How the Cellphone was Born: Three Months of Craziness
Unsung Science
CBS News
4.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 10 December 2021
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the early 1970s, “mobile phones” were car phones: Permanently installed monstrosities that filled up your trunk with boxes and, in a given city, could handle only 20 calls at a time. Nobody imagined that there’d be a market for handheld, pocketable cellphones; the big phone companies thought the idea was idiotic. But Marty Cooper, now 92, saw a different future for cellular technology—and he had 90 days to make it work. A story of corporate rivalry, Presidential interference…and unquenchable optimism.
Guests: Marty Cooper, father of the cellphone. Arlene Cooper, technology entrepreneur.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | When Marty Cooper dreamed up the idea for an invention called a cell phone in 1973, it |
| 0:11.0 | wasn't a popular idea. |
| 0:12.8 | You're telling me people thought that the cell phone was a dumb idea. |
| 0:17.0 | Absolutely. |
| 0:18.0 | No question about it. |
| 0:19.7 | Today, at 92, he considers today's cell phone only the crudest precursor of what's to |
| 0:25.8 | come. |
| 0:26.8 | David, we are only at the very, very beginning. |
| 0:31.1 | We are going to revolutionize mankind in many ways. |
| 0:36.4 | I'm David Poe, and this is Unsung Science. |
| 0:46.7 | You're listening Add Free on Wondery Plus. |
| 0:50.0 | For two decades, FBI agent Robert Hansen sold secrets to the Kremlin. |
| 0:54.2 | We violated everything that my FBI stood for. |
| 0:57.3 | Hansen was the most damaging spy in FBI history, and his betrayals didn't end there. |
| 1:02.3 | Do I hate him? |
| 1:03.3 | No, I don't hate anyone. |
| 1:04.8 | But his motive, I would love to know what his true motive so I can get that out of me. |
| 1:10.0 | How did he do it? |
| 1:11.3 | Why? |
| 1:12.3 | Follow agent of betrayal to double life of Robert Hansen wherever you hit your podcast. |
| 1:16.3 | You can listen Add Free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. |
| 1:20.8 | This season 1, episode 8, how the cell phone was invented. |
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