Name

: Fahry Triza Nugraha

Class

: XII Science-4

Subject

: English Explanation Text

HOW TELEPHONE WORKS

Although most of us take it completely for granted, the telephone you

have in your house is one of the most amazing devices ever created. If you want
to talk to someone, all you have to do is pick up the phone and dial a few digits.
You are instantly connected to that person, and you can have a two-way
conversation. Thanks to Alexander Graham Bell, the person who make great
change in the way people communicate to each other. He invented a telephone
in 1876 (but in 2002, Antonio Meucci was announced as the inventor of the first
telephone by United States House of Representatives in House Resolution 269).
Surprisingly, a telephone is one of the simplest devices you have in your
house. It is so simple because the telephone connection to your house has not
changed in nearly a century. If you have an antique phone from the 1920s, you
could connect it to the wall jack in your house and it would work fine!
The telephone network extends worldwide, so you can reach nearly
anyone on the planet. When you compare that to the state of the world just 100
years ago, when it might have taken several weeks to get a one-way written
message to someone, you realize just how amazing the telephone is!
But have you ever wondered how a telephone works? What makes it
different from a cell phone? In this time, I will explain to you about the
technology behind telephone so that you can see how amazing they really are.

When a person speaks into a telephone, the sound waves created by his
voice enter the microphone. An electric current carries the sound to the
telephones speaker of the person he is talking to. So, a telephone has two main
parts : 1. the transmitter (microphone), and 2. the receiver (speaker).
The transmitter of a telephone serves as an electric ear. In transmitter,
there is a round metal disk called diaphragm, and a small cup filled with tiny
grains of carbon. When a person speaks into a telephone, the sound waves are
gone into transmitter and make the diaphragm vibrate. Carbon grains are next
suppressed by diaphragms vibration.
The pressure on the carbon grains varies as sound waves make the
diaphragm vibrate. If the sound is loud, diaphragms vibration will faster and the

pressure on the carbon grains will tighter. And if the sound is soft, diaphragms
vibration will slower and the pressure on the carbon grains will lighter. Then
patterns of electric currents are changed by variations on carbon grainss
pressure. This current comes from batteries at the telephone company. Patterns
of electric currents are traveled over a telephone wire to the receiver of another
telephone.
The receiver of a telephone serves as an electric mouth. It can make
voices like a persons mouth. In receiver, there is a diaphragm with two magnets
located at the edge of it. One is a permanent magnet, and the other is an
electromagnet that consists of a piece of iron with a coil of wire wound around it.
When an electric current passes through the coil, the iron core becomes
magnetized. So diaphragm is pulled (vibrated) toward the iron core and away
from the permanent magnet by magnetic iron core.
The vibration on diaphragm varies as patterns of electric currents that
received from other telephone. If the sound is loud, patterns of electric currents
will stronger and the diaphragms vibration will faster. And if the sound is soft,
patterns of electric currents will weaker and diaphragms vibration will slower.

Finally the air in front of diaphragms vibration is pushed out and sets up
into sound waves that are the same as the ones sent into the transmitter. The
sound waves strike the ear of the listener and he hears the words of the speaker.