"Acoustics" Quotes from Famous Books
... wave of scientific thought may deal with this. I shall have something special to call your minds to on this point presently. Bear in mind also that the Egyptians knew sciences, of which today, despite all our advantages, we are profoundly ignorant. Acoustics, for instance, an exact science with the builders of the temples of Karnak, of Luxor, of the Pyramids, is today a mystery to Bell, and Kelvin, and Edison, and Marconi. Again, these old miracle-workers probably understood ... — The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... the fundamental note and minor third, are the only things in the way of music among the more remote settlements of which I have any knowledge. Mrs. Micawber's singing has been described as the table-beer of acoustics. Eskimo singing is something more. The beer has become flat by the addition of ice. One of our engineers, who is quite a fiddler, experimented on his instrument with a view to seeing what effect music would have on the "savage breast," but his best efforts at rendering "Madame Angot" ... — The First Landing on Wrangel Island - With Some Remarks on the Northern Inhabitants • Irving C. Rosse
... to emancipate mankind from the control of the animal instincts, and in the purely physical and mathematical sciences it does. In mathematics, dynamics, optics, acoustics, astronomy, electricity, engineering, and mechanics, the dictates of pure intellect are seldom interfered with by any blind impulse, attraction, or prejudice. But it is very different in the realm of opinion—in matters in which reason ... — Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... says Mr. White, there were no boxes. Palmo did not even build a new theater. He found one that could be modeled to his purposes in Stoppani's Arcade Baths, in Chambers Street, between Broadway and Center Street. The site is now occupied by the building of the American News Company. The acoustics of the new opera house are said to have been good, but the inconvenience of the location and unenviable character of the neighborhood are indicated quite as much as Signor Palmo's enterprising and considerate ... — Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... in its commencement, harmonic, and is found by the consideration of the natural progression of sound consequent upon the division and subdivision of a single string. It ought to be familiar to every student of acoustics. The sound produced by the striking or twanging of a single string (on a monochord) is called the tonic, and also, from its position as the lowest note, the bass. If we divide this string in half, we will obtain a series of vibrations producing a sound the same in character, but, ... — The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... able to discover marks of marks), a science, though always remaining inductive, tends to become also deductive, and, to the same extent, to cease to be one of the experimental sciences, in which, as still in chemistry, though no longer in mechanics, optics, hydrostatics, acoustics, thermology, and astronomy, each generalisation rests on a special induction, and the reasonings consist but of one ... — Analysis of Mr. Mill's System of Logic • William Stebbing
... previous to the day, Dr. Themison accompanied the amateurs by rail to Wrensham, to hear 'trial of the acoustics' of the Concert-hall. They were a goodly company; and there was fun in the railway-carriage over Colney's description of Fashionable London's vast octopus Malady-monster, who was letting the doctor fly ... — The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... course. Here I've spent heaven knows how much on the acoustics of this theatre, and I can't make out a word she says. I can hear all the others. And ... — The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... that follow were diffused everywhere. The lads, when they were not working on the houses, mended their saddles and bridles or their clothes, and when they had nothing else to do they sang war songs or the sentimental ballads of home. It was a fine place for singing—Warner described the acoustics of the valley as perfect—and the ridges and gorges gave back the greatest series of echoes any of ... — The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the questions, 'What is light?' and 'What is heat?' have occurred to the minds of men; but these questions never would have been answered had they not been preceded by the question, 'What is sound?' Amid the grosser phenomena of acoustics the mind was first disciplined, conceptions being thus obtained from direct observation, which were afterwards applied to phenomena of a character far too subtle to be observed directly. Sound we know to be due to vibratory motion. A vibrating ... — Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... their apothecaries stored with proper medicines; and before the members sat, administer to each of them lenitives, aperitives, abstersives, corrosives, restringents, palliatives, laxatives, cephalalgics, icterics, apophlegmatics, acoustics, as their several cases required; and, according as these medicines should operate, repeat, alter, or omit them, at ... — Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... Germany, and is thus noticed at page 12. of Warner's edition of Godfrey Weber's Theory of Musical Composition:—"Since 1824 we have been laid under great obligations to our distinguished mathematician and writer on acoustics, Professor W. Weber, for most interesting developments on all these points, which he has arranged into an article in the journal Ccilia, vol. xii., expressly for musicians and musical ... — Notes and Queries, Number 216, December 17, 1853 • Various
... disappeared, and as we rowed silently along with our backs toward home through the darkness, only a few stars being visible, we had little to say, but sat absorbed in thought, or in silence listened to the monotonous sound of our oars, a sort of rudimental music, suitable for the ear of Night and the acoustics of ... — A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... not phenomenal—I doubt if it is big enough for the New York opera house. How Frederick used to rail at that building! They wanted him to play there once, you know, at some big benefit. He always said no respectable human voice could be judged there—it seems the acoustics is wrong. But it is an exceptionally fine voice, nevertheless, and so pure and unspoiled. She had nothing to unlearn, literally, and her acting, Madame says, is superb. She can memorise anything, and ... — Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... feel happy and at home in it. I'm going to furnish it for you, quite simply, of course. Just rugs and a divan or two, and a screen to shut out the door, two or three pretty comfortable chairs, some draperies—only thin ones, nothing heavy to spoil the acoustics—a few cushions, a table or two. Oh, and you must have a spirit-lamp, a little batterie de ... — The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... Reciprocity. Molecular Forces. Attraction. Cohesion. Adhesion. Affinity. Porosity. Compressibility. Elasticity. Inertia. Momentum. Weight. Centripetal Force. Centrifugal Force. Capillary Attraction. The Sap of Trees. Sound. Acoustics. Sound Mediums. Vibration. Velocity of Sound. Sound Reflections. Resonance. Echos. Speaking Trumpet. The Stethoscope. The Vitascope. The Phonautograph. The Phonograph. Light. The Corpuscular Theory. ... — Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... English Quaker who had been expelled from Oxford and jugged in Cork also for his religious belief. He was the son of Admiral Sir William Penn, and had a good record. He believed that elocutionary prayer was unnecessary, and that the acoustics of heaven were such that the vilest sinner with no voice-culture could be heard in the ... — Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... Gentlemen at large, 8; "Unspecified," 10. And to these must be added three ladies, who had been illegally elected and were soon unseated. A current joke of the time represented one of our more highly-cultured Councillors saying to a colleague drawn from another rank,—"The acoustics of this Hall seem very defective"—to which the colleague, after sniffing, replies—"Indeed? I don't perceive anything unpleasant." Which things were an allegory; but conveyed a true impression of our social and ... — Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... educated at the high school of Edinburgh, and subsequently at Warzburg, in Germany, where he obtained the degree of Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy). While still in Scotland he is said to have turned his attention to the science of acoustics, with a view to ameliorate the deafness ... — Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... celestial architecture. In physics, the decomposition of light and the principles of optics discovered by Newton, the velocity of sound, the form of its undulations, and from Sauveur to Chladni, from Newton to Bernouilli and Lagrange, the experimental laws and leading theorems of Acoustics, the primary laws of the radiation of heat by Newton, Kraft and Lambert, the theory of latent heat by Black, the proportions of caloric by Lavoisier and Laplace, the first true conceptions of the source of fire and heat, the experiments, laws, and means by which Dufay, Nollet, Franklin, ... — The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... evening a quantity of curious things happened, which Wilhelm so far had not observed in spite of his studies in natural science. He could not touch his dinner, and Herr and Frau Ellrich's voices, against all the laws of acoustics, seemed to come from the far distance, and several minutes elapsed before the sounds reached his ears, although he sat close to the speakers. The waiters and hotel guests looked odd, and seemed to swim in a kind of rosy twilight. In the sky there seemed to be three ... — The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... is wholly determined by the rapidity of the vibration, as the intensity is by the amplitude. What pitch is to the ear in acoustics, colour is to the eye in the undulatory theory of light. Though never seen, the lengths of the waves of light have been determined. Their existence is proved by their effects, and from their effects also their lengths may be accurately ... — Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... no earlier civilization can we trace anything but the faintest germs of this, while in Greek civilization it comes almost at once to flower and fruit. First and foremost we have to think of Mathematics, of Arithmetic and Geometry and Optics and Acoustics and Astronomy, but we must not forget also their later and perhaps not wholly so successful advances in Physics and Chemistry, in Botany and Zoology, in Anatomy and Physiology. Doubtless, especially in the case of the Sciences where experiments are required and have proved so fertile in ... — The Unity of Civilization • Various |