1724-1803

Swiss physicist and inventor who in 1774 developed one of the first electronic telegraph machines. Lesage's invention, unlike modern telegraphs, used a different wire for each letter of the alphabet. This device, although capable of sending a message for short distances, proved too cumbersome to use on a wide scale. In fact, the telegraph would not become popular until several decades later, when development of Morse Code permitted signals to be sent using only one wire.