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BKFK Home Page | BKFK Kids | Inventors | Berliner, Emile
Emile Berliner
Music Record
- Emile Berliner invented the microphone
that became part of the first Bell telephones, and his gramophone was
the first record player to use disks.
- Gramophone; Combined Telegraph and Telephone
Patent Nos. 372,786; 463,569.
- He was a famous inventor, born in Hanover, Germany,
Berliner came to Washington in 1870 at age 19.
- He studied physics part
time at the Cooper Institute (now Cooper Union) while assisting in a
chemical laboratory. Berliner's inspiration came when a telegraph
operator told him that more current passed as one pressed harder on the
key.
- The 25 year-old Berliner sold his microphone patent for $50,000 to
the fledgling Bell Telephone Company paving the way for it to become
one of the world's largest corporations. The disk permitted
inexpensive, mass duplication.
- Berliner's gramophone and method for
duplicating records were eventually acquired by the Victor Talking
Machine Company (eventually RCA).
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