Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville
Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville ([e.dwaʁ.le.ɔ̃ skɔt də maʁ.tɛ̃.vil]; 25 April 1817 – 26 April 1879) was a French printer, bookseller and inventor.
He invented the earliest known sound recording device, the phonautograph, which was patented in France on 25 March 1857.
As a printer by trade, he was able to read accounts of the latest scientific discoveries and became an inventor. Scott de Martinville was interested in recording the sound of human speech in a way similar to that achieved by the then-new technology of photography for light and image. He hoped for a form of stenography that could record the whole of a conversation without any omissions. His earliest interest was in an improved form of stenography, and he was the author of several papers on shorthand and a history of the subject (1849).
He was married twice and had six children.
From 1853, he became fascinated in a mechanical means of transcribing vocal sounds. While proofreading some engravings for a physics textbook, he came across drawings of the human ear. He sought to mimic the working in a mechanical device, substituting an elastic membrane for the tympanum, a series of levers for the ossicle, which moved a stylus he proposed would press on a paper, wood, or glass surface covered in lampblack. On 26 January 1857, he delivered his design in a sealed envelope to the Académie Française. On 25 March 1857, he received French patent #17,897/31,470 for the phonautograph.
To collect sound, the phonautograph used a horn attached to a diaphragm which vibrated a stiff bristle which inscribed an image on a lampblack-coated, hand-cranked cylinder. Scott built several devices with the help of acoustic instrument maker Rudolph Koenig. Unlike Thomas Edison's later invention of 1877, the phonograph, the phonautograph created only visual images of the sound and did not have the ability to play back its recordings. Instead, it captured sound waves visually on paper, allowing for the visualization of sound vibrations, which he called phonautograms. Scott de Martinville's intention was for the device's waves to be read by humans as one would read text, which proved unfeasible.
By 1857, with support from the Société d’encouragement pour l’industrie nationale, the phonautograph had advanced to a point where it could record sounds with sufficient accuracy. This development led to its adoption by the scientific community for various studies and experiments. It proved useful in the study of vowel sounds and was used by Franciscus Donders, Heinrich Schneebeli and Rene Marage. It also initiated further research into tools able to image sound, such as Koenig's manometric flame. He was not, however, able to profit from his invention, and spent the remainder of his life as a bookseller dealing in prints and photographs, at 9 Rue Vivienne in Paris.
Scott de Martinville also became interested in the relationship between linguistics, people's names and their character, and published a paper on the subject (1857).
Hub AI
Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville AI simulator
(@Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville_simulator)
Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville
Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville ([e.dwaʁ.le.ɔ̃ skɔt də maʁ.tɛ̃.vil]; 25 April 1817 – 26 April 1879) was a French printer, bookseller and inventor.
He invented the earliest known sound recording device, the phonautograph, which was patented in France on 25 March 1857.
As a printer by trade, he was able to read accounts of the latest scientific discoveries and became an inventor. Scott de Martinville was interested in recording the sound of human speech in a way similar to that achieved by the then-new technology of photography for light and image. He hoped for a form of stenography that could record the whole of a conversation without any omissions. His earliest interest was in an improved form of stenography, and he was the author of several papers on shorthand and a history of the subject (1849).
He was married twice and had six children.
From 1853, he became fascinated in a mechanical means of transcribing vocal sounds. While proofreading some engravings for a physics textbook, he came across drawings of the human ear. He sought to mimic the working in a mechanical device, substituting an elastic membrane for the tympanum, a series of levers for the ossicle, which moved a stylus he proposed would press on a paper, wood, or glass surface covered in lampblack. On 26 January 1857, he delivered his design in a sealed envelope to the Académie Française. On 25 March 1857, he received French patent #17,897/31,470 for the phonautograph.
To collect sound, the phonautograph used a horn attached to a diaphragm which vibrated a stiff bristle which inscribed an image on a lampblack-coated, hand-cranked cylinder. Scott built several devices with the help of acoustic instrument maker Rudolph Koenig. Unlike Thomas Edison's later invention of 1877, the phonograph, the phonautograph created only visual images of the sound and did not have the ability to play back its recordings. Instead, it captured sound waves visually on paper, allowing for the visualization of sound vibrations, which he called phonautograms. Scott de Martinville's intention was for the device's waves to be read by humans as one would read text, which proved unfeasible.
By 1857, with support from the Société d’encouragement pour l’industrie nationale, the phonautograph had advanced to a point where it could record sounds with sufficient accuracy. This development led to its adoption by the scientific community for various studies and experiments. It proved useful in the study of vowel sounds and was used by Franciscus Donders, Heinrich Schneebeli and Rene Marage. It also initiated further research into tools able to image sound, such as Koenig's manometric flame. He was not, however, able to profit from his invention, and spent the remainder of his life as a bookseller dealing in prints and photographs, at 9 Rue Vivienne in Paris.
Scott de Martinville also became interested in the relationship between linguistics, people's names and their character, and published a paper on the subject (1857).