Fax Machine — Questions and answers

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What did Scottish clockmaker Alexander Bain get a patent for in 1843?

Choices

  1. An Electric Printing Telegraph ✓
  2. A regular text telegraph
  3. A new kind of electric clock
  4. A machine to make copies of books

Answer: An Electric Printing Telegraph

From page 1

What was the biggest challenge Alexander Bain faced in his early experiments to send images?

Choices

  1. Finding enough non-conductive ink.
  2. Making the stylus move fast enough.
  3. Making sure the sending and receiving machines moved together perfectly. ✓
  4. Drawing clear pictures on the metal plate.

Answer: Making sure the sending and receiving machines moved together perfectly.

From page 3

What was Alexander Bain's original training or first job?

Choices

  1. A farmer
  2. A clockmaker ✓
  3. A painter
  4. A teacher

Answer: A clockmaker

From page 4

How did Alexander Bain solve the problem of making the sending and receiving machines work together perfectly?

Choices

  1. He used fast computers to control them.
  2. He had people manually adjust them at both ends.
  3. He used two perfectly matched pendulums, one at each machine. ✓
  4. He made the machines much bigger and stronger.

Answer: He used two perfectly matched pendulums, one at each machine.

From page 5

How did Bain's machine turn a picture into electrical signals to send?

Choices

  1. It took a photograph of the picture.
  2. A stylus scanned the picture on a spinning cylinder, sending electrical pulses. ✓
  3. Someone typed the description of the picture into a code.
  4. It used mirrors to reflect the image to another machine.

Answer: A stylus scanned the picture on a spinning cylinder, sending electrical pulses.

From page 6

Which inventor created the 'Pantelegraph,' the first commercial fax service?

Choices

  1. Alexander Bain
  2. Frederick Bakewell
  3. Giovanni Caselli ✓
  4. Albert Einstein

Answer: Giovanni Caselli

From page 9

What made physical fax machines less common for people to use every day?

Choices

  1. They became too big to fit in offices.
  2. The internet and email became popular. ✓
  3. They ran out of special paper.
  4. People stopped needing to send documents quickly.

Answer: The internet and email became popular.

From page 10