Inventing the phone to chat with Thomas Edison's ghost

Inventor Thomas Edison once hypothesized about the spirit world and published the idea of ​​a phone conversation with ghosts.

In the late 1920s, shortly before Thomas Edison died, he and his scientists gathered in a secret laboratory to record the voice and presence of the dead. They used speakers, transmitters and other experimental devices, according to Modern Mechanix magazine in October 1933.

Inventor Thomas Edison thinks he can talk to ghosts by phone.(Photo: Aether Force).

The article describes Edison's machine, with small beams of light emitted from a powerful lamp, that detects the smallest particles of matter. These particles will prove the existence of the material part of the soul who remains after the death. Unfortunately, after hours of intense monitoring of sophisticated devices, the team of scientists did not detect anything unusual.

Although there is no real evidence for the fact that the article describes, Edison's interest in using chat technology with the dead is true. In 1920, this genius inventor shocked when he announced in American magazine that he was "making a device to see who left the world can communicate with us."

Thomas Edison, who owns 1,093 patents in the United States, stressed that the new invention is not based on any miraculous, mysterious or weird methods like psychics who use scientific methods."I'm building such a device, and I hope to finish it before it takes too much time," he added.

Thomas Edison works in the laboratory.(Photo: Library of Congress).

Edison's idea was called a "ghost phone" and caused a media storm of that time. Many historians once thought that this invention was just a joke because people didn't find any designs or prototypes of the phone.

However, in 2015, journalist Philippe Baudouin found a rare diary of Edison in a second hand shop in France, showing that he really studied his ideas. In the newly discovered diary, there is one more chapter missing from the previously published version. This chapter is about Edison's hypothesis about the spirit world and how to communicate with that world.

A prominent scientist and a major influence on modern technology that seeks to communicate with ghosts can be unthinkable to the public today. But when Edison talked about this idea in 1920, spiritualists actively embraced it, some even affirmed that they could use electronic signals in regular phones to understand ghosts.

For many people, ghost phones are similar to technologies like telegraphs or airplanes, which were considered impossible until inventors proved the opposite. The world was also amazed when Edison first launched the phonograph in 1877. They felt the machine turned the immortal dream from ancient times into reality, Baudouin described.

At that time, communicating with ghosts was not as great as producing and using electricity. Many similar strange ideas were born during this period. Thomas Watson, assistant to the phone inventor Alexander Graham Bell, once came up with the idea of ​​a ghost phone. Bell and ear specialist Clarence J. Blake invented the "earwave recorder" , recording sound through a device attached to the dead ear.

Illustration of an earmaker for Alexander Graham Bell and Clarence J. Blake.(Photo: Atlas Obscura).

Electrical research scientists may be the first to evaluate Edison's device, he told American magazine."It will cause a big shock if successful," he said. But if it fails, Edison adds, the belief in the spiritual world will weaken a lot.

Edison believed that life could not be destroyed. He hypothesized, the soul is like the human body, has a physical form of microscopic entities, similar to today's atomic concept. He thinks these entities exist after people die. It is the rest of the soul that consists of separate memories and thoughts.

If these small particles exist, they can gather in the air. They can be amplified by his device, like amplifying sound and capturing a phonograph.

Edison has written plans and hypotheses for this device, although it has not been determined whether he actually built and tested it, according to Baudouin. He did not name the machine but only called it an extremely sensitive valve for vibrations.

Thomas Edison hypothesized that the soul consists of microscopic matter particles.(Photo: Atlas Obscura).

A number of magazines posted pictures of Edison's ghost phone with phonograph-like parts, including a tube speaker containing electrodes. The speaker is attached to a wooden box containing microphones to capture the vibrations of microscopic entities.

In an interview with American magazine, Edison criticized some mysterious spiritual methods that lacked science. Some people allow themselves to be hypnotized in thinking that their fantasies are real, he commented.

After Edison died in 1931, hugs hoped to chat with ghosts looking for blueprints to build and test the phone, or at least make a similar device. In 1941, the researchers tried to recreate the ghost phone and call Edison because they believed they were instructed by Edison's ghost through a spiritual home.

Today, people still want to use technology to detect and communicate with ghosts, although popular devices are not phones, but electronic sound recording (EVP) and geomagnetic recorders. .

Some ghost hunters also install detection applications that turn smartphones into mobile ghost phones. In 2002, the Frank Sumption confirmed that ghosts could be said to be thanks to a special type of radio called C- box Frank. The ghosts will adjust the frequency to create words from the afterlife.

Science cannot prove the accuracy of Edison's hypothesis about the physical entities of the soul or the conversation with the deceased by phone, but the idea of ​​this eminent inventor is still continuing. inheritance and research.