ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Johann Philipp Reis

Johann Philipp Reis was a man who lived a long time ago, more than 150 years ago. He was born in a place called Germany in 1834, and he was really interested in how things worked. One day, he had a very interesting idea. He thought about how people could talk to each other even if they were far away, and he wanted to make a way for people to talk to each other without being in the same room.

So, Johann started working on his invention. He thought about how sound travels through the air and realized that if he could turn sound into electricity, he could send it down a wire and someone else could hear it on the other end. He built a machine that could do just that! And when he spoke into the machine, his friend on the other side could hear him loud and clear.

This invention was called the telephone, and it was the very first one! Johann had created something that would change the world forever. People could talk to each other from far away without having to write letters or travel for days to see each other.

Today, we use telephones all the time to talk to our friends and family who live far away. But it all started with Johann Philipp Reis, who had a really interesting idea and turned it into something amazing!