What specific telegraph innovation was Alexander Graham Bell aiming to improve upon with his telephone experiments?
Answer
harmonic telegraph
Bell's extensive experimentation, spanning years prior to the telephone breakthrough, was primarily focused on refining the technology known as the harmonic telegraph. The objective of this prior work was to enable the transmission of multiple messages simultaneously over a single telegraph wire by utilizing different frequencies or tones. While successful in improving telegraphy, the telephone concept arose from the desire to transmit complex vocal sound waves rather than just coded signals, building upon the electrical transmission principles already being explored in the harmonic telegraph research.
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