ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Neutral direct-current telegraph system

Imagine you have a toy phone and you want to talk to your friend who lives far away. But instead of talking, you want to send a secret message like a spy. A telegraph system is like a super fancy toy phone that can send secret messages over really long distances using electricity!

In a telegraph system, you have two wires that stretch from one place to another like a long string. One wire is called the "live wire" and the other is called the "neutral wire". They create a pathway for the electricity to flow through so the secret message can travel.

The neutral direct-current telegraph system is a specific type of telegraph system. It uses a direct current (DC) to send messages, which means the electricity flows in only one direction. The neutral wire in this system acts like a safety wire to make sure the electricity doesn't accidentally flow where it's not supposed to and cause a fire or hurt anyone.

When you want to send a message using the neutral direct-current telegraph system, you use a machine called a "telegraph key". The telegraph key looks like a small lever that you can push up and down. When you press the lever down, it completes the circuit and turns on the electricity. When you let go of the lever, it breaks the circuit and turns off the electricity.

To send a message, you press the lever up and down in different patterns that stand for different letters or words. For example, one short press could be the letter "A" and two short presses could be the letter "B". The secret message gets sent as a series of electrical pulses that travel along the live wire and back through the neutral wire to the receiving end.

Once the message reaches its destination, there's a special machine called a "telegraph receiver" that translates the electrical pulses back into letters and words. Think of it like a magic decoder that turns the secret message back into words you can understand.

So there you have it, the neutral direct-current telegraph system is like a super fancy spy phone that can send secret messages over long distances using electricity!