Who invented the cell phone ?

What do you do when someone you know left for the grocery store and you forgot to ask them to get some tomatoes or if you are waiting at the movies and your friends are 30 minutes late? You call or text them on/from a cell phone. In the past you would not have been able to type a quick text or call, when either or both the sender/receiver was mobile and far away from a landline telephone. Now we enjoy the benefits of the cell phone and we can call anyone, anywhere as long as there is a cell phone signal.

Important inventions that gave rise to the invention of the cell phone are the normal telephone, radio receivers and transmitters and walkie-talkies. By combining aspects from each of these inventions and by combining even more aspects from different inventions such as the technology of batteries, the cell phone was born.

When was the first cell phone invented?

Let’s first ask the question, “who invented cell phones?” Who was the person who invented this marvellous invention that helps us keep in touch with people all over the world? It was Martin Cooper! He was the man who came up with the concept of a mobile phone. If you have been wondering when the first cell phone was invented, you will be surprized to find that it was not invented too long ago. In 1973, with the help of his Motorola team, the very first cell phone was made. The cell phone weighed an astonishing two kilograms! Just imagine that you had such a heavy cell phone and that you had to carry it with you every day.

The very first cell phone was very expensive to manufacture and some parts of the design were still impractical. The battery life of the first cell phones was approximately 20 minutes, but that did not matter too much, since the cell phones were too heavy to hold against your ear for such a long time anyway.

How cell phones work:

Have you ever wondered how cell phones work? It is pretty amazing that someone far away can hear your voice over a cell phone with no wires attached to it. When you call someone from a cell phone, it converts your voice into electrical signals. These electrical signals are then transmitted as radio waves, where it is converted back into sound by the cell phone of the person you called.

Your cell phone uses power from its battery and uses the built in antennae to send radio waves to cell phone towers. The cell phone towers are arranged over the land, which is divided into hexagonal (a shape with six points) patches. The cell phone towers or base stations picks up the radio signals from your cell phone and carries your signal to towers closer to the person who you are calling.

Fun cell phone related game to play:

Have you ever played the game called telephone? This game requires no wires or any other equipment therefore “cell phone” would have been a more appropriate name for the game. The game will show you how important communication is. It will also encourage you to articulate your words clearly.

Number of players:

Three or more (the more the merrier)

How to play the game:

Get together with your friends or family. The saying “the more the merrier” is indeed true for this game. The more people there are in the game, the more fun you will have. Let everyone stand in a straight line. One person at the end of the line whispers any word or phrase into the ear of the person sitting next to him/her, for example “salt”. That person then passes the word or phrase on to the person next to him/her and the word is passed down along the line until it reaches the last person. The last person in the line then has to say the word/phrase that he/she heard out loud. Some of the words/phrases get mingled up when it is passes on from one person to the next and the word/phrase spoken out loud by the last person in the line often sounds like gibberish.

Rules:

Each person is only allowed to whisper the word/phrase once. Even if the person did not hear the word/phrase too well, they should pass on what they heard.

From the cell phone facts in this article, you might have realised that the cell phone was not invented that long ago. Can you remember the answer to the question “In what year was the cell phone invented?” Yes, in 1973! Next time when you are spending time with your friends and family you can try out the game and have a great time. How do you think cell phones will be improved in the future? Making cell phone calls with your brain waves or translucent cell phones made of unbreakable glass? Tell us what great imaginative ideas you have about the future of cell phones.