Wittje, Roland (Author)
The MIT Press
Edition Details: Book Series: Transformations: Studies in the History of Science and Technology
Physical Details: 312 pages
Language: English
The transformation of acoustics into electro-acoustics, a field at the intersection of science and technology, guided by electrical engineering, industry, and the military.At the end of the nineteenth century, acoustics was a science of musical sounds; the musically trained ear was the ultimate reference. Just a few decades into the twentieth century, acoustics had undergone a transformation from a scientific field based on the understanding of classical music to one guided by electrical engineering, with industrial and military applications. In this book, Roland Wittje traces this transition, from the late nineteenth-century work of Hermann Helmholtz to the militarized research of World War I and media technology in the 1930s. Wittje shows that physics in the early twentieth century was not only about relativity and atomic structure but encompassed a range of experimental, applied, and industrial research fields. The emergence of technical acoustics and electroacoustics illustrates a scientific field at the intersection of science and technology. Wittje starts with Helmholtz's and Rayleigh's work and its intersection with telegraphy and early wireless, and continues with the industrialization of acoustics during World War I, when sound measurement was automated and electrical engineering and radio took over the concept of noise. Researchers no longer appealed to the musically trained ear to understand sound but to the thinking and practices of electrical engineering. Finally, Wittje covers the demilitarization of acoustics during the Weimar Republic and its remilitarization at the beginning of the Third Reich. He shows how technical acoustics fit well with the Nazi dismissal of pure science, representing everything that "German Physics" under National Socialism should be: experimental, applied, and relevant to the military.
...MoreReview Susan Schmidt Horning (2023) Review of "The Age of Electroacoustics: Transforming Science and Sound". Technology and Culture (pp. 245-247).
Review John Forge (2017) Review of "The Age of Electroacoustics: Transforming Science and Sound". Metascience: An International Review Journal for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science (pp. 311-313).
Review William Liles (March 2020) Review of "The Age of Electroacoustics: Transforming Science and Sound". IEEE Technology and Society Magazine (pp. 9-10).
Review Joeri Bruyninckx (2018) Review of "The Age of Electroacoustics: Transforming Science and Sound". Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology (pp. 128-130).
Review Stephanie Probst (2017) Review of "The Age of Electroacoustics: Transforming Science and Sound". Icon: Journal of the International Committee for the History of Technology (pp. 192-195).
Review Annie Jamieson (2018) Review of "The Age of Electroacoustics: Transforming Science and Sound". British Journal for the History of Science (pp. 326-328).
Review Paolo Brenni (2018) Review of "The Age of Electroacoustics: Transforming Science and Sound". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 423-424).
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