Samuel morse biography and the telegraph importance

In the s, Morse became well known as a defender of slaveryconsidering it to be sanctioned by God. My creed on the subject of slavery is short. Slavery per se is not sin. It is a social condition ordained from the beginning of the world for the wisest purposes, benevolent and disciplinary, by Divine Wisdom. The mere holding of slaves, therefore, is a condition having per se nothing of moral character in it, any more than the being a parent, or employer, or ruler.

In the United States, Morse held his telegraph patent for many years, but it was both ignored and contested. Morse came before the U. Taney ruled that Morse had been the first to combine the batteryelectromagnetismthe electromagnetand the correct battery configuration into a workable practical telegraph. The Supreme Court did not accept all of Morse's claims.

The O'Reilly v. Morse case has become widely known among patent lawyers because the Supreme Court explicitly denied Morse's claim 8 [ 41 ] for any and all use of the electromagnetic force for purposes of transmitting intelligible signals to any distance. The Supreme Court sustained, however, Morse's claim to such telecommunication when effectuated by means of Morse's inventive "repeater" apparatus.

This was an electrical circuit in which a cascade of many sets comprising a relay and a battery were connected in series, so that when each relay closed, it closed a circuit to cause the next battery to power the succeeding relay, as suggested in the accompanying figure. This caused Morse's signal to pass along the cascade without degrading into noise as its amplitude decreased with the distance traveled.

Each time the amplitude of the signal approaches the noise level, the repeater [in effect, a nonlinear amplifier] boosts the signal amplitude well above the noise level. This use of "repeaters" permitted a message to be sent to great distances, which was previously not feasible. The Supreme Court thus held that Morse could properly claim a patent monopoly on the system or process of transmitting signals at any distance by means of the repeater circuitry indicated above, but he could not properly claim a monopoly over any and all uses of electromagnetic force to transmit signals.

The apparatus limitation in the former type of claim limited the patent monopoly to what Morse taught and gave the world. The lack of that limitation in the latter type of claim i. The problem that Morse faced the deterioration of the signal with distance [ 44 ] and how he solved it is discussed in more detail in the article O'Reilly v. In summary, the solution, as the Supreme Court stated, was the repeater apparatus described in the preceding paragraphs.

The importance of this legal precedent in patent law cannot be overstated, as it became the foundation of the law governing the eligibility of computer program-implemented inventions as well as inventions implementing natural laws to be granted patents. Assisted by the American ambassador in Paris, the governments of Europe were approached about their long neglect of Morse while their countries were using his invention.

Morse lent his support to Cyrus West Field 's ambitious plan to construct the first transoceanic telegraph line. Morse had experimented with underwater telegraph circuits since After the first two cable-laying attempts failed, Field reorganized the project, removing Morse from direct involvement. The cable failed after just three months of use.

Though Field had to wait out the Civil War, the cable laid in proved more durable, and the era of reliable transatlantic telegraph service had begun. In addition to the telegraph, Morse invented a marble-cutting machine that could carve three-dimensional sculptures in marble or stone. He could not patent it, however, because of an existing Thomas Blanchard design.

Samuel Morse gave large sums to charity. He also became interested in the relationship of science and religion and provided the funds to establish a lectureship on "the relation of the Bible to the Sciences".

Samuel morse biography and the telegraph importance: Samuel F.B. Morse was.

Morsemere in Ridgefield, New Jersey, takes its name from Morse, who had bought property there to build a home, but died before its completion. In his will he provided an award medal that is presented annually by the New York University to one undergraduate student who shows special ability in physics. Morse was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in Despite honors and financial awards received from foreign countries, there was no such recognition in the U.

An engraved portrait of Morse appeared on the reverse side of the United States two-dollar bill silver certificate series of He was depicted along with Robert Fulton. A blue plaque was erected to commemorate him at Cleveland Street, London, where he lived from to InMorse was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society.

Other awards include Order of the Tower and Sword from the kingdom of Portugaland Italy conferred on him the insignia of chevalier of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus in Morse's great-great-grandnephew Reed Morse—a Google engineer—was instrumental in the prank, which became a real product. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk.

Read View source View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikisource Wikidata item. American inventor and painter — For other uses, see Samuel Morse disambiguation. Charlestown, BostonMassachusettsU. New York CityU. Lucretia Pickering Walker. Sarah Elizabeth Griswold. This section needs additional citations for verification.

Samuel morse biography and the telegraph importance: After establishing his reputation

Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. The Chapel of the Virgin at Subiaco Dying HerculesMorse's early masterpiece. Gallery of the Louvre — Eli Whitneyinventor, Yale University Art Gallery. Portrait of the Marquis de Lafayette Morse with his recorder.

Photograph taken by Mathew Brady in Litigation over telegraph patent. Morse's "repeater" circuit for telegraphy was the basis for the Supreme Court's holding some claims of Morse's patent valid. Statue of Samuel F. Morse by Byron M. Picket, New York's Central Parkdedicated Heroes of the Telegraph. London: Religious Tract Society. National Geographic News.

Second, inthe Danish physicist Hans Christian Oersted demonstrated the connection between electricity and magnetism by deflecting a magnetic needle with an electric current. While scientists and inventors across the world began experimenting with batteries and the principles of electromagnetism to develop some kind of communication system, the credit for inventing the telegraph generally falls to two sets of researchers: William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone in England, and Samuel MorseLeonard Gale and Alfred Vail in the United States.

In the s, the British team of Cooke and Wheatstone developed a telegraph system with five magnetic needles that could be pointed around a panel of letters and numbers by using an electric current. Their system was soon being used for railroad signaling in Britain. During this time period, the Massachusetts-born, Yale-educated Morse who began his career as a painterworked to develop an electric telegraph of his own.

He reportedly had become intrigued with the idea after hearing a conversation about electromagnetism while sailing from Europe to America in the early s, and later learned more about the topic from American physicist Joseph Henry. In collaboration with Gale and Vail, Morse eventually produced a single-circuit telegraph that worked by pushing the operator key down to complete the electric circuit of the battery.

This action sent the electric signal across a wire to a receiver at the other end. All the system needed was a key, a battery, wire and a receiver. To transmit messages across telegraph wires, in the s Morse and Vail created what came to be known as Morse code. Initially, the code, when transmitted over the telegraph system, was rendered as marks on a piece of paper that the telegraph operator would then translate back into English.

Rather quickly, however, it became apparent that the operators were able to hear and understand the code just by listening to the clicking of the receiver, so the paper was replaced by a receiver that created more pronounced beeping sounds. InMorse and Vail received funding from the U. Congress to set up and test their telegraph system between Washington, D.

Among these improvements was the invention of good insulation for telegraph wires. His interest in the electricity field was greatly established which made him become an inventor. He raised money on several forums and was also performing his duties as a professor of art at New York University. Finally, inMorse was succeeded in developing a telegraph line that was capable of sending messages 10 miles away.

The telegraph line became possible with the cooperation from his friends; Gale and Alfred. After this, Morse had to develop a telegraph line that could send signals 38 miles away. Almost as soon as Morse received his patent for the telegraph inhe was hit with litigious claims from partners and rival inventors.

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The legal battles culminated in the U. Morsewhich stated Morse had been the first to develop a workable telegraph. Morse grew a long beard that turned white, giving him the appearance of a wise sage. In his final years, he helped found and gave generous financial gifts to Vassar College and contributed to his alma mater, Yale College, as well as religious organizations and temperance societies.

He also patronized several struggling artists whose work he admired. Morse died of pneumonia on April 2,at his home in New York City at age Morse was a strict Calvinist Protestant who once advocated more "family friendly" entertainment in New York theaters. Frida Kahlo. Jean-Michel Basquiat.