Case for Henrici's harmonic analyser, No.3
Case for Henrici's harmonic analyser, No.3
- Materials:
- wood
- Object Number:
- 1894-20 Pt1
- type:
- case - container
- Image ©
- The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum
Henrici's harmonic analyser made by G. Coradi, 1894, No.3 (with three glass spheres) in case with brush, tommy, and reel of wire
Harmonic analysers were designed to break down a complex wave, such as a sound wave, into its fundamental and harmonic components. This one uses the motions of three glass spheres (underneath the 3 wheels) which turn numbered dials.
Manufactured by instrument maker Gottlieb Coradi's workshop in Zurich and designed by German mathematician Olaus Hencrici and his assistant Archibald Sharp in the mechanics laboratory that Henrici set up at Central Technical College (one of the constituent colleges of the Imperial College of Science and Technology), it is an advanced design of the first harmonic analyser that Henrici had designed four years earlier.
Although this model was recognised as a leader in the field, it was rather expensive and so it did not meet Coradi's sales expectations. They were mainly bought by universities in Europe, Russia and the United States, as well as the Tokyo Earthquake Investigation Committee.
In the 1930s, Carl Seashore, an American psychologist interested in how individuals perceived music, used the Henrici harmonic analyser to analyse the quality of sounds of different instruments. His harmonic analyser measurements revealed that one note of the basson does not ring but the human ear and brain just think that hear it.
Case for Henrici's harmonic analyser, No.3
Henrici's harmonic analyser, No.3 (with three glass spheres).