The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

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.

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

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.

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.