How to Capture Sound on a Piece of Paper
Researchers have figured out a way to play back the earliest audio recording, one that predates Thomas Edison's recordings. Alex Chadwick talks to Laura Sydell about how a French inventor captured sound on a piece of paper.
Sound Recording Predates Edison Phonograph
Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville invented the phonautograph in 1857.
Thomas Edison wasn't the first person to record sound. A Frenchman named Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville actually did it earlier.
He invented a device called the phonautograph, and, on April 9, 1860, recorded someone singing the words, "Au clair de la lune, Pierrot repondit." But he never had any intention of playing it back. He just wanted to study the pattern the sound waves made on a sheet of paper blackened by the smoke of an oil lamp.
A group of researchers found some of his old phonautograph papers and used a computer program to play the recording. They are presenting it publicly for the first time on Friday at Stanford University.
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