History of Computers - Microphone
by Nataly Torres
The microphone is a sensor that allows us to transmit sounds to a larger audience, both live and digitally, by changing sound waves into electrical currents.
Contents
Overview
The invention of the microphone is widely credited to Emile Berliner in 1876 and at other times to Thomas Edison. [2] Around the same time, Alexander Graham Bell was experimenting with transmitters and invented the telephone, whose technology aided in the creation of the carbon microphone. [3] Today, microphones are an integrated technology in computers, phones, and many other devices. They have advanced and now there are many different types of microphones such as the dynamic, ribbion, condenser, wireless and handsfree microphones. Microphones work by converting one type of energy into another. They turn acoustic energy into electric energy. Different types do this in many ways, but most of them use a piece called a diaphragm, which is a thin piece of material (usually paper, plastic, or aluminum) that vibrates when sound waves hit it. When this vibrates, it causes other pieces in the microphone to vibrate, which is then converted into an electrical current which becomes the audio [4].
Significance
The uses of microphones expand widely, from music to communicating from space. Now they are essential to communicating with larger masses. They make verval communication possible and aided in scientific breakthroughs. The expansion in the different types of microphones has let to improvements in video productions, changes in music, and it allows us to video chat with people from around the world.
References
- ↑ Inside a Dynamic Microphone
- ↑ http://inventors.about.com/od/mstartinventions/a/microphone.htm
- ↑ http://www.microphone-data.com/media/filestore/articles/History-10.pdf
- ↑ http://ocw.mit.edu/high-school/engineering/guitar-building/physics-of-the-guitar/how-a-speaker-works-and-how-your-ear-hears-one/
