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Article ID: CBB282467130

The Unmusical Ear: Georg Simon Ohm and the Mathematical Analysis of Sound (2020)

Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Volume: 111
Issue: 3
Pages: 471-492

DOI: 10.1086/710318

URI: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/710318

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Psychoacoustics Acoustics Sound Mathematics 19th century Helmholtz, Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Ohm, Georg Simon

This essay presents a detailed analysis of Georg Simon Ohm’s acoustical research between 1839 and 1844. Because of its importance in Hermann von Helmholtz’s subsequent study of sound and hearing, this work is rarely considered on its own terms. A thorough assessment of Ohm’s articles, however, can greatly enrich our understanding of later developments. Based on study of Ohm’s published writings, as well as a lengthy unpublished manuscript, the essay argues that his acoustical research foreshadows an important paradigmatic shift at a time of discursive instability prior to Helmholtz’s influential contributions. Using Ohm’s own dismissal of his supposedly “unmusical ears” as a conceptual frame, the essay describes this shift as a move away from understanding sound primarily in a musical context and toward an increasingly mathematical approach to sound and hearing. As such, Ohm’s work also anticipates a more general change in the role of the senses in nineteenth-century scientific research.

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