Kirkus Reviews QR Code
THE TELEPHONE: How It Works by Jerome O'Connor

THE TELEPHONE: How It Works

By

Pub Date: Jan. 1st, 1971
Publisher: Putnam

Intelligible prose and reasonable selection of topics and details makes this a useful if unexciting addition to the how it works genre. Beginning with Bell's reasoning about sound waves, O'Connor explains the modern transmitter, receiver, ringer, dial and other parts of today's instrument, follows the signal through various amplifying devices in long distance transmission, and surveys switching systems from the first manual to the latest electronic methods. Darwin's What Makes a Telephone Work? (1970) is still the best introduction to the physical principles behind the telephone, but O'Connor's older looking presentation gives fuller information on switching systems, voice transmission, and other technical matters without the operational trivia of Zim and Skelly's Telephone Systems (p. 952, J-348).