Amazing machine

[TinfoilPhono]

Not a phonograph, but I think the mechanical complexity of this marvel will appeal to any phonograph collector:

Albert Michelson's Harmonic Analyzer.

Four videos, well worth 20 or so minutes of your time. I don't understand any of the math, but they did a terrific job of explaining every element of the mechanics. I wish I could do such a clear and detailed breakdown on some of the more complicated coin-op phonographs.

My nephew sent this link to me. He is a computer geek who never finished high school but earns far more than I do....... It's a whole new world out there. But it always pleases me when someone like him, who grew up with electronics, can become fascinated by what was accomplished a century ago purely by mechanical means.

If not for me, he probably wouldn't even know that music was ever recorded or reproduced without computers.

[Bruce]

Thanks for the link. You are right it would be amazing if this Engineer Guy could produce a similar video explaining the more complicated phonographs.

I must admit though my head hurt watching his videos until I gave up trying to follow the logic and just enjoyed the explanation of the mechanics.

Bruce

[Uncle Vanya]

I remember Dr. Bob Shankland ( Case School of Applied Science, '29) , who was Dayton Miller's successor as head of the Physics Department at Case telling of the days when all Juniors in the department had to undergo a year of torture performing the Fourier transforms on the wave forms produced in Miller's Phonodeik laboratory. Professor Milller died in 1941, while Shankland was at Ryerson working n the Manhattan Project. Unfortunately most of Dr. Miller's acoustical laboratory, including two of his three Harmonic Analyzers, his little Midmer-Losch pipe organ, the Phonodeiks, the Koenig tuning forks, and his collection of sixteen-hundred-forty-six horns of various sizes and shapes was scrapped for the War Effort before Shankland could intervene.

[phonogfp]

That's a fascinating machine. I know virtually nothing of higher mathematics, but I'm forwarding this link to my son (who initially majored in Aerospace Engineering at Case). Maybe the video will awaken his thus-far dormant love of machinery!

I'm also betting that there was a simple tool to calibrate the notches on the Cylindrical Gears. A long piece of spring steel would do the trick!

George P.