Gillin Edward J
Faculty of Music, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
Sound Stud. 2019 Nov 5;6(1):65-82. doi: 10.1080/20551940.2019.1678313. eCollection 2020.
In the nineteenth century, Ernst Chladni's acoustic figures provided productive new experimental techniques for investigating natural phenomena. The movement of invisible forces, such as light, electricity, magnetism, and heat, were hard for natural philosophers to examine. But Chladni's use of vibrating glass plates and sand to reveal the wave motions of sound offered an experimental framework through which to make natural phenomena visible. In Britain, it was Michael Faraday and Charles Wheatstone in the 1820s and 1830s who made best use of these practices and apparatus. Sound waves also provided new ways of thinking about earthquakes and seismic phenomena. This article explores how Robert Mallet, the first self-styled "seismologist", examined earthquakes, drawing on broader philosophical work surrounding vibrations and acoustic waves. Mallet was keen to draw parallels between the movement of seismic shock waves and the movement of musical sounds, including those from a piano moving through a room. He was not alone in this respect. Charles Darwin, among others, noticed comparisons between the sonorous and the seismic. By contextualising Victorian seismology within the context of Victorian acoustic science, this article argues that the two disciplines were deeply connected.
在19世纪，恩斯特·克拉德尼的声学图形为研究自然现象提供了富有成效的新实验技术。诸如光、电、磁和热等无形力量的运动，对自然哲学家来说很难进行研究。但是克拉德尼利用振动玻璃板和沙子来揭示声音的波动，提供了一个使自然现象可见的实验框架。在英国，19世纪20年代和30年代的迈克尔·法拉第和查尔斯·惠斯通最充分地利用了这些实践和仪器。声波也为思考地震和地震现象提供了新的方式。本文探讨了首位自称“地震学家”的罗伯特·马利特如何借鉴围绕振动和声波的更广泛哲学著作来研究地震。马利特热衷于将地震冲击波的运动与音乐声音的运动进行类比，包括钢琴声在房间里传播的声音。在这方面他并非孤例。查尔斯·达尔文等人也注意到了声音现象与地震现象之间的相似之处。通过将维多利亚时代的地震学置于维多利亚时代声学科学的背景下，本文认为这两个学科紧密相连。
