Decibel

Decibel
   "Watson, come here, I want you" was the first sentence ever spoken over a telephone. On March 10, 1876, in a house in Boston, Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) uttered those historic words. The message carried, and the telephone was born.
   For those wondering why Bell said something so ordinary on such an auspicious occasion, the reason was that Bell had spilled some acid on himself and needed help from his laboratory assistant, Thomas Watson.
   Bell was born in Scotland, but became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1871. His interest was in teaching the deaf (both his mother and his wife were deaf). Bell became a professor of vocal physiology at Boston University, where he continued his work on telephonic communication. He founded Science, the official publication of the Association for the Advancement of Science, was president of the National Geographic Society, and a regent of the Smithsonian Institution. The decibel, one-tenth of a bel (bel is a clipped version of the inventor's name), is the least audible sound to the human ear. For the technically minded, decibel is a unit used to compare two power levels on a logarithmic scale. People hear from 0 to 130 decibels. Above that figure, sound becomes painful to the ear. Most conversations take place at about 60 decibels.
   As with some other momentous inventions, the question arose: Who was the first to invent the telephone? There were a number of claimants, but after a decade of litigation, Bell emerged the victor and helped organize the giant American Telephone and Telegraph Company, popularly known as AT&T.

Dictionary of eponyms. . 2013.

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  • Decibel — Décibel Pour les articles homonymes, voir Décibel (homonymie). Le décibel (dB) est une unité logarithmique de mesure du rapport entre deux puissances. C’est une grandeur sans dimension en dehors du système international[1]. Elle est utilisée… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Decibel — Basisdaten Entwickler KDE / supported by NLNet and basysKom Aktuelle Version …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • décibel — [ desibɛl ] n. m. • 1932; de déci et 2. bel 1 ♦ Métrol. Unité, égale au dixième du bel, servant à exprimer le rapport de deux puissances (acoustiques, électriques, etc.), notamment d une puissance donnée par rapport à une puissance de référence… …   Encyclopédie Universelle

  • decibel — DECIBÉL, decibeli, s.m. Unitate de măsură a intensităţii sonore, egală cu o zecime dintr un bel. – Din fr. décibel. Trimis de dante, 13.09.2007. Sursa: DEX 98  decibél s. m., pl. decibéli; simb. dB Trimis de siveco, 10.08.2004. Sursa: Dicţionar… …   Dicționar Român

  • Decibel — Saltar a navegación, búsqueda Decibel puede referirse a: decibelio en inglés, nombre de la unidad de comparación de magnitudes; a la rock progresivo y del rock en oposición, a Decibel, el framework de comunicaciones en tiempo real de KDE 4.… …   Wikipedia Español

  • dècibel — m 1. {{001f}}fiz. jedinica za mjerenje razlika u snazi (simbol dB), najčešće u elektronici; u akustici mjeri razlike u pritiscima u mediju koji prenosi zvuk (jedan decibel je približno najmanja razlika intenziteta zvuka koju može zamijetiti… …   Veliki rječnik hrvatskoga jezika

  • decibel — 1928, from DECI (Cf. deci ) + BEL (Cf. bel) (n.) …   Etymology dictionary

  • decibel — s. m. Décima parte do bel, unidade de medida que serve, em acústica, para definir uma escala de intensidade sonora (símbolo: dB). [A voz média tem por intensidade 55 dB.] …   Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa

  • decibel — o decibelio sustantivo masculino 1. Área: física Unidad que se utiliza para medir la intensidad de un sonido …   Diccionario Salamanca de la Lengua Española

  • decibel — m. Fís. decibelio …   Diccionario de la lengua española

  • decibel — ► NOUN ▪ a unit of measurement expressing the intensity of a sound or the power of an electrical signal. ORIGIN from DECI (Cf. ↑deci ) + bel, a unit (= 10 decibels) named after Alexander Graham Bell (1847 1922), inventor of the telephone …   English terms dictionary

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