Alexander Graham Bell 

The inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, was born in Scotland, where he studied voice production and hearing. He later moved to America, where he combined this work with an investigation into the transmission of sound by electricity. Bell managed to transmit his voice electrically in 1875, patenting his idea the next year. He formed the Bell Telephone Company in 1877, as part of a legal fight to protect his patent. He used some of the profits from his invention of the telephone to finance special schools for the deaf. Bell carried on inventing for the rest of his life, designing hydrofoils to make ships faster and kites capable of lifting people.

Heinrich Hertz 

The name of German physicist Heinrich Hertz has become a part of everyday language because of his work on electromagnetic waves. The hertz (Hz), the unit used to measure the frequency of electromagnetic waves, is named for the German scientist. Hertz was inspired by the work of the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879), who had predicted the existence of electromagnetic waves. Hertz designed and built equipment that proved that these waves exist and that they could be detected at a distance. He was sure that electromagnetic waves could be used to transmit messages across the Atlantic, but he died before the use of radio showed that he was right.