After the wheel,the telephone is considered by many to be greatest invention of all time.It allows instant ,direct comminication with virtually anyone,no matter where you are.The inventor of this method is Alexander Graham Bell,was born in Scotland in 1847.However,he spent most of his life in America , where he studied human speech in order to help the deaf.The development of the telephone was the indirect result of this research. The telephone was immediately successful after its apperance in the mid 1870s.Ten years after Bell had been provided a patent for his invention.Althoughit has been with us for over 100 years,its basic technology has changed very little . What has changed is the space over which the telephone can be effectively used.The long_distance problem has gradually been overcome over the years by using a number of different technologies including undersea cables and satellities.Today we tend to take the telephone for granted.We forget what an incredible device it really is.