Bell Labs' Henry Feinberg Demonstrates Ways of Using Light to Transmit Sound Waves, 1978

The difference between science and magic may seem obvious, but in this video Henry Feinberg easily makes the two come together in a fun and, at times, dazzling presentation of using light waves to carry sound. In this entertaining show Feinberg presents a working version of Alexander Graham Bell's Photophone, as well as experiments in other principles of light.
Before his 30-year tenure at Bell Labs, Feinberg worked with Don Herbert, televisio's "Mr. Wizard", developing experiments that were both fun and educational. Using everyday household items, that show's experiments seemed like magic tricks, capturing their youthful audienceís imagination and helping instill an interest in science.
Feinberg continued that mixing of science and entertainment while working for Bell. He helped develop exhibits for AT&T at the InfoQuest Center in New York City and the Epcot Center in Florida.
However, Feinberg's most famous creation really was a piece of magic - movie magic. In 1982 Bell Labs was approached by Steven Spielberg to design a device that might be created by an errant Earth-bound alien to communicate with his ship in outer space. Bell declined to work on the film but referred Spielberg to Feinberg, who gladly tackled the job on his own time. The resulting film, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, became an instant classic, with Feinberg's "Communicator" built out of toys and household items, proving to be a central and delightful part of the movie.
Feinberg worked at Bell Labs until his retirement in 1998. Since then he has continued to contribute to science education as an exhibit designer and consultant for museums, and as a science enthusiast of inter-galactic dimensions.
Footage Courtesy of AT&T Archives and History Center, Warren, NJ

[@Hendreh1]

This is a real Technology company . Not like the lame "inventions" of Facebook and Amazon

[@kkampy4052]

My dad worked for a baby Bell. He brought a voice over light demonstrator to one of our scout meetings. Remember it vividly. The colors in oil on water are caused by the same mechanism as the mica in this demonstration. There are 2 layers, the oil and the water. There is a very small layer of oil on the water, and depending on the thickness of the oil, various frequencies of light are canceled out leaving other frequencies that we see as colors on the oil. This happens because there are 2 reflections.

[@lvlover58]

He would make a kick ass high school teacher

[@DivineDestiny77]

If one were to close their eyes and listen to the video without taking into consideration the subject matter it isn’t so hard to determine this video is a few decades old just by the tone and way he talks being similar to the way others spoke in the late 1970’s. Interesting how this changes with the times. I appreciate the humility he carries in this video.

[@beynorantoniopaezsierra2140]

It is really an exceptional demonstration of light in action.

[@Madness832]

I love how the paint can (~17:10) has the blue & gold stripes, once found on Bell vans!

[@TempoDrift1480]

This actually made it evident how a carrier frequency can be modulated to carry a sound wave frequency. It's been very evident that while sitting at my drums, with the sun shining on them, when I talk, I can see that vibration on the ceiling. This video provided me with one of the bigger steps to understanding AM.

[@latiendadediscgolfmexico]

My new favorite channel ❤...why dont they show this in college or whenever, i have no idea😮🙆🏻🤯

[@darthsatanus]

YER THE MAN, Master-of-Arts Mr. Feinberg! your video is most interesting, Sir.

[@jaykay18]

Fantastic demonstration!

[@sascha8669]

This is great! Some decades old, but still very interesting and the performance is very well done and planed!

[@BigEightiesNewWave]

Wow...Bell was amazing !

[@paulvarn4712]

Skillful and well planned.

[@chrispeoples4606]

Thanks for loading this video, great work Dr. Feinberg. It's definitely going to be on my playlist for my high school physics classes. I think I might have seen this when I was in high school a few short eons ago. My students appreciate me finding this stuff, it gives them a lot of perspective on how and how rapidly technology changes. Just think, sand grain sized LED laser heads in a small plastic box can now be bought for a dollar at the Dollar store!

[@KindellArmstrong]

This is how science should be taught to children!

[@APR613]

I worked for NYTel and was trained in fiber optic installation and transmission. Great video!

[@Adhithya2003]

Super Good demo.

[@fontanamarcos]

Amazing demonstration.

[@brianarbenz7206]

He has an easy to follow, clear teaching style. This was enjoyable.

[@Wizdad]

Please correct my name in the title! It's Henry Feinberg, not Weinberg. Thanks.

[@thomasa259]

I just wanted to let you know that I wish I had teachers/instructors like you while I was in school. I learned more in this video clip then I did in all my years in high school science. You did a wonderful job. Thanks for being you.

[@MrWolfTickets]

Henry Feinberg awesome!! what was that flame thrower, a can of Binaca with the top removed??

[@enthdegree]

more like Henry WHINEberg

[@pcross84]

Is it just me, or did the sounds in the beginning sound identical to the SIT that precedes an intercept recording?

[@toymachine4253]

Christian Chapman Amirite?

[@johnkern7075]

That was a neat video!

[@epowouid6715]

Very fascinating!

[@BushCampingTools]

Fantastic!

[@helenstrong2342]

Yes, great demonstration

[@CassetteMaster]

I like the style of the homemade transmitter and receiver, and the speaker and paint can.

[@Pedritox0953]

Wonderful explanation!

[@samaBR_85]

great class!

[@erikhakanson8175]

In my opinion - impressive to do this in one or a few takes! :)

[@TempoDrift1480]

Yeah I was noticing how smooth this production was overall. Very easy to follow without all sorts of silly characters and jokes and stupid shit.

[@Chris_at_Home]

@@TempoDrift1480 AT&T produces hundreds of videos for employees for about anything. Depending on our job we had many we had to watch at different intervals. Some were even refreshers for many safety things. I was a tech that did things like satellite, fiber optic and mountain top digital microwave. We worked on mostly cutting edge equipment. I retired from them.

[@LanceCampeau]

this is friggin great

[@sujaradhakrishnan5878]

Bell all time have a great ringtone

[@shanedetsch]

He would make a great science teacher.

[@LydellAaron]

They harnesses physics. Period. Amazing

[@robertlancaster8190]

In 1961 I made a science project doing that very thing…

[@stellamcwick8455]

Let’s just appreciate that they took the time to paint the bell telephone stripes on the pain can.

[@copernicofelinis]

This video oozes 70s vibes from every frame. The guy also looks like Dudley Moore.

[@johnlin5980]

this is lit

[@Demache92]

44 Mbps was cutting edge in 1978. Now 40 years later, that's a pretty okay internet connection for your typical home, but not even close to the fastest. Now we have fiber that can do well into the hundreds of trillions of bits per second, and billions of bits per second is commercially viable and even affordable. And even just 5 years after this video, S/PDIF came out doing 1.5 million bits per second, and its only purpose was to transmit audio to stereo equipment. Crazy to think about how far we have come.

[@BBC600]

We get 20 Mbps here at my house but that's only recently. Before that we were getting 10 Mbps. The Government of Canada (laughably) considers 5 Mbps sufficient to be considered "high speed".

[@devrim-oguz]

I'll be waiting for that 100 years

[@unbiased1]

The principle of operation of everything we have today was already known back in 1978.

[@aravindalokam]

10:13 awesome suspense ❤️😂

[@helenstrong2342]

More details about sending signals to another building please

[@elijahvincent985]

There is so much forgotten and underrespected technology used here, it almost infuriates me that today's tech videos never mention these! That's why rare videotapes like this are critical into keeping the past intact and extremely useful into deep research on recovering the lost technology and studying how it works!

[@nixothy]

Me in COVID watching this for homework, is anyone else watching in the dark times of 2020?

[@BBC600]

WOW! Was this actually assigned to you? If so that's awesome. :-)

[@nixothy]

@@BBC600 heh ya well im homeschooled we do things slightly different

[@BBC600]

@@nixothy Ah... That makes more sense. I hope you enjoyed his demonstrations. 🙂

[@Islam_K_Abu_Almohtade_]

Thanks... it is time to say welcome lightwave technology into our world ... Hear the light

[@RedPillRachel]

This guy is lovely and sweet, and especially cute with UV cat make-up, change my mind! Intelligence is sexy, change my mind!

[@rideronthewhitehorse2012]

Why is that light frequency chart going from right to left? ...hmmmm

[@AureliusR]

I wouldn't have thought I'd see a Bell Telephone employee pull out a beer bong within the first 2:30 of an educational video -- but I'm down!

[@michaelturner4457]

I like his suit.

[@Cujo_Ate_My_Credit_Card]

Because of this guy E.T. was able to phone home.

[@65gtotrips]

Well, light itself is a part of the radio electromagnetic spectrum…although they didn’t know that at the start

[@65gtotrips]

Who remembers that sound at 11:16-17 ? I do.

[@arcturus8896]

Where am I?

[@Youdidsept11]

Isn’t it illegal to do if your helping people get answers to like nyc trading and so on? Or use to help harm people?

[@BigEightiesNewWave]

We only got to disect frogs.

[@princepines]

1978:I can carry sound by light 2012:I can carry data by light

[@halonothing1]

He said in the beginning that there were lightwave cables in Chicago which carry data for computers and video phone calls. Technically the sound itself is considered data as data is just information. The only difference is back then the sound was in an analog signal and nowadays we use electronics to convert the sound into a digital signal to be transmitted and then back into an analog signal to be played over a speaker. Which has more to do with transistors and semiconductors than actual fiber optics. If you want to know more, you can look up analog to digital converters and digital to analog converters. Those are the specific devices which turn the sound into a digital signal and back into analog. Cheers. =)

[@Hexydes]

@@halonothing1 "Which has more to do with transistors and semiconductors than actual fiber optics." There's also the software component too. In 1978, a "digital" transmission would have been more or less uncompressed, taking up multiple megabytes of throughput per second of audio. Now we can compress those audio files (through the power of the transistors you mentioned) to be 100-1000x smaller for almost no loss in quality. And on top of that, memory that would have been measured in KB and MB back then is now measured in GB and TB, which means that we have the ability to store and process millions to billions of times the information we could have back then! Isn't technology fun? :)

[@devinmccloud]

1899: Tesla - I can transmit power, sound, video, and data through the ground 1.5 times faster than the speed of light. 1900:Tesla - I can transmit power wirelessly across the globe and too any planet. 1901:Radioactive matter travel 500 times the speed of light.

[@serginx]

2022

[@ceelonium]

at 10:20 tho

[@CarterColeisInfamous]

yall need to do more primary research again

[@flipster7285]

Quite sad that such good, simple ways of explaining concepts are becoming less and less

[@nobodynowhere7163]

This man is the real deal! Bill Nye is a punk!

[@ronniedelahoussayechauvin6717]

Serves no purpose to me

[@Arjun-hl1zz]

and then we get pathetic content creaotrs like electroboom in 2024 with nearly 5 million subs who are hiding these smaller channels and people dont get to see them. Shame on them.

[@georgef551]

To bad communication via light never happened, nor ever will. Wishful thinking......

[@SnownelVEVO]

Is this sarcasm? At least part of the path between your device and KZbin's servers uses fiber. You would not have posted your comment had it not been for this tech.

[@georgef551]

Really?! Think about it. :D

[@TheGermanHammer]

George, you are a fucking moron.

[@lettherebelight1492]

Yahweh created all the laws of science. Mankind has NEVER made a law of science. Mankind is discovering Yahweh's laws of science. Bless you.

[@kevingordon7898]

Letthere belight Interesting I briefly spent some time around an individual who mentioned that diety....he told me a funny joke and said thanks for the shoes

[@lettherebelight1492]

Kevin Gordon Yahweh is GOD and THE Creator. I belong to NO religious organization of any kind. BEWARE of religion. All religions are MAN MADE. I am a believer in THE Creator Yahweh. BEWARE of Christianity. The Christians have turned from THE Creator Yahweh to the pagan greek god jesus. May Yahweh bless you.

[@mxyzptlk9862]

Bullshit

[@mxyzptlk9862]

There is no Yahweh, and you are misinformed. That is all.

[@TheGermanHammer]

Sounds like ignorant, uneducated bullshit, but ok. 🤷🏻‍♂️