In the early 19th century, two developments in the field of electricity opened the door to the production of the electric telegraph. First, in 1800, the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta invented the battery, which reliably stored an electric current and allowed the current to be used in a controlled environment. Second, in 1820, the Danish physicist Hans Christian Oersted demonstrated the connection between electricity and magnetism by deflecting a magnetic needle with an electric current. While scientists and inventors across the world began experimenting with batteries and the principles of electromagnetism to develop some kind of communication system, the credit for inventing the telegraph generally falls to two sets of researchers: Sir William Cooke and Sir Charles Wheatstone in England, and Samuel Morse, Leonard Gale and Alfred Vail in the U.S.
In the 1830s, the British team of Cooke and Wheatstone developed a telegraph system with five magnetic needles that could be pointed around a panel of letters and numbers by using an electric current. Their system was soon being used for railroad signaling in Britain. During this period, the Massachusetts-born, Yale-educated Morse (who began his career as a painter), worked to develop an electric telegraph of his own. He reportedly had become intrigued with the idea after hearing a conversation about electromagnetism while sailing from Europe to America in the early 1830s and later learned more about the topic from American physicist Joseph Henry. In collaboration with Gale and Vail, Morse eventually produced a single-circuit telegraph that worked by pushing the operator key down to complete the electric circuit of the battery. This action sent the electric signal across a wire to a receiver at the other end. All the system needed was a key, a battery, wire and a line of poles between stations for the wire and a receiver.
What is the primary purpose of the passage?
A. Trace the invention and development of the electric telegraph.
B. Describe the contribution of Samuel Morse on the invention of a new electrical communication system.
C. Explain the workings of a single-circuit telegraph using a battery-operated electric signal across a wire.
D. The different uses of a telegraph system using magnetic needles.
E. The impact of the principle of electromagnetism on the development of the modern communication system.