SNAPSHOTS OF SOUNDS.
W A ,vTL in l entbn of' Professor Fournier d Alibe has made it possible to photograph sounds. Professor d’AJ-be is the inventor of the apparatus by which a blind man ran read a book, the printed letters reflecting light on to a selenium cell, ? r< S uces by electricity so that the person - really reads by sound. -.
The new instrument is called a tono°°nsijsts of a trumpet of which the end is horizontal; over the end is stretched a sheet of thin rubber, oil which is a drop of incrcury. \ ' The .light from an electric lamp is reflected from the mercury on to- a photographic plate, and any sound spoken or sung into the tiWpet makes tim mercury vibrate, a pattern of the broken reflections being produced on the plate.
These patterns are quite distinctive. The note B flat gives a different pattern from the note F; in. fact, the drop o*f mercury follows every variation of music sung or played into- the trumpet, so that a moving band of photographic film would record voice or music as a serie-s of different patterns.-
We thus lia-ve a new instrument for the study of speech- and sound, which may pave the way to fresh knowledge and perhaps find many good uses.
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Bibliographic details
Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 29 November 1924, Page 12
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214SNAPSHOTS OF SOUNDS. Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 29 November 1924, Page 12
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