Alexander Graham Bell is scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator who is credited with patenting the first practical telephone. He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, at age 23, Bell and parents move to Canada. By 1874, Bell's initial work on the harmonic telegraph had entered a formative stage, with progress made both at his new Boston "laboratory" and at his family home in Canada a big success. Bell and his assistant invented a wireless telephone, named a photophone, which allowed for the transmission of both sounds and normal human conversations on a beam of light. Both men later became full associates in the Volta Laboratory Association.