model P3 (1927) conquered post offices. The system was of interest to the Daily Mail, and an adapted version of the perforator was released.

Teletype company's advanced systems have taken over airports, carrying service messages, weather forecasts. By 1938, the network covered the United States completely, excluding the states of Maine, South Dakota, New Hampshire. Creed occupied Britain, Siemens occupied Germany. The recipient was chosen according to the standard telephone number (pulse dialing). The new class of devices was called telexes.

Through multiplexing, one line could accommodate a maximum of 25 cars. Telex has become a reliable means of long-distance communication.

Atlantic cable

The idea to connect the continents was born in parallel with the inventions of Henry, Wheatstone. Morse (1840) is considered the ancestor. Scientists were looking for a suitable insulator that could protect the copper core. Scottish surgeon William Montgomery proposed (1842) gutta-percha, the sticky juice of a Malaysian plant. Faraday and Wheatstone immediately confirmed the insulating qualities of the material. It was decided to lay the Dover-Calais line. Testing (1849) was successful at the base of the Rhine River.

First steps: the birth of an idea

John Watkins Brett received Louis Philippe's approval to draw a line linking England and France. Work was completed by 1850. The route was brought to Ireland. In parallel, Bishop John Malloch, the head of the Roman Catholic Church of Newfoundland, drew a line with forest, providing the diocese with communications. The next project of the followers of Christ crossed the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The efforts of the priest inspired Frederick Newton of Gisborne. The inventor received (1851) the grand legitimate power of the island, forming a company, expressed the idea to Cyrus West Field. Thus was born the idea of ​​conquering the Atlantic.

Development of a laying technique

In the 40s of the 19th century, individual enthusiasts cherished the hope of connecting the shores of America and Europe with a copper vein. Among others, Edward Thornton, Alonzo Jackman. Cyrus consulted Morse. Then I got interested in Lieutenant Matthew Maury, well-versed in oceanography. After Field notified companies in Newfoundland, USA, Great Britain, offering to organize an ocean telegraph.

The next project (1854) pursued a bold idea - to conquer the Atlantic. The entertainers quickly realized the lack of funding. It was necessary to organize a society that collects funds. The first step was an attempt (1855) to conquer the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The bark regularly laid the cable, the storm interfered: they had to urgently cut it, saving people's lives. The following summer, the ship successfully completed its plans. Field, appointing Charles Tilston Bright as chief engineer, made up his mind.

transatlantic company

On November 6, 1856, entrepreneurs created the Atlantic Telegraph Company (London), which was engaged in the construction of an underwater highway designed to bring such distant shores of the United States closer, if only in terms of news transmission speed. An attempt in 1858 was a success. The line was broken by the persons carrying the messages.

A kilometer of cable, formed by seven copper strands, weighed 26 kg. Coated with three layers of gutta-percha - almost three times as heavy. The insulator was protected from the outside by a hemp stocking (hemp), a tight spiral of 18 twisted steel wires served as armor. The final weight was 550 kg/km. Two manufactories took up production:

1. Glass, Elliot & Co. (Greenwich).
2. R.S. Newval & Co. (Birkenhead).

Later it was opened: separate sections are wound in opposite directions. The specified deviation from the technology was deliberately exaggerated to the public after a cable breakage caused by exceeding the permissible electrical voltage. The Government of England provided £1,400 by providing a ship. The next (after the first failure) fundraising lasted 8 years. On July 28, 1866, the service started working. General chronology:

It is interesting! The electrical destruction of the first successfully laid cable was carried out by Wildman Whitehouse. The pundit tried to significantly increase the voltage, believing to increase the speed. It was announced to the public: the manufacturer, warehouses, third parties are to blame.

Personal opinion outweighed the intellect

The attempts of engineers attracted the attention of scientists who wished to investigate the problems of signal transmission along long lines. Simply put, the men of science were simply forced to give an answer. The problem was exacerbated by the disagreement of 2 chief engineers, separated by the ocean, about how the cable should work:

1. Lord Kelvin, who had seized the western end, considered it unacceptable to increase the voltage. Instead, a pulsed transmission was proposed with detection on the leading edge of the outflowing current. Kelvin invented the differential galvanometer recorder earlier.
2. Whitehouse, who occupied the eastern end, had a medical background. Knowledge of electricity left much to be desired. The doctor, literally interpreting Ohm's law, heeding the advice of Kelvin, decided to increase the voltage. The helpers quickly took out an induction coil that provides a potential difference of several thousand volts. The insulation of the marine thread endured torture for several days, then the system finally broke down. The negative public reaction froze further work for 7 years.

Great Eastern

The 1865 project was carried out by the Great Eastern. Three tanks contained 4300 km of cable, the deck was equipped with special equipment. On the morning of July 15, 1865, the ship left the bay of Valentia Island. On the 31st, 1968 km were covered, the sailors lost the end ... The steamer blew to England, Field organized a new enterprise - the Anglo-American Telegraph Company. Having collected the money, the Great East set sail on July 13, 1866. Despising the vagaries of the weather, on the 27th the team successfully reached the opposite shore. The next morning (9:00) the English report was quoted by the editorials of The Times.

How a friend of Alexander Pushkin invented the world's first telegraph, electric mine explosion and the strongest cipher

Inventor of the world's first telegraph and author of the first in mankind to detonate a mine on an electric wire. Creator of the world's first telegraph code and the best secret cipher in the 19th century. A friend of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin and the creator of the first lithography in Russia (a method of replicating images). Russian hussar who stormed Paris, and the first researcher of Tibetan and Mongolian Buddhism in Europe, scientist and diplomat. All this is one person - Pavel Lvovich Schilling, an outstanding Russian inventor of the era of Pushkin and the Napoleonic wars. Perhaps one of the last representatives of the galaxy of encyclopedists, "universal scientists" of the Enlightenment, who left a bright mark in many areas of world science and technology that are often far from each other.

Oh, how many wonderful discoveries we have

Prepare enlightenment spirit

And Experience, the son of difficult mistakes,

And Genius, paradoxes friend ...

These famous Pushkin lines, according to most researchers of the great poet's work, are dedicated specifically to Pavel Schilling and were written in those days when their author, together with him, was going on an expedition to the Far East, to the borders of Mongolia and China.

Everyone knows the genius of Russian poetry, while his learned friend is much less known. Although it rightfully occupies an important place in Russian science and history.

Profile of Pavel Schilling, drawn by A.S. Pushkin in the album of E.N. Ushakova in November 1829

The world's first electric mine

The future inventor of the telegraph was born on the lands of the Russian Empire in Reval on April 16, 1786. In accordance with the origin and tradition, the baby was named Paul Ludwig, Baron von Schilling von Kanstadt. His father was a German baron who transferred to the Russian service, where he rose to the rank of colonel, and received the highest military award for bravery - the Order of St. George.

A few months after his birth, the future author of many inventions ended up in the very center of Russia, in Kazan, where his father commanded the Nizovsky Infantry Regiment. Paul spent all his childhood here, here he became Pavel, from here, at the age of 11, after the death of his father, he left for St. Petersburg to study in the cadet corps. In the documents of the Russian Empire, he was recorded as Pavel Lvovich Schilling - under this name he entered Russian history.

During his studies, Pavel Schilling showed an aptitude for mathematics and topography, therefore, after graduating from the cadet corps in 1802, he was enrolled in the Quartermaster of His Imperial Majesty's retinue - the prototype of the General Staff, where the young officer was engaged in the preparation of topographic maps and staff calculations.

In those years, a big war was brewing in the center of Europe between Napoleonic France and Tsarist Russia. And General Staff Officer Pavel Schilling was transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as a secretary he served in the Russian embassy in Munich, then the capital of an independent Bavarian state.

Schilling became an employee of our military intelligence - at that time the functions of a diplomat and intelligence officer were mixed even more than in our time. Bavaria was then the actual vassal of Napoleon, and Petersburg needed to know about the internal situation and the military potential of this kingdom.

But Munich at that time was also one of the centers of German science. Rotating in the circles of high society, the young diplomat and intelligence officer got acquainted not only with aristocrats and the military, but also with outstanding European scientists of his time. As a result, Pavel Schilling became interested in studying oriental languages ​​​​and experiments with electricity.

Mankind then only discovered the secrets of the movement of electric charges, various "galvanic" experiments were considered more like fun entertainment. But Pavel Schilling suggested that a spark of electric charge in wires could replace a powder wick in military affairs.

Meanwhile, a big war with Napoleon began, in July 1812 the Russian embassy was evacuated to St. Petersburg, and here Pavel Schilling immediately offered his invention to the military department. He undertook to undermine the powder charge under water so that minefields could be made that could reliably cover the capital of the Russian Empire from the sea. At the height of the Patriotic War, when Napoleon's soldiers occupied Moscow, in St. Petersburg on the banks of the Neva, several of the world's first experimental explosions of powder charges under water using electricity were carried out.

Maps for the Russian army

Experiments with electric mines were successful. Contemporaries called them "long-range ignition." In December 1812, the Life Guards Sapper Battalion was formed, in which they continued further work on Schilling's experiments on electric fuses and explosions. The author of the invention himself, refusing a comfortable diplomatic rank, volunteered for the Russian army. In the rank of headquarters captain of the Sumy Hussar Regiment, in 1813-1814 he went through all the main battles with Napoleon in Germany and France. For the battles on the outskirts of Paris, Captain Schilling was awarded a very rare and honorary award - a nominal saber with the inscription "For Bravery". But his contribution to the final defeat of Napoleon's army was not only the courage of cavalry attacks - it was Pavel Schilling who provided the Russian army with topographic maps for an offensive in France.

"The Battle of Fer-Champenoise". Painting by V. Timm

Previously, maps were drawn by hand, and in order to supply all the numerous Russian units with them, there was neither time nor the required number of skilled specialists. At the end of 1813, the hussar officer Schilling informed Tsar Alexander I that the world's first successful experiments in lithography - copying drawings - were carried out in Mannheim, Germany.

The essence of this latest technology for that time was that a drawing or text is applied to a specially selected and polished limestone with a special “lithographic” ink. Then the surface of the stone is "etched" - treated with a special chemical composition. Etched areas not covered with lithographic ink after such treatment repel printing ink, and printing ink, on the contrary, easily sticks to the places where the drawing was applied. This makes it possible to quickly and efficiently make numerous prints of drawings from such a “lithographic stone”.

By order of the tsar, Pavel Schilling arrived in Mannheim with a squadron of hussars, where he found specialists and the necessary equipment who had previously participated in lithographic experiments. In the rear of the Russian army, under the leadership of Schilling, they quickly organized the production of a large number of maps of France, urgently needed on the eve of the decisive offensive against Napoleon. At the end of the war, the workshop created by Schilling was relocated to St. Petersburg, to the Military Topographic Depot of the General Staff.

The strongest cipher of the 19th century

In Paris captured by the Russians, while everyone is celebrating the victory, hussar Schilling first of all gets acquainted with French scientists. Especially often, on the basis of interest in electricity, he communicates with Andre Ampère, a man who entered the history of world science as the author of the terms "electric current" and "cybernetics", by whose name descendants will name the unit of measurement of current strength.

André Ampère. Source: az.lib.ru

But in addition to the "electric" hobby, the scientist-hussar Schilling has a new big task - he studies captured French ciphers, learns to decipher others and create his own cryptography techniques. Therefore, soon after the defeat of Napoleon, the hussar Schilling takes off his uniform and returns to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he is officially engaged in the creation of a lithographic printing house - then a significant part of diplomatic activity was a lively correspondence, and technical copying of documents helped to speed up the work and facilitate the work of many scribes. As Schilling's friends joked, he was generally carried away by lithography because his active nature could not stand the tedious rewriting by hand: lithography, which at that time was hardly known to anyone ... ".

But the creation of a lithograph for the Foreign Ministry became only the outer part of his work. In reality, Pavel Schilling works in the Secret Expedition of the Digital Unit - that was the name of the Foreign Ministry's encryption department at the time. It was Schilling who was the first in the history of world diplomacy to introduce into practice the use of special bigram ciphers - when, according to a complex algorithm, pairs of letters are encrypted with numbers, but arranged not in a row, but in the order of another given algorithm. Such ciphers were so complex that they were used until the advent of electrical and electronic encryption systems during the Second World War.

The theoretical principle of bigram encryption was known long before Schilling, but for manual work it was so complicated and time-consuming that it had not been applied in practice before. Schilling, on the other hand, invented a special mechanical device for such encryption - a collapsible table pasted on paper, which made it easy to encrypt digrams.

At the same time, Schilling additionally strengthened bigram encryption: he introduced "dummies" (encryption of individual letters) and the addition of text with a chaotic set of characters. As a result, such a cipher became so stable that it took European mathematicians more than half a century to learn how to crack it, and Pavel Schilling himself rightfully earned the title of the most outstanding Russian cryptographer of the 19th century. A few years after the invention of Schilling, new ciphers were used not only by Russian diplomats, but also by the military. By the way, it was the hard work on ciphers that saved Pavel Schilling from being carried away by the fashionable ideas of the Decembrists and, perhaps, saved an outstanding person for Russia.

"Russian Cagliostro" and Pushkin

All contemporaries familiar with him, who left memoirs, agree that Pavel Lvovich Schilling was an extraordinary person. And first of all, everyone notes his extraordinary sociability.

He impressed the high society of St. Petersburg with the ability to play several games of chess at once, without looking at the boards and always winning. Schilling, who loved to have fun, entertained Petersburg society not only with games and interesting stories, but also with various scientific experiments. Foreigners nicknamed him "Russian Cagliostro" - for mysterious experiments with electricity and knowledge of the then mysterious Far East.

Pavel Schilling became interested in Eastern, or, as they used to say, “Oriental” countries as a child, when he grew up in Kazan, which was then the center of Russian trade with China. Even during his diplomatic service in Munich, and then in Paris, where the leading European center of Oriental studies was then located, Pavel Schilling studied Chinese. As a cryptographer, a specialist in ciphers, he was attracted by mysterious hieroglyphs and incomprehensible oriental manuscripts.

The Russian diplomat Schilling put his interest in the East into practice. Having established a new encryption, in 1830 he volunteered to lead a diplomatic mission to the borders of China and Mongolia. Most diplomats preferred enlightened Europe, so the tsar approved Schilling's candidacy without hesitation.

One of the participants in the eastern expedition was to be Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. While still engaged in lithography, Schilling could not resist the "hooligan act", he wrote by hand and reproduced in a lithographic way the poems of Vasily Lvovich Pushkin - the uncle of Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin, a well-known writer in Moscow and St. Petersburg. This is how the first manuscript in Russian was born, reproduced by technical copying. After defeating Napoleon and returning to Russia, Vasily Pushkin introduced Schilling to his nephew. Acquaintance of Alexander Pushkin with Schilling grew into a long and strong friendship.

On January 7, 1830, Pushkin turned to the chief of the gendarmes, Benckendorff, with a request to enroll him in the Schilling expedition: "... I would ask your permission to visit China with the embassy going there." Unfortunately, the tsar did not include the poet in the list of members of the diplomatic mission to the borders of Mongolia and China, depriving the descendants of Pushkin's poems about Siberia and the Far East. Only the stanzas written by the great poet about his desire to go on a long journey with Schilling's embassy have survived:

Let's go, I'm ready; where are you, friends,

Wherever you want, I'm ready for you

Follow everywhere, arrogantly running away:

To the foot of the wall of distant China ...

The world's first practical telegraph

In the spring of 1832, the Far Eastern embassy, ​​which included the future founder of Russian Sinology, Archimandrite Nikita Bichurin, returned to St. Petersburg, and five months later, on October 9, the first demonstration of the operation of its first telegraph took place. Before that, Europe had already tried to create devices for transmitting electrical signals over a distance, but all such devices required a separate wire to transmit each letter and sign - that is, a kilometer of such a “telegraph” required about 30 km of wires.

Until the middle of the 19th century, the only means of communication between the European continent and England, between America and Europe, between Europe and the colonies, was steamship mail. People learned about incidents and events in other countries with a delay of whole weeks, and sometimes even months.

For example, news from Europe to America was delivered in two weeks, and this was not the longest time yet. Therefore, the creation of the telegraph met the most urgent needs of mankind. After this technical innovation appeared in all parts of the world and telegraph lines circled the globe, it took only, and sometimes even minutes, for the news on electrical wires from one hemisphere to rush to the other.

Political and stock reports, personal and business messages on the same day could be delivered to interested parties. Thus, the telegraph should be attributed to one of the most important inventions in the history of civilization, because with it the human mind won the greatest victory over distance.

But besides the fact that the telegraph opened a new milestone in the history of communications, this invention is also important because here for the first time, and, moreover, on a fairly significant scale, electrical energy was used. It was the creators of the telegraph who first proved that electric current can be made to work for human needs and, in particular, for the transmission of messages.

Studying the history of the telegraph, one can see how for several decades the young science of electric current and telegraphy went hand in hand, so that every new discovery in electricity was immediately used by inventors for various methods of communication.

As you know, people got acquainted with electrical phenomena in ancient times. Even Thales, rubbing a piece of amber with wool, then watched how the Goth attracted small bodies to itself. The reason for this phenomenon was that, when rubbed, an electric charge was imparted to amber.

In the 17th century, people learned how to charge bodies with an electrostatic machine. It was soon established that there are two types of electric charges: they began to be called negative and positive, and it was noticed that bodies with the same charge sign repel each other, and different signs attract.

For a long time, while studying the properties of electric charges and charged bodies, they had no idea about electric current. It was discovered, one might say, by accident by the Bolognese professor Galvani in 1786. For many years, Galvani experimented with an electrostatic machine, studying its effect on the muscles of animals - primarily frogs (Galvani cut out a frog's leg along with part of the spinal column, one electrode from the machine led to the spine, and the other to some muscle, when passing discharge, the muscle contracted and the foot twitched).

One day, Galvani hung a frog's leg with a copper hook from the iron lattice of the balcony and, to his great amazement, noticed that the leg twitched as if an electric discharge had been passed through it. This contraction occurred each time the hook was connected to the grate. Galvani decided that in this experiment the source of electricity was the frog's leg itself. Not everyone agreed with this explanation.

The Pisan professor Volta was the first to guess that electricity arises from the combination of two different metals in the presence of water, but not pure, but representing a solution of some salt, acid or alkali (such an electrically conductive medium was called an electrolyte). So, for example, if plates of copper and zinc are soldered together and immersed in an electrolyte, electrical phenomena will occur in the circuit, which are the result of a chemical reaction taking place in the electrolyte. The following circumstance was very important here - if before scientists were able to receive only instantaneous electric discharges, now they were dealing with a fundamentally new phenomenon - direct electric current.

The current, in contrast to the discharge, could be observed for long periods of time (until the chemical reaction took place in the electrolyte to the end), it could be experimented with, and finally it could be used. True, the current that arose between a pair of plates turned out to be weak, but Volta learned to amplify it. In 1800, by connecting several such pairs together, he received the first electric battery in history, called a voltaic column.

This battery consisted of copper and zinc plates laid one on top of the other, between which there were pieces of felt moistened with a salt solution. When investigating the electrical state of such a column, Volta found that on medium pairs, the electrical voltage is almost completely imperceptible, but it increases on more distant plates. Consequently, the voltage in the battery was the greater, the greater the number of pairs.

Until the poles of this column were connected to each other, no action was found in it, but when the ends were closed with a metal wire, a chemical reaction began in the battery, and an electric current appeared in the wire. The creation of the first electric battery was an event of the greatest importance. Since that time, electric current has become the subject of the closest study by many scientists. After that, inventors appeared who tried to use the newly discovered phenomenon for human needs.

It is known that electric current is an ordered movement of charged particles. For example, in a metal it is the movement of electrons, in electrolytes it is the movement of positive and negative ions, etc. The passage of current through a conducting medium is accompanied by a number of phenomena, which are called the actions of the current. The most important of them are thermal, chemical and magnetic. Speaking about the use of electricity, we usually mean that one or another of the effects of current finds application (for example, in an incandescent lamp - thermal, in an electric motor - magnetic, in electrolysis - chemical).

Since initially the electric current was discovered as a result of a chemical reaction, the chemical effect of the current, first of all, attracted attention. It was noticed that when current passes through electrolytes, the release of substances contained in the solution, or gas bubbles, is observed. When passing current through water, it was possible, for example, to decompose it into its constituent parts - hydrogen and oxygen (this reaction is called water electrolysis). It was this action of the current that formed the basis of the first electric telegraphs, which are therefore called electrochemical.

In 1809, the first draft of such a telegraph was presented to the Bavarian Academy. Its inventor Semering suggested using gas bubbles for communication equipment, which were released when current passed through acidified water. The Zemering telegraph consisted of: 1) a voltaic column; 2) an alphabet in which 24 separate wires corresponded to the letters, connected to the voltaic column by means of a wire stuck into the holes of the pins; 3) a rope of 24 wires twisted together; 4) an alphabet that perfectly corresponds to the transmitting set and is placed at the station that receives the dispatches (here, individual wires passed through the bottom of a glass vessel with water); 5) an alarm clock, consisting of a lever with a spoon.

When Semering wanted to telegraph, he first signaled another station with the help of an alarm clock and for this he stuck two poles of the conductor into the loops of the letters B and C. The current passed through the conductor and water in a glass vessel, decomposing it. Bubbles accumulated under the pit of the stomach and raised it so that it took the position indicated by the dotted line.

In this position, a movable lead ball, under the influence of its own gravity, rolled into a funnel and descended along it into a cup, causing an alarm. After everything was prepared at the receiving station for receiving the dispatch, the sender connected the poles of the wire in such a way that the electric current passed sequentially through all the letters that make up the message being transmitted, and the bubbles were separated at the corresponding letters of the other station.

Subsequently, this telegraph greatly simplified Schweiger, reducing the number of wires to just two. Schweiger introduced various combinations in the transmission of current. For example, different duration current and, consequently, different duration of water decomposition. But this telegraph was still too complicated: watching the release of gas bubbles was very tiring. The work went slowly. Therefore, the electrochemical telegraph never received practical application.

The next stage in the development of telegraphy is associated with the discovery of the magnetic action of the current. In 1820, the Danish physicist Oersted, during one of his lectures, accidentally discovered that a conductor with electric current affects a magnetic needle, that is, it behaves like a magnet. Interested in this, Oersted soon discovered that a magnet with a certain force interacts with a conductor through which an electric current passes - attracts or repels it.

In the same year, the French scientist Argo made another important discovery. The wire through which he passed an electric current accidentally turned out to be immersed in a box of iron filings. The sawdust stuck to the wire as if it were a magnet. When the current was turned off, the sawdust fell off. Having studied this phenomenon, Argo created the first electromagnet - one of the most important electrical devices that is used in many electrical devices.

The simplest electromagnet will easily prepare everyone. To do this, you need to take a bar of iron (preferably unhardened "soft" iron) and tightly wind insulated copper wire around it (this wire is called the winding of an electromagnet). If we now attach the ends of the winding to the battery, the bar will be magnetized and will behave like a well-known permanent magnet, that is, it will attract small iron objects. With the disappearance of the current in the winding when the circuit is opened, the bar will instantly demagnetize. Usually an electromagnet is a coil inside which is inserted an iron core.

Observing the interaction of electricity and magnetism, Schweiger invented the galvanoscope in the same 1820. This device consisted of a single coil of wire, inside of which a magnetic needle was placed in a horizontal state. When an electric current was passed through the conductor, the arrow deviated to the side.

In 1833, Nervandar invented the galvanometer, in which the current was measured directly from the angle of deflection of a magnetic needle. By passing a current of known strength, it was possible to obtain a known deviation of the galvanometer needle. The system of electromagnetic telegraphs was built on this effect.

The first such telegraph was invented by a Russian subject, Baron Schilling. In 1835, he demonstrated his pointer telegraph at a congress of natural scientists in Bonn. Schilling's transmission device consisted of a keyboard with 16 keys that served to close the current. The receiving device consisted of 6 galvanometers with magnetic needles suspended on silk threads from copper racks. Above the arrows, two-colored paper flags were fastened on threads, one side of them was painted white, the other black.

Both Schilling telegraph stations were connected by eight wires; of these, six were connected to galvanometers, one served for the reverse current and one for the drafting apparatus (electric bell). When a key was pressed at the sending station and the current was turned on, the corresponding arrow was deflected at the receiving station. Different positions of black and white flags on different disks gave conditional combinations corresponding to letters of the alphabet or numbers. Later, Schilling improved his apparatus, and 36 different deviations of his single magnetic needle corresponded to 36 conditional signals.

The demonstration of Schilling's experiments was attended by the Englishman William Cook. In 1837, he somewhat improved the Schilling apparatus (Cook's arrow, with each deviation, pointed to one or another letter depicted on the board, words and whole phrases were formed from these letters) and tried to arrange a telegraph message in England. In general, telegraphs, which worked on the principle of a galvanometer, received some distribution, but very limited.

Their main drawback was the complexity of operation (the telegraph operator had to quickly and accurately catch the vibrations of the arrows by eye, which was quite tiring), as well as the fact that they did not record the transmitted messages on paper. Therefore, the main path of the development of telegraph communication went a different way. However, the construction of the first telegraph lines made it possible to solve some important problems concerning the transmission of electrical signals over long distances.

Since the wire made it very difficult to spread the telegraph, the German inventor Steingel tried to limit himself to only one wire and conduct the current back along the railroad tracks. To this end, he conducted experiments between Nuremberg and Fürth and found out that there was no need for a return wire at all, since it was enough to ground the other end of the wire to transmit a message. After that, they began to ground the positive pole of the battery at one station, and the negative pole at the other, thus eliminating the need to conduct a second wire, as was done before. In 1838, Steingel built a telegraph line about 5 km long in Munich, using the earth as a conductor for the return current.

But in order for the telegraph to become a reliable communication device, it was necessary to create an apparatus that could record the transmitted information. The first such apparatus with a self-recording device was invented in 1837 by the American Morse.

Morse was an artist by profession. In 1832, during a long voyage from Europe to America, he got acquainted with the device of an electromagnet. Then he had the idea to use it for signaling. By the end of the journey, he had already managed to come up with an apparatus with all the necessary accessories - an electromagnet, a moving strip of paper, as well as his famous alphabet, consisting of a system of dots and dashes. But it took many more years of hard work before Morse managed to create a workable model of the telegraph apparatus.

The matter was complicated by the fact that at that time in America it was very difficult to get any electrical appliances. Literally, Morse had to do everything himself or with the help of his friends from New York University (where he was invited in 1835 as a professor of literature and fine arts).

Morse took a piece of soft iron from the forge and bent it into a horseshoe shape. Insulated copper wire was not yet known at that time. Morse bought several meters of wire and insulated it with paper. The first great disappointment befell him when insufficient magnetization of the electromagnet was discovered. This was due to the small number of turns of the wire around the core. Only after reading Professor Henry's book, Morse was able to correct his mistakes and assembled the first working model of his apparatus.

On a wooden frame attached to the table, he installed an electromagnet and a clockwork that set the paper tape in motion. He attached the anchor (spring) of a magnet and a pencil to the pendulum of the clock. Produced with the help of a special device, a telegraph key, closing and opening the current made the pendulum swing back and forth, and the pencil drew dashes on the moving paper tape that corresponded to the conventional signs given by the current.

This was a great success, but new difficulties arose. When transmitting a signal over a long distance, due to the resistance of the wire, the signal strength weakened so much that he could no longer control the magnet. To overcome this difficulty, Morse invented a special electromagnetic contactor, the so-called relay. The relay was an extremely sensitive electromagnet that responded to even the weakest currents coming from the line. With each attraction of the armature, the relay closed the current of the local battery, passing it through the electromagnet of the writing instrument.

Thus Morse invented all the major parts of his telegraph. He finished the work in 1837. It took him another six years to futile attempts to interest the US government in his invention. In 1843 alone, the US Congress decided to allocate $30,000 for the construction of the first 64 km long telegraph line between Washington and Baltimore.

At first it was laid underground, but then it turned out that the insulation could not withstand dampness. I had to urgently correct the situation and pull the wire above the ground. On May 24, 1844, the first telegram was solemnly sent. Within four years telegraph lines were in place in most states.

The Morse telegraph apparatus proved to be extremely practical and easy to use. Soon he received the widest distribution throughout the world and brought his creator well-deserved fame and fortune. Its design is very simple. The main parts of the apparatus were the transmitting device - the key, and the receiving device - the writing instrument.

The inconvenience of the Morse apparatus was that the messages transmitted by it were understandable only to professionals familiar with Morse code. In the future, many inventors worked on the creation of direct-printing devices that record not conditional combinations, but the words of the telegram themselves.

Yuz's letter-printing apparatus, invented in 1855, became widespread. Its main parts were: 1) a keyboard with a rotating contact and a board with a hole (this is an accessory of the transmitter); 2) a letter wheel with a typing device (this is a receiver). The keyboard had 28 keys, with which it was possible to transmit 52 characters. Each key was connected by a system of levers to a copper rod.

In the usual position, all these rods were in nests, and all the nests were located on the board in a circle. Above these sockets, a contactor, the so-called trolley, rotated at a speed of 2 revolutions per second. It was driven by a 60 kg drop weight and a system of gear wheels.

At the receiving station, the letter wheel rotated at exactly the same speed. On its rim were teeth with signs. The rotation of the trolley and the wheel occurred synchronously, that is, at the moment when the trolley passed over the nest corresponding to a certain letter or sign, the same sign turned out to be in the lowest part of the wheel above the paper tape. When a key was pressed, one of the copper rods rose and protruded from its socket.

When the cart touched it, the circuit was completed. The electric current instantly reached the receiving station and, passing through the windings of the electromagnet, caused the paper tape (which moved at a constant speed) to rise and touch the bottom tooth of the printing wheel. Thus, the desired letter was imprinted on the tape. Despite the apparent complexity, Yuz's telegraph worked quite quickly and an experienced telegraph operator transmitted up to 40 words per minute on it.

Originating in the 40s of the XIX century, telegraph communications developed rapidly in the following decades. Telegraph wires crossed continents and oceans. In 1850 England and France were connected by a submarine cable. The success of the first submarine line caused a number of others: between England and Ireland, England and Holland, Italy and Sardinia, etc.

In 1858, after a series of unsuccessful attempts, a transatlantic cable was laid between Europe and America. However, he worked only three weeks, after which the connection was cut off. Only in 1866 a permanent telegraph connection was finally established between the Old and New Worlds. Now the events taking place in America became known in Europe on the same day, and vice versa. In subsequent years, the rapid construction of telegraph lines continued throughout the globe. Their total length in Europe alone was 700 thousand km.