Language as a means of communication

All means of communication can be divided into two types: natural and artificial, and artificial - into mechanical and electrical. Their emergence and development is the result of the emergence and development of human society.

Summarizing the observations of his predecessors and relying on the achievements of contemporary science, Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky (1863–1945) formulated the following theory of the functioning of life on Earth 1 .

The main source of energy consumed by biological organisms on our planet is the Sun. Reaching the earth's surface, solar energy through photosynthesis is processed by plants into biological energy and in this form is accumulated by them. Plants serve as food for herbivores, herbivores for carnivores. Fluctuations in solar activity result in a reduction or increase in plant biomass. Depending on this, the number of animals decreases or increases.

Initially, the reproduction of people completely depended on the named regularity. From the moment when it began to overcome it, we can date the birth of human society. This process was associated with the formation of modern man, his isolation from the animal world.

Our ancestor, apparently, was driopithecus, who lived in the tropics and subtropics several million years ago. Dryopithecus lived in trees and ate plant foods. Later (according to some data - 5 million, according to others - 1 million years ago), a type of primitive man was formed, called Australopithecus. He differed from his predecessor in that he moved on two limbs, ate meat and was familiar with stone tools.

The period of use of stone tools is called the "Stone Age". The Stone Age is divided into three periods: the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age), the Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) and the Neolithic (New Stone Age). In turn, the Paleolithic is divided into three sub-periods: early (lower), middle and late (upper).

According to experts, “for most of the ecumene, the Lower Paleolithic ended approximately 100 thousand years ago, the Middle Paleolithic: 45–40 thousand years old, the Upper Paleolithic: 12–10 thousand years old, the Mesolithic - not earlier than 8 thousand years and the Neolithic - not earlier than 5 thousand years ago. . years ago".

Man's mastery of fire was of particular importance for anthropogenesis. This began the growth of people's energy supply, the weakening of their dependence on nature. Initially, a person used fire, which arose as a result of fires, then, according to some information, about 40 thousand years BC, he learned to get it himself.

F. Engels wrote that the mastery of fire "for the first time brought man dominance over a certain force of nature and thus finally separated man from the animal kingdom." Indeed, the mastery of fire coincides with the completion of the process of anthropogenesis.

Australopithecus had a brain of up to 600 cubic meters. cm, Pithecanthropus - about 900 cu. cm, Neanderthal 1400 cc cm Approximately 40–30 thousand years ago, the modern type man, called Homo sapiens, or "reasonable man." The volume of his brain was equal to 1500 cubic meters. cm, which corresponds to the volume of the brain of a modern person.

One of the features of a person is that his activity is determined not only by innate, but also by acquired reflexes. Moreover, the acquired reflexes play in his life (unlike other animals) leading role. For this reason, human development largely depends on the perception, processing, storage, accumulation and transmission of information. And this means that the history of human society is to a large extent the history of the development of communication.

The word "communication" in the broadest sense means communication or interaction. Communication and interaction are characteristic not only for humans, but also for other animals. Natural means of communication are very often designated by the concept of "language".

Language is the "sign system" or "symbol system" by which information is conveyed. In this regard, there is a certain similarity between the sound signals that humans and other animals use to transmit information.

“We,” writes one of the authors, “know that the beast perfectly understands the beast”, “that many animals express certain feelings with the same cry. A chicken can scream in a thousand ways: cackling anxiously, she calls the chickens when she sees a predator; the mother hen croaks affectionately, gathering chickens for food; she screams in a completely different way, as if bursting, laying an egg ”; “by the mere barking of a dog or meowing of a cat,” a person can easily find out “what she feels at the moment: pain or rage, whether she asks for food or to let her out into the yard.”

It's hard to disagree with this. Moreover, a large amount of material has been accumulated in the literature on what some authors call "the language of animals." However, the question of the applicability of the concept of "language" to those sound signals that animals use as a means of communication is debatable.

“The word “language,” we read in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, “often designates any means of communication, any transmission of thought through certain symbols or signs. Therefore, they speak, for example, of the “language” of flowers, the “language” of colors, the “language” of gestures, and even the “language” of animals, since it is known that animals are able to transmit signals to each other (warning of danger, call, etc. .), however, this is only a figurative use of the word language, which does not correspond to its exact scientific content.

In this regard, let's see what distinguishes the language of man from the "language" of other animals. The "language" of animals is innate, human speech is acquired, the language of animals operates at the level of the first, human speech - at the level of the second signal system. In other words, the "language" of animals is genetically programmed and inherited, human speech is acquired in the process of communication.

Therefore, a person does not begin to speak immediately. He usually speaks his first words by the end of the year. And if the baby is deprived of communication with other people, he will not have speech, moreover, human mental functions will not develop. Recall the story of the English writer Rudyard Joseph Kipling (1865-1936) "Mowgli", main character which - a child who grew up in a pack of wolves, is able to pronounce only inarticulate sounds.

Another important feature follows from this. If animal language is stable, human speech is dynamic. In other words, it can be enriched by reflecting the growing human experience.

Connected with this is the third feature of human language. The sounds made by animals carry information in themselves. It can be a signal of danger, a cry for help, a message about prey. Individual sounds made by a person do not carry any information by themselves. At the same time, operating, like other animals, with several dozen sounds, a person is able to combine an infinite number of words and, therefore, transmit any information.

Based on this, we can formulate the following definition: "Language is a developing system of signs, which, reflecting the process of human thinking, serves as a means of self-expression and communication."

If the "language of animals" serves only for communication, the language of man, in addition, allows you to accumulate and transfer life experience, accumulate and transfer knowledge about the world around. Therefore, its emergence meant the emergence of one of the most important factors in the development of society - spiritual culture.

With this in mind, the emergence of language can be seen as first information revolution , which marked the completion of the process of separating man from the animal world and the beginning of the development of human society.

One of the general indicators of the cultural level is vocabulary. Vocabulary testifies to the knowledge, erudition of a person. “William Shakespeare's dictionary,” we read in The Twelve Chairs, “according to researchers, is 12 thousand words. The dictionary of a negro from the cannibalistic tribe "Mumbo-Yumbo" is 300 words. Elochka Shchukina easily and freely managed thirty.

According to information available in the literature, some tribes of West Africa, even in the 19th century. used 300–400 words to communicate. The once illiterate English peasants managed about the same number of words. Now most adults are able to understand up to 35 thousand words, but in everyday life they use about 3500.

Since man is a biological organism, his functioning depends on the consumption of energy and nutrients. And since he himself obtains everything he needs for existence, the development of society is based on the production, distribution and consumption of vital goods, that is, the economy. Most of the population is still employed in this area. Therefore, if the history of society is the history of all people who have lived and are living on the planet, and not just outstanding personalities, it was and is, first of all, the history of the economy.

In the development of the economy, two stages can be distinguished: the first of them was characterized by an appropriating economy (hunting, fishing, gathering), for the second - a producing economy ( Agriculture and industry).

The first form of human community is the primitive herd. According to some authors, it was a kind of shuffling deck, like a flock of birds. Then, in the process of separating a person from the animal world, a tribal community is formed, consisting of several dozen people and united by a common origin. Several clans made up a tribe that already numbered hundreds of people. Larger collectives at the stage of the producing economy did not exist.

In order for primitive man to be able to get food and be able to provide himself with food without disturbing the process of reproduction in the plant and animal world, he needed a lot of land. And although this figure was different in different regions of the planet, scientists found that at the stage of the appropriating economy, on average, at least one or two square kilometers was required per person.

Consequently, a tribal collective, numbering several dozen people, had to have at its disposal several tens of square kilometers, and a tribe, numbering several hundred people, several hundred square kilometers.

If we represent the territory of the clan as a circle, its radius will be several kilometers, if we represent the territory of the tribe as a circle, its radius will be several tens of kilometers. Consequently, the remoteness of tribal settlements was within a few hours of walking, the remoteness of tribal centers within several days of the road.

This means that individual tribal groups could not only communicate daily, but also cooperate with each other. Communication and cooperation between individual tribes could not be daily.

The two named types of economy (appropriating and producing) corresponded to two stages in the development of human society. On the first of them, people settled around the planet, on the second - an increase in population density and the formation of larger human groups than a tribe: tribal unions (thousands of people), policies (tens of thousands of people), states (hundreds of thousands and millions of people), empires (millions, tens and hundreds of millions of people).

At the first stage, there was an increase not only in the population, but also in the number of languages. Papua New Guinea is an example. In the mid 1980s. with only 3.2 million people. they had up to a thousand languages.

The second stage was characterized, on the one hand, by the formation of larger human groups than the tribe, on the other hand, by the death of some and the assimilation of other peoples.

Now there are about 5,000 languages, which are divided into several language families. The largest of them are two: Indo-European (about half of the world's population belongs to it) and Sino-Tibetan (almost a quarter of the population).

Already in the conditions of the primitive system, it became necessary to transfer information from one group of people to another, for which they began to use messengers. V Ancient Greece messengers were called hemerodromes, in Ancient Rome- first with cursors, then with tabelaria.

This means of communication was characterized by the fact that information was stored in the memory of a person, moved a distance with the help of legs and broadcast using voice.

Was the speed of such information transfer great?

When in 490 BC. e. the Greeks defeated the Persian army under the command of King Darius in the Marathon Valley, they sent a messenger to Athens with a message about this. He ran several tens of kilometers without stopping and, bringing the good news to Athens, fell dead to the ground.

After that, a special competition in race walking was introduced at the Olympic Games for a distance of 42 km 195 m, and this walking itself was called marathon. The best modern athletes overcome the marathon distance in about two hours, i.e., develop a speed of about 20 km / h. The speed of movement of hemerodromes reached 10 km / h.

But sometimes it was necessary to transmit information faster than even the most physically enduring messenger could deliver it. This leads to the emergence of mechanical means of communication, which are divided into audible and visual.

Audio communications

There are two types of sound means of communication: percussion and wind.

One of the simplest sound means is a whistle. According to some reports, its sound can be heard for 2-3 km. Initially, for this, a person used his lips and fingers. Then he discovered that the same sound can be made by air escaping from any narrow gap. This is how the whistle appeared, which still exists today. Consider the police whistle. With the help of a whistle, the referee regulates the game of football and some other sports games. The whistle is used as a signaling instrument in the navy.

Once upon a time, a pipe played the same role on ships.

Even in ancient times, a horn appeared, with the help of which primitive people gave signals during the hunt.

Over time, the hunting horn turned into a shepherd's horn. I heard the shepherd's horn as a child in a Pskov village near the city of Velikiye Luki. With his help, the shepherd gathered the village herd in the morning, and in the evening gave a sign that the herd was returning home.

When hunting for animals was replaced by hunting for people, the hunting horn turned into a military horn (pipe). By the way, the word "horn" comes from the German "horn - horn". With its help, a collection signal was given, commands were given.

A similar role in Soviet times was played by the pioneer horn.

In ancient times, there was also a post horn, announcing the arrival of foot or horse mail.

Then came the beep - a mechanical device for supplying long, monophonic sounds. At one time, steam locomotives and steamboats were equipped with horns. Recall the words of the song - "a slightly hoarse whistle of the steamer." Now such signals are given by diesel locomotives, motor ships, electric trains.

Everyone is well aware of the car and motorcycle horn, with which the driver warns pedestrians of his approach.

For a long time, horns were used in factories and plants. With their help, a signal was given about the beginning and end of the work shift. In the mid 50s. by the beep at the brick factory in the city of Velikie Luki, many in the village of Lipets, more than 5 km away from the city, where I lived then, recognized the time.

A similar signal in the form of a siren continues to be used to this day.

A siren is "a device for producing sound or ultrasonic vibrations by interrupting a jet of air or steam." You can call car sirens on fire trucks, police cars and ambulances. Siren is one of sound signals in the fleet. During the Second World War, the air raid alarm was given in a similar way.

Along with wind instruments, percussion instruments appeared in ancient times, of which the drum was especially widespread.

The oldest type of drum was the tom-tom. The natives of Africa, America and Australia made it by burning or gouging the inside of a tree trunk. Such a drum could reach a length of several meters and make a sound that could be carried for several kilometers.

With the help of a drum, tribal or tribal groups gave a sign of gathering for ritual festivities, warned each other about imminent danger,

When the tribal community broke up into separate families and transformed into a neighboring or territorial community, the tribal settlement turned into a village consisting of several peasant households, each of which was surrounded by a fence. Therefore, a person had to report his desire to enter the courtyard by knocking on the gate or on the door of the house.

We use this technique even now when we announce our intention to enter the room by knocking or ask permission to do so. Later, the knocking on the door was replaced by an electric bell and an intercom.

When metal came into being, it was discovered that hitting one metal object against another produced a sound that could be stronger and louder than drum sounds.

The first bells began to be cast in the East. The most ancient of them were discovered by archaeologists on the territory of the former Assyria and date back to the middle of the 9th century BC. BC. Initially, metal was a rarity, so the bells were small. The increase in their size begins in Europe around the 4th-6th centuries.

“The bell,” says the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, “was used for a wide variety of purposes: in festive processions, to greet the winners, to announce the beginning and end of work, to convene the population (veche bell), to gather troops and to announce the alarm (alarm), to send signals lost and in distress, etc.”

From the 9th century the bell has firmly entered life christian church. It signals the service. By the ringing of bells, one can determine whether it is a morning or evening service, Christmas, Epiphany or Easter.

Even in ancient times, a person had the need to measure time. First by years, then within a year by months, weeks and days, then within a day. So there were hours: sun, water, sand. It was the hourglass that was once used on ships. In order for the ship's crew to navigate in time, a bell rang after a certain time. And since the hourglass was made of glass, the expression appeared: to beat the glass.

Mechanical watches have replaced the hourglass. You can find different information about the time of their invention. However, the earliest reliable data refer only to 1335, when a similar clock was installed in Milan on the tower of the Viscount's Palace. They did not have a dial, and a sound signal was given every hour with the help of a bell. It is no coincidence that the English word for clock is "clock", and the French "cloche", and the ancient German "Glocke" mean "bell".

Later, watches appeared that began to show time using rotating hands.

Initially, the only educated class was the clergy, education had a church character, and in schools, bells were used to signal the beginning and end of classes.

Then they began to make miniature bells for schools - bells, which received the name of the bell. The school bell still exists today. The bell regulates training sessions in higher education institutions.

For a long time it was used in wealthy homes and institutions. With his help, the owner of the house called the servant, the head of his assistant or secretary. In some institutions, with the help of a call, a signal is still given to start and end work.

We know from the literature that once the bells were hung under an arc. Recall the words of the romance: "And the bell - a gift from Valdai, rings sadly under the arc." Thus, on the one hand, they scared away predatory animals, which then teemed with forests, on the other hand, they reported the approach of a carriage or sleigh.

Bells or bells were tied to the necks of cows. The bell was also supposed to scare away predators and make it easier to find a cow if she had strayed from the herd.

Where there was no bell, a simple piece of metal could be used. If we open A. I. Solzhenitsyn’s story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”, we can read: “At five o’clock in the morning, as always, the rise struck - with a hammer on the rail at the headquarters barracks. The intermittent ringing weakly passed through the panes, which were frozen two fingers deep, and soon died down.

Until now, on some sports grounds (for example, in boxing), the start and end of the round is announced by the judge's blow to the gong, and the end of bidding at the auction is announced by the blow of a wooden hammer.

When firearms appeared, they also began to be used to give sound signals. More recently, a cannon shot was one of the sound signals given in the fleet. A similar shot from the wall of the Peter and Paul Fortress even now reports the onset of noon in St. Petersburg. Until now, at sports competitions, the signal to start the race is given from a special starting pistol.

The speed of sound is about 330 m / s, but already at a distance of several hundred meters the sound fades.

“Only very strong sounds, such as, for example, the howl of a siren, thunder, the sounds of artillery shots, are heard at a relatively large distance of up to 10-20 km, and sometimes more.”

Visual communications

Even in ancient times, along with sound, visual means of transmitting information arose.

The simplest visual means primarily include postures, facial expressions, gestures, which were widely used by primitive man and which we use now.

With the help of facial expressions, a person expresses or, conversely, hides his feelings. Mimicry is the most important means of expression in theatrical and performing arts in general.

Gestures as a means of conveying information are used in the language of the deaf and dumb. The gesture system exists in the army. Putting their hand to the cap, the military greet a friend ("salute"). With the help of the "language" of gestures, the conductor controls such complex groups as a musical orchestra or choir.

Someone calculated that with the help of hands you can make several thousand different movements.

Raising his hand on the hunt, the elder gave a sign of "attention", making a wave of his hand, gave the command to begin action.

The barrier plays a similar role. If it is raised, it means: the path is open; if it is lowered, the path is closed.

When the construction of railways began, not only barriers appeared at crossings, but also similar devices - semaphores - along the railway track. With their help, commands were given to locomotive drivers.

As long as people traveled on the roads on foot, on horseback, in carts and carriages, no one regulated traffic. The only sign that was placed along the roads were poles that allowed to determine the distance. In our country, they have long been called milestones.

The situation on the roads changed when the automobile was invented.

In this regard, traffic controllers appeared at the intersections. The more cars became, the more traffic controllers were required. Then the traffic light was invented.

For regulation traffic other means began to be used: traffic signs, road markings - stripes, the so-called "zebra", indicating the crossing point.

Once upon a time, in order to distinguish one messenger from another, they began to be provided with special signs, which were called tokens or seals.

Later, seals began to be attached to documents sent by messengers or by mail. When the flow of correspondence increased, instead of hanging seals, prints or stamps appeared.

Since in the Middle Ages many European knights were clad in armor, to distinguish them from each other, special distinctive signs appeared on the armor - coats of arms. Later they also appeared on prints.

The need to distinguish friend from foe on and off the battlefield led to the emergence of the uniform. Later, it began to differ according to the types of troops. The form appeared among officials, students and schoolchildren. Some commercial organizations have their own uniform.

To distinguish the commander from the subordinate, insignia were introduced.

Those who have been on tourist trips know that where it is very crowded, the guide, in order not to lose the tourist group, moves with a flag in his hands.

It was for this purpose that flags and banners once appeared. True, initially they were not intended for tourists, but for warriors. The first mention of military banners in Russia dates back to the 11th-12th centuries. Now every military unit, every warship has a banner.

Banners differ in size, shape, color, signs and inscriptions on the cloth.

The appearance of flags, banners and banners led to the emergence of flag signaling. Since at sea it is impossible to quickly transfer information from one ship to another with the help of messengers or messengers, they began to use signaling using a set of flags raised on the masts of the ship, or by waving flags.

In Russia, the system of "signal production" on ships was legalized under Peter I in 1699.

With the help of facial expressions, gestures, flags, information can be transmitted only at close range. For its transmission over long distances, other means are needed. One of them is fire, which in the dark can be seen for several kilometers.

The speed of sound is 330 m/s. The speed of light is 300,000 km/s, that is, a million times faster. It is no coincidence that during a thunderstorm we first see lightning, then we hear thunder.

The legend of the capture of the city of Troy is well known. Unable to take it by storm, the Greeks went to the trick. They gave the Trojans a wooden horse in which the warriors were hidden. At night, the soldiers got out of their hiding place, killed the Trojan guards and lit a fire at the gates of the city. At this signal, their comrades entered the city and captured it.

When navigation was developed, for a long time it had a coastal character. Therefore, fire began to be used to indicate the coastline at night. This is how lighthouses were born.

Around 280 BC e. The Egyptian emperor Ptolemy II ordered the construction of a lighthouse on the island of Foros, which was supposed to show sailors the way to the harbor of Alexandria.

Over time, lighthouses have become an indispensable attribute of navigation.

Later, to designate the fairway or dangerous places began to use floating signs, fixed with an anchor and called buoys. Initially, buoys stood out on the water surface with a bright color, then, in order to be able to see them at night, buoys began to be equipped with lanterns.

The main difference between the lantern is that the light source in it is completely or partially covered with a glass case. The case protects the light source from wind, rain and snow.

Glass making began in Egypt around 3000 BC. e. However, transparent glass appeared only at the turn of BC. e. It was originally made in Rome. In the XIII century. the center of glass production moved to Venice.

The invention of the lantern led to the appearance of ship lights. “Ship lights,” says the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, “are installed on ships in a certain combination at night to indicate their location, direction of movement, type, condition, and also the type of work performed.”

Over time, lamps, which were called headlights, began to equip all types of transport. Car headlights not only illuminate the path at night, but play the role of warning signs for pedestrians or oncoming traffic.

A similar role is played by the rear lights on machines designed

to show the dimensions of the machine. With their help, the driver communicates his intention to make a turn.

"Flashing lights" on cars let you know that this is a special vehicle: a fire engine, an ambulance, a police car or a high-ranking official.

Diesel locomotives, electric locomotives, river and sea vessels are equipped with headlights or searchlights. All planes light flashing lights on their wings at night. It can be seen from the ground with the naked eye.

“Warning signaling is also widely used in aircraft navigation. It is carried out by terrestrial day signs in the form of geometric figures made of different materials, or at night by light signals. Depending on the purpose, the signs are given a different shape: a ring, a cross, a triangle, a square, etc.”

A lantern that provides a directed and concentrated emission of light is called a searchlight. One of its features is a mirror reflector that allows you to increase the range of light propagation.

Up to the XX century. heliographs were used. A heliograph is a light-signal device with a mirror reflector of sunlight.

When firearms appeared, flares were invented. With their help, commands began to be given in the army.

In 1940, the Military Publishing House published a special book on signaling.

It was named the following means used in the Red Army of that time: milestones, bonfires, rockets, flags, lanterns, panels, semaphores, heliograph, searchlight, Zeiss telegraph.

This indicates that some of the simplest means of communication that arose in antiquity continued to be used until the middle of the 20th century.

Chapter 2. Mail

Writing

As long as people were at the stage of an appropriating economy and lived in small tribal groups, they used the simplest means of communication. The situation began to change when, as a result of the so-called Neolithic revolution, a transition began from an appropriating economy to a producing economy, when clans and tribes were replaced by tribal unions, and then states.

For a long time, information was transmitted directly from one person to another and could only be stored in human memory.

Two very important consequences followed from this: firstly, the accumulation of knowledge about the surrounding world by society was limited by the capabilities of human memory, and secondly, the amount of this knowledge largely depended on the life expectancy of individual people.

It is no coincidence that in primitive society, older people enjoyed special honor and respect. They were not only the embodiment of worldly wisdom, but also the keepers of life experience, knowledge about the world around them. Therefore, it was from their midst, first of all, that the head of the clan was chosen, which among many peoples was called the elder.

When the "elder" died, the knowledge he had accumulated "died" with him. And if he did not have time to pass them on to others, after his death, much had to be started all over again.

A similar phenomenon received a vivid artistic expression in the film of the German director Werner Herzig "Heart of Glass". The plot of the film is this. Somewhere in the mountains there was and flourished a small town, the center of which was a glass factory. The factory produced wonderful dishes. But only one master possessed the secret of its production, who did not want to share it with anyone. And then the master died. His knowledge perished with him. The plant fell into disrepair, after which the whole town fell into disrepair.

Since life expectancy in primitive society was short, and people often became victims of wild animals, diseases and natural disasters, this happened repeatedly. And although at the stage of the appropriating economy, when humanity was fragmented into many tribes scattered around the planet and isolated from each other, the periodically occurring loss of accumulated knowledge by individual collectives did not have a catastrophic effect on the whole society, but it undoubtedly held back its development.

The negative role of this factor began to increase when the tribes were replaced by states that united tens and hundreds of thousands, millions of people.

The transition from an appropriating economy to a productive economy and the emergence of the state associated with this meant the transition of human society to a new stage of development, called civilization. Initially, the main role in the productive economy was played by agricultural production (livestock breeding, agriculture), then by industry. Based on this, two types of civilization can be distinguished: agrarian and industrial.

The transition to a productive economy was accompanied by a complication of economic and social life and led to an expansion of the volume of information circulating among people, an increase in its significance in the life of society. At the same time, with the formation of states and the expansion of their borders, the role of information transfer as one of the most important means of control increased.

This gave rise to the need to consolidate, preserve and accumulate information, resulting in writing. “Writing is a fixation of speech, which serves to transmit it over a distance and fix it in time and is carried out with the help of descriptive symbols expressing certain elements of speech.”

The most ancient was the knot letter, which Europeans got acquainted with in the 16th century. the Incas in America. In ancient times, it also existed among other peoples, for example, in Asia and Africa.

More common was pictorial writing, on the basis of which hieroglyphic writing arose. At the dawn of civilization, it was used in Africa (Egyptians), in Asia (Chinese), in Latin America(Mayan). Now it is widespread in Southeast Asia. Like drawings, hieroglyphs can mean whole words and even sentences, but unlike drawings, they have only a conditional, symbolic character.

Picture writing developed according to the principle of a piggy bank, that is, the larger the amount of information became, the more drawings were required to express it. Initially, hieroglyphic writing developed in a similar way.

This was one of the reasons for the appearance of hieroglyphs denoting individual syllables, with the help of which words can be composed. A similar syllabic writing system was used in Mycenae in the 2nd millennium BC. e. , in the III - I centuries. BC e. gained popularity in India. Almost all types of writing that now exist in India and Indochina originated from it.

In the middle of the II millennium BC. e. alphabet was invented.

The word "alphabet" comes from the names of the first two Greek letters "alpha" and "vita" (or beta). In reference literature, the concept of "alphabet" is characterized as "a set of graphemes (letters)", and "grapheme" as "the smallest meaningful unit of written speech, corresponding to a phoneme in oral speech".

The essence of this invention was that for each sound pronounced by a person, a special designation was invented - a letter, which in itself, like this sound, does not mean anything, but using letters, one can designate words spoken by a person. As a result, it became possible to record any information with the help of several dozen characters.

The question of the origin of the alphabet is debatable. Most often, its creators are called the Phoenicians. The Jews and Greeks borrowed the alphabet from the Phoenicians. The Greek alphabet formed the basis of the Latin alphabet, Arabic writing and Slavic alphabet.

If the emergence of language opened up the possibility of accumulating and storing knowledge about the world around us in the amount of human memory, as well as passing it on from generation to generation through personal, direct communication, then writing, the appearance of which meant the separation of information from a person, made it possible not only to store and accumulate information, but also to do it in increasing volumes, exceeding the capabilities of human memory. From that moment on, the amount of information accumulated by society was made dependent not on the abilities of human memory, not on the life expectancy of individual people, but on the duration of the existence of the whole society. At the same time, completely new opportunities for the transfer, and hence the dissemination of knowledge, have opened up.

In this regard, the creation of writing can be regarded as the second information revolution, which had as its consequence the acceleration of the development of culture, and with it the whole society.

Writing, the state and the productive economy are the main features of that stage in the development of society, which was called "civilization".

The development of writing, and hence the accumulation and dissemination of information, was largely associated with the use of writing material.

In ancient Egypt, papyrus played such a role - an aquatic herbaceous plant, suitable not only for making fabric, but also for writing material. Papyrus appeared in Egypt at the end of the 3rd millennium BC, then spread to the Mediterranean and was used here BC.

In the Middle East, people wrote on clay tablets for a long time. But since they were fragile, they, too, were eventually supplanted by papyrus.

In search of its substitute, attention was drawn to the skins of animals. This is how parchment or parchment appeared - calfskin dressed in a special way. It got its name from the Asia Minor city of Pergamum, which was once famous for the production of this writing material.

Wooden boards were also used for writing. In China, they wrote on them with paint, in Russia they were covered with wax and “written” with sticks. In addition, in Russia, birch bark served as a writing material.

Writing became more widespread after paper appeared.

Paper was invented in China at the turn of our era, no later than the 2nd century BC. n. e. Then its production spread to neighboring countries. In the 8th century it appeared among the Arabs. In the XI-XII centuries. Arabs introduced Europeans to it. In the XII century. Italians began to produce it, in the XIII century. - Germans, in the XIV century. - the English. In the XIV-XV centuries. it began to be used in Russia.

Printing played an important role in the dissemination of knowledge.

It was also invented in China, back in the 7th century. In the XV century. I. Guttenberg laid the foundation for book printing in Western Europe.

The spread of knowledge led to the emergence and development of periodicals, primarily newspapers. The word "newspaper" comes from the Italian word "gazzetta" - originally a coin of small denominations. The first handwritten newspaper "Kuranty" appeared in Russia in 1621, the first printed newspaper - "Vedomosti" in 1703.

Since writing material was expensive for a long time, and the population in its mass was illiterate, the correspondence that arose was mainly of an official nature, then business and, finally, personal correspondence appeared.

The origin and development of mail

The increasing frequency and complexity of contacts between individual groups of people required the improvement of means of communication. Initially, messengers were sent only in cases of emergency. Anyone could play this role. In the process of transition from the tribal system to the state, the transmission of information over a distance acquires a regular, permanent character, and the performance of this function turns into a profession. A new type of communication is born - mail.

The emergence of this type of communication was characterized not only by the transformation of the duties of a messenger into a profession. According to experts, the word "mail" comes from the late Latin word "posita", which once meant a stop or station. Consequently, mail was originally understood as the transfer of information from hand to hand as a relay race.

It can be taken for granted that the Greek hemerodromes moved at a speed of 10 km/h. However, if this was the case, then the speed of their movement was inversely proportional to the distance, in other words, the greater the distance they needed to cover, the slower they could move.

To ensure their movement at maximum speed, it was necessary to divide the distance they covered into short distances and organize the transfer of information from one messenger to another.

In this regard, attention should be paid to the fact that in ancient times (for example, in India and China), one of the attributes of messengers was bells, that is, small bells. Some authors believe that with their help, the messengers made it known that they should give way. However, it is unlikely that in ancient india and in ancient China the streets were so crowded with people that there was a need for such a signal. More likely something else. Thus, the messengers reported their approach to the relay or postal stations, so that those who needed to transmit information were ready to immediately follow on by the time they arrived.

It is necessary to pay attention to one more circumstance. The word "mail" means not only the establishment of communication, but also the forwarded correspondence. Therefore, the formation of mail as a means of communication ends when the oral transmission of information is replaced by written information, that is, when the forwarding of correspondence becomes the main function of the mail.

The earliest information about the existence of mail dates back to the end of the 3rd millennium BC. e. By this time there are references to the existence of a service of royal couriers in Ancient Egypt.

“About 2000 BC. e., - write P. James and N. Thorp, - the Egyptian pharaohs established the royal courier service, delivering correspondence first by river and then by land, and "around 1900 BC. e. have been established relay stations." During excavations in El Amarna, the remains of an archive from the middle of the 14th century were discovered. BC e. Among the surviving documents, it was possible to read letters to Tutankhamun.

Earlier traces of postal correspondence have been preserved in the Turkish city of Kultepe, where archaeologists have unearthed about 16,000 clay tablets dating back to the 19th century. BC e. One of these very ancient letters reads: “I received your instructions and on the same day that the tablet with your letter arrived, I gave your agents three mines of silver to buy lead. So, if you are still my brother, return my money by courier.”

Not later than 1000 BC. e. mail originated in China. Apparently, originally she was also on foot. Despite this, Confucius (551-479 BC) wrote: "...just deeds spread faster than imperial orders transmitted by relay or by courier." From this it is clear that in the middle of the first millennium BC. e. relay or postal stations also existed in China.

As already noted, when in 490 BC. e. the Greeks needed to report the defeat of the Persians in the Marathon Valley, they sent a messenger to Athens. This means that in the 5th c. BC e. the Greeks even used foot messengers to relay emergency information.

Only a horse could increase the speed of the messenger. The wild horse lived in the Indo-European steppes and was tamed around the 4th-3rd millennium BC. e. However, the earliest information about its use in a team dates back to the 16th-14th centuries. BC e., for riding it began to be used no earlier than the XIV century. BC uh..

But “even at the end of the II millennium BC. e., - writes V. A. Shnirelman, - such Indo-European peoples as the Thracians, Illyrians, Dorians and Achaeans either did not know horse riding at all, or rode horses very rarely.

Horse riding becomes widespread only in the 1st millennium BC. e. One of the peoples who first began to use it for postal purposes were the Persians.

Speaking of the Persian ruler Darius II, the Greek historian Xenophon (430–355 BC) wrote: distances special stations where there were horses and grooms. In addition, he appointed a caretaker at each of these stations, whose duties included receiving and further sending letters, sheltering tired horses and people, and sending fresh ones. They say that the delivery was not interrupted even at night.

“Nothing in the world moves as fast as ... Persian couriers,” wrote another Greek historian Herodotus, who lived in the 5th century BC. BC, - nothing can slow down their speed at the distance they must go - neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor darkness. The first rider passes the dispatch to the second, the second to the third, and that further, from hand to hand, along the entire line, like fire during the Greek torch run.

As a result of this, they covered the 1600-mile journey from the capital of the Persian Empire, the city of Susa, to the coast of the Aegean Sea in 9 days. If we take into account that the ancient Greek mile was 1.4 km, it turns out that the speed of delivery of Persian mail was about 250 km per day.

When in 330 BC. e. Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) defeated Persia, he kept her mail. After 7 years, Alexander the Great died, his empire collapsed, and the post office inherited from the Persians fell into decay.

As time passed, a new major power arose in the Mediterranean - the Roman Empire. She surpassed the Persian in size, and therefore needed even more advanced means of communication.

On the Apennine Peninsula, such an extensive transport system has developed that the saying was born: "All roads lead to Rome." According to some reports, during the heyday of the Roman Empire, their total length exceeded 100 thousand km. The postal service acquired an orderly character during the reign of Emperor Augustus (27 BC - 14 AD). Under him, postal stations appeared on the roads, where one could rest and change horses. This ensured the delivery of mail at a speed of 10-15 km / h.

In the 7th century in Western Asia, on the ruins of the empire of the Sassanid dynasty, a new state arose in which the followers of the Prophet Muhammad, the Arab Caliphate, gained power. Roads stretched from the capital of the Caliphate, Baghdad, to different parts of the empire, on which more than 900 post stations were opened.

Caliph Abu Jafar Mansur stated: "My throne rests on four pillars and my dominion on four persons, namely: an impeccable qadi (judge), an energetic police manager, an honest minister of finance and a devoted postmaster who informs me of everything."

There is an opinion that the postal service continued to exist and

after the collapse of the Arab Caliphate in the 11th century, until it was destroyed as a result of the conquest of Timur in 1400.

By that time, another more extensive postal service had been created. In the middle of the XIII century. the Mongol Empire arose, the borders of which stretched from Central Europe to Pacific Ocean. The Italian Marco Polo, who visited it in the second half of this century, in his notes compared the Mongolian mail with the Persian one and cited figures that stagger our imagination.

According to him, about 10 thousand postal stations were created throughout the empire, which were served by 200-300 thousand horses. The average distance between post stations was about 25 miles, 40 km. This means that the length of postal roads reached 400 thousand km.

An incredible fact.

In the XIV century. The Mongol Empire entered a period of fragmentation. As a result, the former postal service collapsed. But not everywhere. In China, it continued to exist even after the expulsion of the conquerors.

During the crisis of the Roman Empire III-V centuries. her post office fell into disrepair. Postal stations ceased to operate, many roads were overgrown with grass.

The Frankish king Clovis I (465-511) tried to at least partially preserve the Roman mail, but after in the 9th century. the empire created by his descendants collapsed, the unified post office on its territory finally ceased to exist.

Since that time, the papal mail has become the most extensive, since the Vatican maintained links with all the dioceses in Europe. Monasteries and knightly orders had their own post office. Postal communication between universities appears and becomes widespread.

In the XII-III centuries. a wave of urban revolutions swept through Western Europe. Almost all more or less large cities gained independence from the feudal lords and established self-government. To communicate with each other, they created their own, city or municipal mail.

In the Middle Ages, cattle buyers, who were constantly on the move, were especially mobile. Some townspeople began to use them to send mail. This is how the "butchers post" arose, which existed until the 17th century.

In the XV century. Royal Mail was established in France. She began to provide services to private individuals and from 1598 became publicly available. In this regard, the monastic, knightly, municipal, university post and "butchers post" have lost their former significance. And in 1719, Louis XV introduced a state monopoly on postal services.

The most extensive Western European state formation throughout the Middle Ages was the Holy Roman Empire. It included dozens of large and small states of Austria, Hungary, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy. Therefore, the problem of postal communication was of much greater importance here than in other parts of Europe.

At the end of the XV - beginning of the XVI centuries. the Thurn and Taxis postal company arose, which existed for two and a half centuries and gradually connected almost all the states that were part of the Holy Roman Empire. The royal power in Prussia bought their postal service from the Taxis only in 1867.

In Spain, the royal power took over the postal service at the beginning of the 18th century, in Holland - in the middle of the 18th century, in Switzerland - at the end of the 18th century. In North America, before the revolution, the post office was subordinate to the General Post Office in London, after the emergence of the United States of America - to the federal government. In England, for a long time, the post office belonged to the family of R. Allan and his descendants. At the end of the XVIII century. she also passed into the hands of the state

In the Middle Ages, mail was mainly served by horse messengers. And only in the XV-XVI centuries. they were replaced by special mail coaches. The word carriage comes from the word "caruzzi". So in ancient Rome they called covered wagons.

The increase in the number of recipients led to the emergence of mailboxes. According to some reports, the privilege to set up the first mailboxes was issued in France in 1653 to a racketeer or tax collector Louis XIV Renoir de Villaye. In 1771, mailboxes appeared in Vienna, in 1776 in Berlin, in 1829 in Copenhagen, in 1848 in Moscow and St. Petersburg, in 1855 in Sweden.

There is an opinion that already in the middle of the XV century. in France, the speed of delivery of correspondence reached 150 km per day, and in Germany at the end of the 17th century. - 200 km. However, most likely, these figures characterize the speed of emergency delivery of correspondence.

Along with foot and horse mail, another type of postal service arose in antiquity. It has been observed that pigeons always return to their nests wherever they are brought. To this it should be added that the pigeon is capable of reaching speeds of up to 60–70 km, which far exceeds the speed of movement not only of a foot messenger, but also of a rider.

Man began to use these qualities of pigeons to transmit emergency correspondence with their help. The earliest references to domesticated pigeons date back to around 2000 BC. e. (Sumerians), and the first known fact the use of carrier pigeons - by the XII century. BC e. (Egyptians). Carrier pigeons were used by the ancient Greeks and ancient Romans, Arabs, Chinese, Turks, Chinese and Europeans.

During the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), besieged Paris maintained contact with the outside world with the help of pigeons. During the Second World War, Great Britain had almost half a million carrier pigeons. There is evidence that pigeon mail was used in emergency cases in Japan even at the end of the 20th century.

As soon as the correspondence appeared, there was a desire to hide or classify the information being reported. “Already in the historical documents of ancient civilizations - India, Egypt, Mesopotamia,” writes T. Soboleva, author of the book “History of the Cipher Business in Russia”, “there is information about systems and methods for compiling a cipher letter.”

In 855, the first work known to us, devoted to the art of ciphering, appeared - "The book about the great desire of a person to unravel the mysteries of ancient writing."

By coding or encrypting its own correspondence, the state begins to take an interest in personal correspondence. Thus a perusal arose. Separate cases of interception and opening of other people's letters have always taken place. In the 17th century the famous A. J. Richelieu established the first "black cabinets" in France, that is, special state institutions that were entrusted with the duty to monitor personal correspondence.

From France, this innovation was borrowed by other states.

The content of the article

ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS, the technique of transmitting information from one place to another in the form of electrical signals sent over wires, cables, fiber optic lines, or no guide lines at all. Directed transmission over wires is usually carried out from one specific point to another, as, for example, in telephony or telegraphy. Omnidirectional transmission, on the contrary, is usually used to transfer information from one point to many other points scattered in space, i.e. for broadcast purposes. Broadcasting is an example of non-directional transmission.

The transmission of signals over wires can be considered as the flow of electric current through the wire, which is interrupted or changed in any way, from a transmitter located at one of the points in the network. This interruption or change in current detected by the receiver at another point in the network is the signal or piece of information sent by the transmitter.

The transmission of information through radio or optical (light) waves is an electromagnetic radiation that can propagate without needing any medium, i.e. capable of propagating in a vacuum. Such transmission is carried out as a result of fluctuations in electric and magnetic fields. Radio and television waves, microwaves, infrared rays, visible light, ultraviolet rays, X-rays and gamma rays are all electromagnetic radiation. Each type of electromagnetic radiation is characterized by its own oscillation frequency, with radio waves corresponding to the low-frequency end of the spectrum, and gamma rays to the high-frequency end.

Although in principle signals can be transmitted by electromagnetic radiation of any frequency, not all parts of the electromagnetic spectrum are suitable for communication purposes, since the atmosphere is opaque for some wavelengths. The range of "radio frequencies" used is between about 1 and 30,000 MHz. In this range, AM broadcasts are broadcast at frequencies from 0.5 to 1.5 MHz, while FM and television broadcasts are broadcast over a much wider frequency range, the middle of which falls at 100 MHz. Microwave signals, including those sent to and received from communication satellites, are in the range from 4000 to 14000 MHz and even higher. Generally speaking, any signal needs a specific bandwidth or range of frequencies; the more complex the signal, the wider the required bandwidth. For example, a television signal, due to its much greater complexity, requires a bandwidth that is about 600 times greater than that of a voice signal. The entire used spectrum of radio frequencies allows placing 10 million speech or about 10,000 television channels in it. This spectrum is shared between broadcasters, emergency services, aviation, ships, mobile telephony, military and other users.

Revolution in the field of communication.

In recent decades, electronic communications have developed so rapidly that the words "revolution in the field of communications" do not seem to be an exaggeration. The basis for many innovations was the rapid progress of electronic engineering and technology. In the early 1950s, a device called the transistor was developed. This miniature electronic component, made of semiconductor materials, is used to amplify or control electric current. Because transistors are smaller and more durable than vacuum tubes, they replaced tubes in radios and became the basis of computers. TRANSISTOR.

In the late 1960s, instead of transistor circuits, computers began to use fully assembled semiconductor circuits, called integrated circuits (ICs). Subsequently, on a single silicon wafer, the size of which was only slightly larger than the size of the first transistor, technologists learned how to manufacture hundreds of thousands of transistors at once in a single process. This method, called large-scale integrated circuit (LSI) technology, allows many ICs to be placed in one small device.

Each stage of the development of electronics was accompanied by a significant increase in the reliability of electronic components. At the same time, it was also possible to significantly reduce the size, power consumption and cost of many types of electronic equipment.

The widespread use of technology such as computers, lasers, fiber optic lines, communication satellites, direct-dial telephones, video telephones, transistor radios, and cable television has led to a complete overhaul of the traditional classification of communication methods. Nowadays, wire transmission is practically not identified with direct address communication, and wireless transmission with radio broadcasting. Probably the most powerful influence on the development of communication technology was the significant increase in the capacity of communications both over the air and by wire. This increased bandwidth is used for the ever-increasing global traffic of television, telephony and digital information.

Laser.

One of the factors that played an important role in increasing the capacity of communication systems was the discovery of the laser in 1961. A laser is a light source that generates a narrow beam of high intensity light. Such a beam can be used to transmit signals. The unique feature of a laser is that it emits light of a single frequency, i.e. produces purely monochromatic radiation. Thus, a laser can serve as a generator of very high frequency (VHF) electromagnetic waves, similar to how a radio transmitter can serve as a source of lower frequency waves (radio waves). Since the frequency range of light waves (approximately from 5x10 8 to 10 9 MHz) is many times wider than the frequency range of radio waves, a light beam can transmit huge amounts of information. This part of the electromagnetic spectrum is wide enough to accommodate 80 million TV channels or 50 billion simultaneous telephone conversations.

Communication satellites.

The first communication satellites, placed in near-Earth orbits in the early 1960s, carried passive-type equipment and served only as signal repeaters.

Modern communications satellites are usually launched into a geostationary orbit at an altitude of 35,900 km above the Earth's surface. Each satellite has 10 or more microwave receivers and transmitters. A modern satellite makes it possible to transmit several television programs across the oceans to entire continents and to ensure the operation of more than tens of thousands of telephone channels.

Cables.

During World War I, communications engineers developed a method of using a pair of wires to transmit multiple telephone conversations at the same time. This method, called frequency multiplexing of channels, is based on the ability to transmit a wide range of audio frequencies over a pair of wires. In this case, the signals of each of the multiple transmitters are spread in frequency (using modulation) and the resulting higher frequency combined signal is transmitted to the receiving terminal, where it is separated into component signals by demodulation. A telephone cable with a protective sheath can contain from tens to hundreds of twisted wire pairs, each of which allows up to 24 telephone channels to operate.

However, cables consisting of wire pairs have certain limitations. Above a certain frequency, signals transmitted over one pair begin to interfere with the signals of an adjacent pair. To solve this problem, a new type of transmission medium was developed - coaxial cable. Such a cable, containing 22 coaxial pairs, can provide simultaneous operation of 132,000 telephone channels. Each pair in such a cable is a central wire enclosed in a tube of the second conductor. The center conductor and the tube are electrically isolated from each other.

TASI.

Time Division Multiplexing of Speech Interpolation (TASI) is a technique that doubles the capacity of transoceanic telephone cables by taking advantage of natural pauses in conversations. The two-way communication channel is idle for about 60% of the time during pauses in the conversation, as well as while the user is receiving. The TASI equipment, using a high-speed switch, provides unused time of one channel to any of the other users. Such a switch returns the channel to the user as soon as he starts talking, and disconnects him immediately after silence, providing the channel in pauses to other subscribers.

Pulse code modulation.

This method of signal transmission by means of digital technology is especially convenient when using LSI and VLSI, as well as fiber optic lines. Such digital (PCM) transmission of voice and TV signals will eventually replace other means of communication. When using pulse code modulation, speech or image signals can be divided into many small time intervals; at each interval, a series of pulses of constant amplitude represents a signal. These pulses are sent to the receiving station instead of the original signals. One of the advantages of PCM is related to the fact that discrete electronic pulses of constant amplitude are easily distinguished from random noise of arbitrary amplitude (electrostatic origin), which are present to one degree or another in any transmission medium. Such pulses can be transmitted substantially uninterrupted by ambient noise since they are easy to separate. PCM is used for a wide variety of signals. Telegraph and facsimile messages, as well as other data that was previously sent over telephone lines by other methods, can be transmitted much more efficiently in a pulsed form. The traffic of such non-speech signals is constantly increasing; there are also systems that allow the transmission of mixed signals of speech, data and video information.

Electronic switching.

Another innovation that has made telephony more efficient is electronic switching. The modern microcircuits described above made it possible to use electronic switches instead of mechanical ones at the PBX, which increased the speed and reliability of making calls. New switching systems are digital systems that use fast and compact LSIs to switch data, PCM signals or digital video signals. In addition to being well suited to various telephony applications, electronic switching allows for a number of innovations. These include: automatic transfer of a call to another number when the number of this subscriber is busy; speed dialing, in which the subscriber dials only one or two digits to connect to frequently called numbers; call signals, which notify the user that another subscriber is trying to connect with him.

Phones-computers.

The telephone of the future will be used not only for ordinary communication. Telephone sets with built-in miniature and inexpensive logic circuits will be able to perform complex electronic functions. With the help of a PBX, such a phone can become an individual computer. By pressing the keys of his telephone, the user will be able to enter the data he wants to store, process information, request data from some central file, or perform calculations.

Videophone.

New means of electronics make it possible to supplement sound information transmitted by telephone with images. Video transmissions between conference rooms located in several cities are used in order to avoid the need to move conference participants. Video broadcasts have begun to be widely used for teaching - lectures are transferred from one audience to another (remote) and recorded on videotape for use in the same purposes.

Cable television systems.

Although laser radiation and millimeter waves can be used for broadcasting, limitations due to atmospheric absorption and other types of interference can only be overcome at great cost. Therefore, when looking for ways to expand broadcasting to avoid the limitations associated with the use of electromagnetic radiation, cable systems are increasingly being used.

Cable television requires cabling from transmitters to receivers located in homes, for example. The radio listener or cable broadcast viewer does not experience the inconvenience of fading, ghosting and other interference. In addition, due to the fact that the number of channels transmitted via cable is practically unlimited (whereas a conventional TV broadcaster transmits only one program at a time), the viewer is provided with a much wider choice of programs. In the future, the media may become personalized information services capable of transmitting pre-recorded programs at the request of individual viewers.

Community cable television (CATV) systems have been in operation for many years. Originally intended to serve remote communities where rooftop antennas did not provide good signal reception, CATV systems are also widely used in cities where interference is a problem.

The computer as an intelligent assistant.

Computer scientists believe that eventually people will be able to communicate their ideas more effectively through computers than through direct conversation. Usually the purpose of the conversation is to exchange, compare and critically discuss ideas already formed in the minds of the participants in the conversation. Ideas are mostly expressed in words, but if the subject of discussion is complex or has technical specifics, then graphics, photographs and calculations have to be used. The conversation does not always lead to full understanding, since the concepts being expressed can not be easily expressed in words; often they contain data and associations that are linked together in such a complex way that even the speaker finds it difficult to fully understand and express them. The listener, on the other hand, is unable to examine the way the speaker thinks and must rely on the information that he provides, and with a degree of inadequacy that is difficult to assess.

The computer, according to cybernetics, provides the participant of the conversation with the opportunity to better understand the ideas of his interlocutor. A computer is an information processing machine that can store data, know where to find it, be able to compare it, sort it, compress it, or restructure it, and then display it on the screen in the most appropriate form. If information is entered into the computer that is related to the formulation of a certain idea, but did not sound clear enough when the interlocutor explained this idea, then the output of the computer can be obtained general idea about the speaker's way of thinking. Thus, the basic information of the speaker is available to the listener. In addition, the listener may need a computer to sort the data to reveal facts relevant to the problem or concept being discussed. Discussions can then take place between two or more interlocutors whose computers are connected so that information is collected, processed and exchanged so efficiently that solutions and creative ideas can emerge to a degree and at a level that could not be achieved without the use of computers. Experiments carried out in this direction have given encouraging results. OFFICE EQUIPMENT AND OFFICE EQUIPMENT; TELEPHONE; COMPUTER;

Communication is an integral element of the existence of modern human society. In our technologically advanced age, we simply cannot imagine our lives without phones. But even a hundred years ago, a person could not even dream of such a luxury.

Until the middle of the 19th century, communication between Europe, England and America was established using steamship mail. But since this means of communication did not allow to receive news quickly, the human mind began to think about a more perfect solution to the problem.

The development of communications gained new momentum with the discovery by Volt in 1800 of the electric battery. The electrochemical telegraph was the first to be invented, it was thanks to him that it became possible to transmit messages from two different ends in a few hours, or even minutes.

The inventor of the telegraph, Semmering, used a gas that was released as a result of passing current through water (acidified). But the design was too complicated, Schweiger simplified it, but, nevertheless, message passing was too tedious a process.

In addition, alas, such a telegraph could only transmit written messages, so the inventors began to think about a more advanced version of the device. Some attempts were made by the American physicist Page in 1837, but his invention only remotely resembled a telephone.

The development of communications received a new round thanks to the Reis telephone. He made about ten devices that could already partially transmit human speech, as well as music, but at the same time there was too much high signal often muffled, and sometimes it was very difficult to make out what exactly was being said on the other end.

He contributed to the development of communications, which began the construction of a new telephone. Together with his assistant, the inventor achieved his goal and was able to make an apparatus that more or less clearly began to transmit speech. But, unfortunately, the sound quality in such devices depended on the distance, the farther - the worse the audibility.

Over time, the phone has improved. The Russian Baron Schilling, the Englishman William Cook, the German inventor Steingel and many others worked on the development of this device. Before the phone took on its current form, it went through many tests. was marked by the advent of wireless communication devices, namely mobile phones, which perfectly transmit all sounds without any delay.

An equally important place in the development of communications is occupied by the invention of television communications and phototelegraphy. It was with the help of these means that video signals began to be transmitted. Initially, these were primitive sound and video transmitters, which later developed into color television. V original version the choice of programs and channels was small, but every year their number increases significantly.

But the classification will be incomplete if we do not remember the most global communication system, namely the Internet. Now we can't imagine our life without it. After all, it is thanks to him that you can easily find out all the news, keep abreast of events, pay for services, control almost all aspects of your life.

But it plays a decisive role in facilitating communication between people. After all, being thousands of kilometers apart, people can easily exchange photo, video and audio materials. See each other online, communicate in real time, without delays and delays.

Every year a person invents more and more new devices, modernizing existing ones and creating absolutely unique ones. Progress does not stand still, which means that the development of communications will not stop.

1. Language as a means of communication.

2. Systems for transmitting information by sound means.

3. Information transmission systems by visual means.

Bibliography

1. Coulet, K. Media in Ancient Greece. Compositions, speeches, searches, travels / K. Kule. - M. : NLO, 2004. - 256 p.

2. Lovell, D. The Great Wall of China / D. Lovell. - M. : AST, 2008. - 442 p.

3. Ostrovsky, A. V. History of world and domestic communications: textbook. allowance / A. V. Ostrovsky. - St. Petersburg. : Publishing House of St. Petersburg State University of Technology, 2011. - S. 6–21.

4. Thorp, N. Secrets of ancient civilizations / N. Thorp, P. James. - M. : Eksmo, 2007. - 864 p.

5. Hagen, V. Vf. Aztecs, Mayans, Incas. Great kingdoms of ancient America / V. Vf. Hagen. - M. : Tsentrpoligraf, 2012. - 538 p.

When considering the first question, it should be borne in mind that the desire to transmit information to the maximum possible, practically unlimited distance existed even before the emergence of early civilizations. Scientists noted that the first systems of perception of information are hearing and vision. Communication between people began with individual sounds, gestures, facial expressions, which laid the foundation for the simplest means of communication. Emphasize that all means of communication can be divided into two types: natural (language) and artificial (mechanical and electrical), which arose as a result of the development of human society.

In this regard, pay attention to the problem of anthropogenesis. Assess the role of the factors that complete the process of separating man from the animal world: man's mastery of fire and the emergence of language, which can be regarded as the first information revolution. Emphasize the difference between human language as a sign system and the "language" of other animals:

human language has a social nature. Its formation and development is associated with the joint activity and communication of people 9 (in animals, "language" is innate, in humans it is acquired);

sign systems of animals are closed. In some cases, animals can accept new signs from a person and even successfully use the received symbols (chimpanzee monkeys were able to teach the language of the deaf-mute at the level of the vocabulary of a two-year-old child). However, animals cannot go beyond the limits of their knowledge.

Human languages ​​are open, capable of unlimited development: people invent new symbols, introduce them into communication, store information with their help.

Turning to the second question, pay attention to the fact that the need to transfer information in the face of the increasing complexity of the forms of organization of human groups (herd, clan, tribe, tribal unions, policies, states, empires) influenced the evolution of the simplest means of communication. In addition to natural means of communication, mechanical (sound and visual) are beginning to be used.

Give examples of sound means of communication, which are divided into percussion and wind.

Which of these means were used in Ancient Russia?

When considering the third question, remember what refers to the simplest visual aids. Show why the simplest optical (from the Greek "visual perception") communication was more perfect than sound signaling. List in what cases and what means of visual signaling were used in ancient world; which of them were used in Ancient Russia.

What is the evolution of the simplest visual means and which of them have retained their significance in modern times?

Note how the simplest means of communication improved the government of society and ensured progress in its development.

Think about whether they are applied and where in modern conditions.

Chronicle 10

	The age of the oldest traces of human use of fire	Historically the first remedy optical communication
thousand years ago	The emergence of artificial methods making fire	5 ancient methods of its extraction have been studied: scraping (fire plow); sawing (fire saw); drilling (fire drill with different options); carving, making fire with compressed air (fire pump)
III-II millennium BC e.		The advent of polished metal mirrors (bronze, silver), which also became one from visual communication
9th century BC e.		The appearance of the bell as a sound means of communication
3rd century BC e. –XIV c. n. e.	Ptolemy II	Construction and operation lighthouse on the island of Foros (second tallest structure in the world) after the Great Pyramid and the only by a complex reflective system structure of this type: its light was observed at a distance of 60 km)
	China Europe	The advent of firearms which was used and as a means of sound signaling

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MUNICIPAL EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION

"NOVOSELITSKAYA SECONDARY EDUCATIONAL SCHOOL"

NOVGOROD DISTRICT OF NOVGOROD REGION

The materials of the conference contain information from the simplest sound and visual means for transmitting signals and commands to the most modern ones. The historical path of development and improvement of means of communication, the role of scientists and practitioners, the latest achievements in physics and technology, their practical use are shown.

Lesson - the conference contributes to the growth of the creative potential of the teacher, the formation of students' skills independent work with various sources of information, allows you to comprehend previously acquired knowledge in a new light, systematize and generalize them. Participation in the conference develops the ability to speak publicly, listen and analyze the messages of their classmates.

The materials of the conference are designed for creative use and are intended for teachers to help in preparing and conducting lessons in physics.

FROM THE HISTORY OF COMMUNICATIONS

Communication has always played an important role in the life of society. In ancient times, communication was carried out by messengers who transmitted messages orally, then in writing. Signal lights and smoke were among the first to be used. During the day, against the background of clouds, smoke is clearly visible, even if the fire itself is not visible, and at night - a flame, especially if it is lit on an elevated place. At first, only predetermined signals were transmitted in this way, say, "the enemy is approaching." Then, by arranging several smokes or fires in a special way, they learned to send whole messages.

Sound signals were used mainly over short distances to gather troops and the population. To transmit sound signals, the following were used: a beater (a metal or wooden board), a bell, a drum, a trumpet, a whistle and covers.

The veche bell in Veliky Novgorod played a particularly important role. At his call, Novgorodians gathered at a veche to resolve military and civil matters.

For command and control of the troops were of no small importance different shapes banners, on which large pieces of various fabrics of bright color were fastened. The military leaders wore distinctive clothes, special headdresses and signs.

In the Middle Ages, flag signaling appeared, which was used in the fleet. The shape, color and design of the flags had a specific meaning. One flag could mean a sentence ("The ship is diving" or "I require a pilot"), and it, in combination with others, was a letter in a word.

From the 16th century in Russia, the delivery of information with the help of the Yamskaya chase became widespread. Yamsky tracts were laid to important centers of the state and border towns. In 1516, a yamskaya hut was created in Moscow to manage the post office, and in 1550 a yamskaya order was established - the central institution in Russia that was in charge of the yamskaya chase.

In Holland, where there were many windmills, simple messages were transmitted by stopping the wings of the windmills in certain positions. This method has been developed in the optical telegraph. Towers were erected between cities, which were located at a distance of line of sight from each other. Each tower had a pair of huge jointed wings with semaphores. The telegraph operator received the message and immediately passed it on, moving the wings with levers.

The first optical telegraph was built in 1794 in France, between Paris and Lille. The longest line - 1200 km - operated in the middle of the 19th century. between Petersburg and Warsaw. The line had 149 towers. She was served by 1308 people. The signal along the line traveled from end to end in 15 minutes.

In 1832, an officer of the Russian army, physicist and orientalist Pavel Lvovich Schilling invented the world's first electric telegraph. In 1837 S. Morse developed and supplemented Schilling's idea. By 1850, the Russian scientist Boris Semenovich Jacobi created a prototype of the world's first telegraph apparatus with direct printing of received messages.

In 1876 (USA) he invented the telephone, and in 1895 a Russian scientist invented the radio. Since the beginning of the twentieth century. radio communications, radiotelegraph and radiotelephone communications began to be introduced.

Map of the Yamsky tracts of the 16th century. postal routes Russia XVIII century.

COMMUNICATION CLASSIFICATION

Communication can be done by signals of various physical nature:

Sound;

Visual (light);

Electrical.

According With the nature of the signals used to exchange information means of transmission (reception) and delivery messages and documents communication can be:

Electrical (electrocommunications);

Signal;

Courier postal.

Depending on the linear means used and the signal propagation medium, communication is divided by gender on the:

Wired connection;

Radio communication;

Radio relay communication;

Tropospheric radio communication;

Ionospheric radio communication;

Meteor radio communication;

space communications;

optical communication;

Mobile communications.

According to the nature of the messages transmitted and mind communication is divided into;

telephone;

Telegraph;

Telecode (data transmission);

Facsimile (phototelegraph);

television;

video telephone;

Signal;

Courier post.

Communication can be done through transmission of information over communication lines:

plain text;

coded;

Encrypted (using codes, ciphers) or classified.

Distinguish duplex communication when simultaneous transmission of messages in both directions is ensured and interruption (request) of the correspondent is possible, and simplex communication when the transmission is carried out alternately in both directions.

Communication happens bilateral, in which duplex or simplex information is exchanged, or unilateral, if there is a transmission of messages or signals in one direction without a return response or confirmation of the received message.

SIGNAL COMMUNICATION

Signaling communication carried out by transmitting messages in the form of predetermined signals using signaling means. In the Navy, signal communications are used to transmit service information between ships, vessels and raid posts both in plain text and in codes typed.

For signal communication by means of subject signaling, one-, two- and three-flag codes of signals of the Navy, as well as a flag semaphore, are usually used. For the transmission of plain text and signal combinations of arches by light-signal devices, signs of the telegraphic Morse code are used.

Ships and vessels of the Navy and offshore posts for negotiations with foreign ships, merchant ships and foreign coastal posts, especially on matters of ensuring the safety of navigation and security human life at sea, use the International Code of Signals.

Signal means, means of signal visual and sound communication, used to transmit short commands, reports, warnings, designations and mutual identification.

Visual means of communication are divided into: a) means of subject signaling (signal flags, figures, flag semaphore); b) means of light communication and signaling (signal lights, searchlights, signal lights); c) pyrotechnic means of signaling (signal cartridges, lighting and signal cartridges, marine signal torches).

Sound signaling means - sirens, megaphones, whistles, horns, ship's bells and foghorns.

Signal means have been used since the time of the rowing fleet to control ships. They were primitive (drum, lit fire, triangular and rectangular shields). Peter I, the creator of the Russian regular fleet, set up various flags and introduced special signals. 22 ship flags, 42 galley flags and several pennants were installed. With the development of the fleet, the number of signals also increased. In 1773, the signal book contained 226 reports, 45 night and 21 fog signals.

In 1779, a Russian mechanic invented a “spotlight” with a candle and developed a special code for transmitting signals. In the 19th - 20th centuries. further development was received by the means of light communication - lanterns and searchlights.

Currently, the flag table of the Naval Code of Signals contains 32 alphabetic, 10 numeric and 17 special flags.

PHYSICAL BASIS OF TELECOMMUNICATION

At the end of the 20th century, widespread telecommunications - the transmission of information by means of electrical signals or electromagnetic waves. Signals go through communication channels - wires (cables) or without wires.

All methods of telecommunication - telephone, telegraph, telefax, Internet, radio and television are similar in structure. At the beginning of the channel there is a device that converts information (sound, image, text, commands) into electrical signals. Then these signals are converted into a form suitable for transmission over long distances, amplified to the desired power and "sent" to the cable network or radiated into space.

On the way, the signals are greatly weakened, so intermediate amplifiers are provided. They are often built into cables and put on repeaters (from lat. re - a prefix indicating a repeated action, and translator - "carrier"), transmitting signals via terrestrial communication lines or via satellite.

At the other end of the line, the signals enter a receiver with an amplifier, then they are converted into a form convenient for processing and storage, and, finally, they are again converted into sound, image, text, commands.

WIRED COMMUNICATION

Before the advent and development of radio communications, wired communication was considered the main one. By purpose, wired communication is divided into:

Far - for inter-regional and inter-district communication;

Internal - for communication in the settlement, in industrial and office premises;

Service - to manage the operational service on communication lines and nodes.

Wired communication lines are often interfaced with radio relay, tropospheric and satellite lines. Due to its great vulnerability (natural influences: strong winds, snow and ice sticking, lightning discharges or human criminal activity), wired communication has disadvantages in application.

TELEGRAPH COMMUNICATION

Telegraph communication is used to transmit alphanumeric information. Auditory telegraph radio communication is the simplest type of communication, which is economical and noise-immune, but its speed is low. Direct-printing telegraph communication has a higher transmission rate and the ability to document received information.

In 1837 S. Morse developed and supplemented Schilling's idea. He proposed a telegraphic alphabet and a simpler telegraph apparatus. In 1884, the American inventor Morse put into operation the first writing telegraph line in the United States between Washington and Baltimore, 63 km long. Supported by other scientists and entrepreneurs, Morse achieved a significant distribution of his apparatus not only in America, but also in most European countries.

By 1850, Russian scientist Boris Semenovich Jacobi

(1801 - 1874) created a prototype of the world's first telegraph apparatus with direct printing of received messages.

The principle of operation of the writing electromagnetic telegraph apparatus is as follows. Under the action of current pulses coming from the line, the armature of the receiving electromagnet was attracted, and in the absence of current, it was repelled. A pencil was attached to the end of the anchor. In front of him, a matte porcelain or faience plate moved along the guides with the help of a clockwork.

During the operation of the electromagnet, a wavy line was recorded on the plate, the zigzags of which corresponded to certain signs. A simple key was used as a transmitter, closing and opening the electrical circuit.

In 1841, Jacobi built the first electric telegraph line in Russia between the Winter Palace and the General Staff in St. Petersburg, and two years later a new line to the palace in Tsarskoye Selo. Telegraph lines consisted of insulated copper wires buried in the ground.

During construction railway Petersburg - Moscow, the government insisted on laying an underground telegraph line along it. Jacobi proposed to build an overhead line on wooden poles, arguing that it is impossible to guarantee the reliability of communication of such a long distance. As expected, this line, built in 1852, did not last even two years due to imperfect insulation and was replaced by an air line.

The academician carried out the most important work on electric machines, electric telegraphs, mine electrical engineering, electrochemistry and electrical measurements. He opened new way electroplating.

The essence of telegraph communication is the representation of a finite number of symbols of an alphanumeric message in the transmitter of a telegraph apparatus by the corresponding number of combinations of elementary signals that differ from each other. Each such combination, called a code combination, corresponds to a letter or number.

The transmission of code combinations is usually carried out by binary alternating current signals, most often modulated in frequency. When receiving, the electrical signals are converted back into characters and these characters are registered on paper in accordance with the accepted code combinations.

Telegraph communication is characterized by reliability, speed of telegraphy (transmission), reliability and secrecy of the transmitted information. Telegraph communication is developing in the direction of further improvement of equipment, automation of the processes of transmitting and receiving information.

TELEPHONE COMMUNICATIONS

Telephone communication is intended for conducting oral negotiations between people (personal or official). When managing complex air defense systems, railway transport, oil and gas pipelines, operational telephone communication is used, which ensures the exchange of information between the central control point and controlled objects located at a distance of up to several thousand kilometers. It is possible to record messages on sound recording devices.

The telephone was invented by an American on February 14, 1876. Structurally, Bell's telephone was a tube with a magnet inside. A coil with a large number of turns of insulated wire is put on its pole pieces. A metal membrane is placed against the pole pieces.

Bell's handset was used to transmit and receive speech sounds. The subscriber's call was made through the same handset using a whistle. The range of the phone did not exceed 500 m.

A miniature color television camera equipped with a microlight turns into a medical probe. Introducing it into the stomach or esophagus, the doctor examines what he could previously see only during surgery.

Modern television equipment makes it possible to control complex and harmful productions. The operator-dispatcher on the monitor screen monitors several technological processes simultaneously. A similar task is solved by the operator-dispatcher of the traffic safety service, following the traffic flows on the roads and intersections on the monitor screen.

Television is widely used for surveillance, reconnaissance, control, communications, command and control, in weapon guidance systems, navigation, astro-orientation and astro-correction, for monitoring underwater and space objects.

In the missile troops, television makes it possible to control the preparation for launch and the launch of missiles, and to monitor the condition of units and assemblies in flight.

In the navy, television provides control and surveillance of the surface situation, review of premises, equipment and personnel actions, search and detection of sunken objects, bottom mines, and rescue operations.

Small-sized television cameras can be delivered to the reconnaissance area using artillery shells, radio-controlled unmanned aircraft.

Television has found wide application in simulators.

Television systems operating in conjunction with radar and direction-finding equipment are used to provide air traffic control services at airports, flights in adverse weather conditions and blind landing of aircraft.

The use of television is limited by insufficient range, dependence on weather conditions and illumination, and low noise immunity.

Trends in the development of television - expanding the range of spectral sensitivity, the introduction of color and surround television, reducing the weight and dimensions of the equipment.

VIDEO TELEPHONE COMMUNICATION

Videotelephone communication - the combination of telephone communication and slow-motion television (with a small number of scan lines) - can be carried out via telephone channels. It allows you to see the interlocutor and show simple still images.

FELDJEGERSKO - POSTAL SERVICE

Delivery of documents, periodicals, parcels and personal correspondence is carried out using courier and mobile communications: aircraft, helicopters, cars, armored personnel carriers, motorcycles, boats, etc.

CONNECTION QUALITY

The quality of communication is determined by the totality of its interrelated basic properties (characteristics).

Timeliness connections- its ability to ensure the transmission and delivery of messages or negotiation at a given time - is determined by the time of deployment of nodes and communication lines, the speed of establishing communication with the correspondent, the speed of information transfer.

Communication Reliability- its ability to work without fail (stably) for a certain period of time with the reliability, secrecy and speed specified for these operating conditions. The communication reliability is significantly affected by the noise immunity of the communication system, lines, channels, which characterizes their ability to function under the influence of all types of interference.

Communication reliability- its ability to ensure the reception of transmitted messages with a given accuracy, which is estimated by the loss of reliability, that is, the ratio of the number of characters received with an error to the total number of transmitted ones.

In conventional communication lines, the loss of reliability is at best 10-3 - 10-4, so they use additional technical devices to detect and correct errors. In automated control systems of the developed countries of the world, the norm of reliability is 10-7 - 10-9.

Communication stealth characterized by the secrecy of the very fact of communication, the degree of identification of the distinguishing features of communication, the secrecy of the content of the transmitted information. The secrecy of the content of the transmitted information is ensured through the use of encryption equipment, encryption, and coding of transmitted messages.

PROSPECTS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMMUNICATIONS

At present, all kinds and types of communication and the corresponding technical means are being improved. In radio relay communication, new sections of the microwave frequency range are used. In tropospheric communications, measures are taken against communication disruptions due to changes in the state of the troposphere. Space communications are being improved on the basis of "stationary" relay satellites with multiple access equipment. Optical (laser) communication is being developed and put into practice, primarily for the transmission of large amounts of information in real time between satellites and spacecraft.

Much attention is paid to the standardization and unification of blocks, assemblies and elements of equipment for various purposes in order to create unified communication systems.

One of the main directions for improving communication systems in developed countries is to ensure the transmission of all types of information (telephone, telegraph, facsimile, computer data, etc.) in a converted discrete-pulse (digital) form. Digital communication systems have great advantages in the creation of global communication systems.

LITERATURE

1. Computer science. Encyclopedia for children. Volume 22. M., "Avanta +". 2003.

2. At the origins of television. The newspaper "Physics", No. 16 for 2000

3. Craig A., Rosni K. Science. Encyclopedia. M., Rosman. 1994.

4. Kyandskaya-, On the question of the world's first radiogram. The newspaper "Physics", No. 12 for 2001

5. Morozov invented and for which G. Marconi received a patent. The newspaper "Physics", No. 16 for 2002

6. MS - DOS - no question! Editing and publishing center "Tok". Smolensk. 1993.

7. Reid S., Farah P. History of discoveries. M., Rosman. 1995.

8. Soviet military encyclopedia. M., Military publishing house of the Ministry of Defense. 1980.

9. Technique. Encyclopedia for children. Volume 14. M., "Avanta +". 1999.

10. Turov military connection. Volume 1,2,3. M., Military publishing house. 1991.

11. Wilkinson F., Pollard M. Scientists who have changed the world. M., "Word". 1994.

12. Urvalov television equipment. (O). The newspaper "Physics", No. 26, 2000

13. Urvalov electronic television. The newspaper "Physics", No. 4, 2002

14. Fedotov schemes by O. Lodge and G. Marconi. The newspaper "Physics", No. 4, 2001

15. Physics. Encyclopedia for children. Volume 16. M., "Avanta +". 2000.

16. Hafkemeyer H. Internet. Journey through the worldwide computer network. M., "Word". 1998.

17. At the origins of radar in the USSR. M., "Soviet radio". 1977.

18. Shmenk A., Vetien A., Kete R. Multimedia and virtual worlds. M., "Word". 1997.

Foreword ... 2

From the history of communications ... 3

Communication classification … 5

Signal communication … 6

The physical basis of telecommunications ... 7

Wired … 7

Telegraph communication ... 8

Telephony … 10

Telecode communication … 12

Internet … 12

Optical (laser) communication … 14

Fax … 14

Radio communication ... 15

Radio relay communication … 17

Tropospheric communications … 17

Ionospheric radio communication ... 17

Meteor radio communication ... 17

Space communications … 18

Radar … 18

Television communications ... 21

Video telephony … 24

Courier-postal communication ... 24

Communication quality … 25

Prospects for the development of communications ... 25

Literature ... 26

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Computer layout: Press Boris