Telephone "voice", together meaning "distant voice". Credit for the invention of the electric telephone is frequently disputed. As with other influential inventions such as radio, television, the light bulb, and the computer, several inventors pioneered experimental work on "voice transmission over a wire" and improved on each other's ideas. New controversies over the issue still arise from time to time. Charles Bourseul, Antonio Meucci, Johann Philipp Reis, Alexander Graham Bell, and Elisha Gray, amongst others, have all been credited with the invention of the telephone. Alexander Graham Bell was the first to be awarded a patent for the electric telephone by
Invention of the telephone "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you." and Watson answered. Bell tested Gray's liquid transmitter design in this experiment, but only after Bell's patent was granted and only as a proof of concept scientific experiment to prove to his own satisfaction that intelligible "articulate speech" (Bell's words) could be electrically transmitted. Because a liquid transmitter was not practical for commercial products, Bell focused on improving the electromagnetic telephone after March 1876 and never used Gray's liquid transmitter in public demonstrations or commercial use. Bell's telephone transmitter (microphone) consisted of a double electromagnet, in front of which a membrane,