Re: Measurement of pitch


<tdp1001@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1165381044.657388.249430@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

OG wrote:
"John Bailey" <john_bailey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:08ran2labqmc71frg5mat6v05k66o0i3v8@xxxxxxxxxx
On 4 Dec 2006 16:29:27 -0800, matt271829-news@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

Hi

At what time in history were the range of frequencies of audible sounds
first roughly known? Who made the first scientifically accurate
measurement of the frequency of a sound wave, and when?

"Mersenne's description in his Harmonic universelle (1636) of the
first absolute determination of the frequency of an audible tone (at
84 Hz) implies that he already demonstrated that the
absolute-frequency ratio of two vibrating strings, radiating a musical
tone and its octave, is as 1 : 2.

Fascinating

And I found this description of how he did it
"The first major step toward defining pitch into an exact number of
vibrations per second - its frequency - was Mersenne in the 1600s, who
stretched a brass wire 138 feet and counted its vibrations by eye. He
then
stretched smaller wires until they matched the tuning of an organ pipe
and
scaled up the numbers from the long wire and correctly calculated its
frequency."
http://digitalcontentproducer.com/mag/avinstall_measure/

Mersenne's method was not as good
as the method used by the Pythagoreans.


Maybe, but the OP's question was regarding the first scientific measurement
of ACTUAL frequency rather than relative frequency, which was Pythagoras'
work.


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: What holds it up?
    ... Rapid vibrations make the wire wave violently. ... "It shouldn't work, but it stands upside down," says Tom Mullin. ... parametric oscillations, splitting them in two and allowing their ...
    (sci.physics)
  • Re: Measurement of pitch
    ... first absolute determination of the frequency of an audible tone (at ... absolute-frequency ratio of two vibrating strings, ... stretched a brass wire 138 feet and counted its vibrations by eye. ...
    (sci.physics)