photophonen.
/ˈfəʊtəʊfəʊn/, U.S. /ˈfoʊdoʊˌfoʊn/ Now historical.
1. Telecommunications. An instrument for transmitting sound by means of light; spec. that invented by Alexander Graham Bell and Sumner Tainter in 1880.The sound to be transmitted is made to cause vibrations in a mirror. Reflected light from this is detected by a photoelectric cell, and the variations in the resulting electric current are used to reproduce the sound.
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society > communication > telecommunication > other types of sound telecommunication > [noun] > apparatus
telephone1832
electrophone1864
magneto-telephone1878
thermophone1878
photophone1880
radiophone1881
teleradiophone1881
thermotelephonea1884
telegraphophone1889
theatrophone1889
hydrograph1893
sonobuoy1937
1880 A. G. Bell in Jrnl. Franklin Inst. 110 246 We have named the apparatus for the production and reproduction of sound in this way ‘The Photophone’.
1880 N.Y. Times 29 Aug. 5/3 In the evening Prof. Alexander Graham Bell delivered an address entitled ‘The Production and Reproduction of Sound by Light’... The instrument which thus produces sound from the undulations of light has been named the photophone.
1920 Times 8 Jan. 7/3 A demonstration of telephony by means of light was given by Professor A. O. Rankine yesterday... The instrument for telephonic transmission is known as the photophone. It consists essentially of a gramophone sound-box with a delicately poised mirror in place of the needle.
1925 Times 13 Nov. 7/4 The photophone method of communication was revived during the war for military purposes.
1995 M. Fransman Japan's Computer & Communications Industry v. 210 As Alexander Graham Bell had discovered with his photophone, the air does not make for a very satisfactory transmissions medium.
2. Film. A system for producing synchronized soundtracks on films. Now disused.
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1921 Times 24 Sept. 6/1 We have received..the following account..of a remarkable invention, the film photophone, by which, it is claimed, the photographic record of action and the gramophonic record of speech are synchronized.
1931 H. W. Ladler Concentration of Control Amer. Industry xiii. 252 Talking pictures by the Photophone process will be the primary basis of the new development.
1976 Times 12 June 16/7 The advent of sound found Paramount ready with their own system, Photophone, which they first used in Wings (1927).
1982 D. Gomery in G. A. Kindem Amer. Movie Industry vii. 124 The jointly developed Photophone system was well advanced in a technical sense.
1997 P. C. Usai in G. Nowell-Smith Oxf. Hist. World Cinema 11 Meanwhile a rival studio, Fox, had bought up the rights on the TriErgon and Photophone patents, using them to add sound to films that had already been shot.
Derivatives
phoˈtophony n. the use of a photophone (sense 1).
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society > communication > telecommunication > other types of sound telecommunication > [noun]
telephoning1877
radiophony1880
photophony1881
sonar1943
pinger1957
side scan1996
1881 Nature 17 Feb. 366/2 An elegant series of researches in photophony.
1923 Lancaster (Ohio) Daily Eagle 18 May 4/1 Wireless, photophony and telegraphy have made continents playthings of electricity.
1929 W. Empson in K. Quinn & C. Shattuck Accent Anthol. (1946) 576 Gramophony. Telephony. Photophony. The mighty handles and persensate dials.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2006; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1880