Not even the gray-haired pioneers who have lived with the telephone since its birth, can understand their protege.
As to the why and the how, there is as yet no answer.

It is as true of telephony to-day as it was in 1876, that a child can use what the wisest sages cannot comprehend.
Here is a tiny disc of sheet-iron.

I speak--it shudders.

It has a different shudder for every sound.

It has thousands of millions of different shudders.