10) The Telephone: The inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, never phoned his wife or mother because they were both deaf.
The first commercial telephone call between London and New York in 1927 cost about £50 for the first 3 minutes
'Party lines' were used in thinly populated areas in rural, where the subscribers shared a telephone line, and each had their own ringing signal. It was possible to listen in on your neighbour's call.
11) Whipping Sound: A whip makes a cracking sound because its tip moves faster than the speed of sound and so it makes a little sonic boom.
12) Echo Cave: Fingal's Cave is a huge sea cave on the uninhabited island of Staffa in Scotland. Its size and shape (arched roof) and the eerie sounds of the echoes of the waves give it the atmosphere of a cathedral. The composer Mendelssohn composed a famous overture called FIngal's Cave after visiting it. Can you find the connection beatween this cave and The Giant's Causeway in Co. Antrim? (Hint: Shape of rocks!)
13) Microwave Sound: Microwaves, the waves that heat up your food, are the waves which carry mobile phone signals from one place to another.
14) Deaf Composer: Althought the famous pianist and composer Beethoven became deaf he continued to compose by putting his stick on his piano and bite on it to 'hear' the musical vibrations.
15) The Titanic: When the Titanic sank in 1912, those who were saved, were saved by Marconi's recent invention, the radio. There were two 'Marconi men' (as they were called) on the ship and they transmitted a distress call until the power failed and the radio room filled with water.
16) Early Record Players: The early gramophones had large horns attached to them to amplify the sounds. When the sound became too loud they stuffed socks into the horn to absorb some of the sound. That might be why we have the phrase today "Put a sock in it" for "Keep Quiet"!
17) Loudest Sound: The eruption of the Krakatowa volcano in Indonesia in 1883 made the loudest sound ever reported; it was heard asfar away as Perth in Western Australia (3310km away) and in Rodrigues, an island near Mauritius (5,00km away)!!
18) Electric Guitar: The electric guitar first came into use in 1931. The sound which ordinary acoustic made was not loud enough to be heard among the big brass instruments in a band. The sound from an electric guitar can be amplified, and so once the technology for amplification was discovered the electric guitar became part of the band.