Giovanni Caselli
Giovanni Caselli | |
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Florence, Italy | |
Education | University of Florence |
Occupation | inventor |
Known for | pantelegraph |
Giovanni Caselli (8 June 1815 – 25 April 1891) was an Italian priest, inventor, and physicist. He studied electricity and magnetism as a child which led to his invention of the
Caselli was a student and professor at the
Early life
Caselli was born in the town of
He participated in the
Pantelegraph
Pantèlègraph is a
The technique involves an image made using non-conductive ink on a piece of tin foil. A stylus in the electrical path of the tin foil is passed over the foil where it delicately touches it. The stylus passes evenly with scans slightly apart. Then what happens is that electricity conducts where there is no ink contacting the stylus and does not where there is ink in between. This causes spurts of electricity matching the image as it is being scanned. The signals are then sent along a long distance telegraph line. The receiving apparatus at the other end has an electrical stylus and draws blue ink on white paper, reproducing the image line-by-line. The resulting document is a fac simile (Latin, "make similar") of the original image scanned.[7][10]
Caselli made a prototype of his system by 1856 and presented it to Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, in a demonstration that used telegraph lines.[4] The Duke was so impressed with Caselli's device that the duke financed Caselli's experiments.[6] When the Duke's enthusiasm waned, Caselli moved to Paris to introduce his invention to Napoleon III. Napoleon immediately became an enthusiastic admirer of the technology.[11] Caselli perfected his pantelegraph (also known as the autotelegraph) between 1857 and 1861 in Paris under the leadership of French inventor and engineer Paul-Gustave Froment.[12] The world's first practical operating facsimile machine ("fax") system put into use was by Caselli and utilized a scanning technology Froment devised.[7]
In 1858 Caselli's improved version was demonstrated by French physicist
Caselli did testing in 1863 between Paris and Marseille, a distance of 800 kilometres (500 mi), which turned out to be successful.[13] French law was enacted in 1864 for it to be officially used on the French telegraph network that was normally used just for telegraph messages.[13] In 1865, operations commenced on a Paris to Lyon line, and this line was extended to Marseille in 1867.[13][14] Although rudimentary, Caselli had invented the first commercial fax system and the birth of the fax cover sheet.[15] The mid-nineteenth century pantelegraph took about two minutes to transmit a sheet of paper 1.1 inches (28 mm) by 4.5 inches (110 mm) with 25 handwritten words on it.[16] The early twentieth century modern fax machine took about one minute to transmit a sheet of paper 11 inches (280 mm) by 8.5 inches (220 mm) with 250 handwritten words on it.[17]
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Caselli's pantelegraph patented in 1861
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Pantelegraph "reading" tinfoil mechanism
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Pantelegraph image, Paris to Lyons on 10 Feb 1862
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Caselli pantelegraph images were blue ink
Later life and legacy
Caselli applied in 1861 for a patent for his pantélégraphe in Europe and ultimately received European patent number 2,532 for the device.
England had an experimental line in 1863 between the cities of
Russian Tsar Alexander II put an experimental service in place between his palaces in Saint Petersburg and Moscow between 1861 and 1865.[20] In the first year of operation of the pantelegraph, the system transmitted almost 5,000 faxes, with a peak of faxes being sent at the rate of 110 per hour.[21] In spite of all this, the technology developed too slowly to make it fully reliable.[2] Caselli ultimately gave up on his invention and moved from Paris back to Florence, where he died in 1891.[2] The majority of Caselli's patents, letters, and proofs of teleautographic transmissions are nowadays kept at the municipal library of Siena in Tuscany, Italy, and some can be found in the archives of the Museo Galileo in Florence.[22]
Caselli's scanning technology became popular again in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Footnotes
- ^ a b Morrison 2015, p. 39.
- ^ a b c Colt 2007, p. 280.
- ISBN 978-0-8147-8811-0.
- ^ a b c Sanders 1887, p. 230.
- ^ a b "Mid Nineteenth Century Electrochemistry". www.corrosion-doctors.org.
- ^ a b c d e f g Huurdeman 2003, p. 149.
- ^ a b c d Beyer 2003, p. 100.
- ISBN 978-1-4214-1592-5.
- ^ "CASELLI". www.itisgalileiroma.it. Archived from the original on 2020-08-17. Retrieved 2009-07-14.
- .
- ^ Morrison 2015, pp. 33–41.
- ^ Schiffer 2008, p. 203.
- ^ a b c d e f g Huurdeman 2003, p. 150.
- ^ Sarkar 2006, p. 67.
- .
- ^ Sanders 1887, p. 206.
- ^ "How long does it take to transmit (send or receive) a fax?". Alohi SA (Geneva, Switzerland). 2020. Retrieved January 27, 2021.
- ISBN 978-1-137-32338-5.
- ^ Morrison 2015, p. 38.
- .
- ^ Webb 2019, p. 99.
- ^ "Italian inventory of Caselli's documents preserved at the Museo Galileo" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-04-07. Retrieved 2014-07-22.
- ^ Encyclopedia Americana. Vol. X. 1920. .
- ^ Peck 2013, p. 214.
- .
- .
- .
- ^ Wei 2012, p. 299.
- .
Sources
- Beyer, Rick (2003). Greatest Stories Never Told. New York City: Harper Collins. ISBN 9780060014018.
- Colt, Samuel (2007). Inventors and Inventions. Tarrytown, New York: MTM Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7614-7763-1.
- Huurdeman, Anton A. (2003). The worldwide history of telecommunications. Chicago, Illinois: Wiley-IEEE. ISBN 0-471-20505-2.
- Morrison, Heather S. (2015). Inventors of Communications Technology. Chicago, Illinois: Cavendish Square Publishing. ISBN 9781502606563.
- Peck, Janice (2013). The Handbook of Communication History. Chicago, Illinois: Tayloy & Francis. ISBN 9781136514319.
- Sanders, Lloyd (1887). Celebrities of the Century. New York City: Cassell & Company. OCLC 1013254536.
- Sarkar, Tapan K. (2006). History of wireless. Chicago, Illinois: John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 0-471-71814-9.
- Schiffer, Michael B. (2008). Power Struggles. Chicago, Illinois: MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-19582-9.
- Webb, Simon (2019). World of Victorian Steampunk / Steam Planes & Radiophone. Chicago, Illinois: Pen & Sword Books. ISBN 9781526732866.
- Wei, James (2012). Great Inventions that Changed the World. New York, New York: Wiley Publication. ISBN 9781118342732.