Emerging from music and the visual arts, questions about hearing and seeing deeply affected Hermann Helmholtz's and Bernhard Riemann's contributions to what became called the 'problem of space [ Raumproblem],' which in turn influenced Albert Einstein's approach to general relativity. Helmholtz's physiological investigations measured the time dependence of nerve conduction and mapped the three-dimensional manifold of color sensation. His concurrent studies on hearing illuminated musical evidence through experiments with mechanical sirens that connect audible with visible phenomena, especially how the concept of frequency unifies motion, velocity, and pitch. Riemann's critique of Helmholtz's work on hearing led Helmholtz to respond and study Riemann's then-unpublished lecture on the foundations of geometry. During 1862-1870, Helmholtz applied his findings on the manifolds of hearing and seeing to the Raumproblem by supporting the quadratic distance relation Riemann had assumed as his fundamental hypothesis about geometrical space. Helmholtz also drew a 'close analogy ... in all essential relations between the musical scale and space.' These intersecting studies of hearing and seeing thus led to reconsideration and generalization of the very concept of 'space,' which Einstein shaped into the general manifold of relativistic space-time.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Article
Hui, Alexandra;
(2013)
Changeable Ears: Ernst Mach's and Max Planck's Studies of Accommodation in Hearing
(/isis/citation/CBB001320386/)
Thesis
Pantalony, David Alexander;
(2002)
Rudolph Koenig (1832--1901), Hermann von Helmholtz (1821--1894) and the birth of modern acoustics
(/isis/citation/CBB001562537/)
Chapter
Zanarini, Gianni;
(2001)
Hermann von Helmholtz and Ernst Mach on Musical Consonance
(/isis/citation/CBB000102702/)
Article
Kursell, Julia;
(2013)
Experiments on Tone Color in Music and Acoustics: Helmholtz, Schoenberg, and Klangfarbenmelodie
(/isis/citation/CBB001320389/)
Article
Hui, A. E.;
(2011)
Instruments of Music, Instruments of Science: Hermann von Helmholtz's Musical Practices, His Classicism, and His Beethoven Sonata
(/isis/citation/CBB001033821/)
Article
Paweł Polak;
(2016)
Philosophy in science – a case of a reception of special and general theory of relativity in Kraków and Lwów before 1925 / Filozofia w nauce – studium przypadku recepcji szczególnej i ogólnej teorii względności w Krakowie oraz we Lwowie przed rokiem 1925
(/isis/citation/CBB510143275/)
Article
Darrigol, Olivier;
(2007)
The Acoustic Origins of Harmonic Analysis
(/isis/citation/CBB000772559/)
Article
Cahan, David;
(2010)
Helmholtz in Gilded-Age America: The International Electrical Congress of 1893 and the Relations of Science and Technology
(/isis/citation/CBB000953437/)
Article
Wittje, Roland;
(2013)
The Electrical Imagination: Sound Analogies, Equivalent Circuits, and the Rise of Electroacoustics, 1863--1939
(/isis/citation/CBB001320382/)
Book
Eisenstaedt, Jean;
(2002)
Einstein et la relativité générale: Les chemins de l'espace-temps
(/isis/citation/CBB000201820/)
Book
Rieger, Matthias;
(2006)
Helmholtz Musicus: Die Objektivierung der Musik im 19. Jahrhundert durchHelmholtz' Lehre von den Tonempfindungen
(/isis/citation/CBB000830701/)
Article
Schmidt, Michael J.;
(2014)
Visual Music: Jazz, Synaesthesia and the History of the Senses in the Weimar Republic
(/isis/citation/CBB001201425/)
Thesis
Ramalingam, Chitra;
(2009)
A Science of Appearances: Vision, Visualization and Experimental Physics in Victorian England
(/isis/citation/CBB001560660/)
Article
McDonald, Patrick Joseph;
(2003)
Demonstration by Simulation: The Philosophical Significance of Experiment in Helmholtz's Theory of Perception
(/isis/citation/CBB000502673/)
Book
Vanja V. Malloy;
(2018)
Dimensionism: Modern Art in the Age of Einstein
(/isis/citation/CBB753306396/)
Book
Reichenbach, Hans;
Gimbel, Steven;
Walz, Anke;
(2006)
Defending Einstein: Hans Reichenbach's Writings on Space, Time, and Motion
(/isis/citation/CBB000930976/)
Article
Ku, Ja Hyon;
(2009)
Uses and Forms of Instruments: Resonator and Tuning Fork in Rayleigh's Acoustical Experiments
(/isis/citation/CBB000932067/)
Article
Hiebert, Elfrieda;
(2013)
Listening to the Piano Pedal: Acoustics and Pedagogy in Late Nineteenth-Century Contexts
(/isis/citation/CBB001320391/)
Article
Darrigol, Olivier;
(2007)
A Helmholtzian Approach to Space and Time
(/isis/citation/CBB000701061/)
Book
Erlmann, Veit;
(2004)
Hearing Cultures: Essays on Sound, Listening, and Modernity
(/isis/citation/CBB001035705/)
Be the first to comment!