Biographical Memoirs Volume 61 (1992) / Chapter Skim
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Harvey Fletcher
Harvey Fletcher
Pages 164-193
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From page 165... ...
Provo was then a small town in Utah Valley near a freshwater lake surroundecl by high mountains. As my father recallecI: As I looked across Utah Valley, I thought that the tops of the mountains that I could see in any direction marked the end of the world where people live.
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From page 166... ...
This was the only school in Utah Valley offering education beyond the eighth grade, which he had then obtained. He wanted to enroll in the Commercial Division but opted for the Normal Division because the tuition was somewhat cheaper.
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summa cum laude in physics- the first summa cum laucle degree in physics ever awarded at the University of Chicago. He was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
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A tube was attached from an expansion chamber to the little box. By opening suddenly a petcock, a sudden expansion of the air in the little box was made which caused a cloud of water vapor to form.
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I had never seen Brownian Movement before—here was a spectacular view of them. The tiny droplets were being pushed first that way and then this way by the actual molecules in the air surrounding them.
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The atomizer was used to spray some of the oil across the top plates. As I looked through the telescope I could see the tiny stream of oil droplets coming through the hole.
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I soon found it was to decide who was to be the author of the paper referred to above. There were four other papers in the formative stage that were coming out of these oil drop experiments, and I expected they would all be joint papers.
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drop experiment and was acquainted with the new knowledge uncovered about Stokes Law. Researchers at the American Telephone & Telegraph Company and the Western Electric Company became very interested in the research being clone at the University of Chicago and offered my father a position with them, which he refused.
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From page 173... ...
that he was not realizing his full potential as a research scientist at Brigham Young University. So after much soul searching he accepted the offer made in 1916 and moved his family to the New York City area, where he began work in the research and cievelopment department of the Western Electric Company.3 Entering the Bell System organization started a new chapter in my father's scientific life.
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His first publication on this new research was "On the Relative Difficulty of Interpreting the English Speech Sounds," appearing in Physical Review. in August ~ ^~^ A, ~1 r~ .
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He kept coming closer and asking the same question in the same weak voice until he came to about two feet from his ear, where he said he could hear. His hearing level was found to be two feet.
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If one talked very loudly into his ear he could understand. His hearing loss was about the same for high and low frequencies, which is very unusual for one
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Because of this, the majority of the old hotels around New York were nearly all wired for DC and the street cars were using DC. We found he could hear very well with the hearing aid and he used it for a long time after that.
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He would hold one end of a morning glory horn against the phonograph loud speaker. The other end was fitted with a rubber tube which he fitted into his ear.
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leacT to the manufacture of simple monaural versions by Western Electric Company. In 1921 my father began publication of some of his fincIings about speech and hearing.
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He was also attracting attention outside the Bell System. In 1920 he was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society ant!
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Since my father had already devised a vibrating reed mechanism to stucly speech sounds, it was a relatively simple matter to devise an artificial larynx to help those who had lost their larynx through surgery.
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My father was prepared to demonstrate this spatial effect, which he initially called auditory perspective but that has become better known as stereophonic sound or simply stereo. The principal exhibit of the Bell System at the ~ 932 WorId's Fair in Chicago was such a demonstration.
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From page 183... ...
My father clescribed these early tests in his autobiography (Autobiography, pp. 90-93~: It was about 1931 when I first met Stokowski and we made tests of stereophonic sound down at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia where the Philadelphia Orchestra held its concerts.
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From page 184... ...
Not only were the sounds of sawing, hammering, and talking faithfully reproduced correctly, but the auditory perspective enabled the listeners to place each sound in its proper position, and to follow the movements of the actors by their footsteps and voices. For another demonstration the audience heard a soprano singing 'Coming Through the Rye,' as she walked back and forth in an imaginary rye field on the stage in Philadelphia.
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From page 185... ...
They are on film rather than the magnetic tape or metal clisks currently in use in the recording industry. it was on the basis of these demonstrations anct the scientific papers describing them that my father came to be dubbed the "Father of Stereophonic Sound." As notect above, in 1933 my father's responsibilities at Bell Laboratories were broaclenect to inclucle all physical research.
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In 1945 he was electect president of the American Physics Society. In 1947 he was appointee!
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After the war my father elevates! most of his efforts to fulfilling his various executive responsibilities, but he also worked strenuously to complete two projects before his impending retirement from Bell Laboratories.
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., ~ , ~ ~ _ C~ puritan opera stars, such as Caruso and Galli-Curci, and instrumentalists like Heifetz on our oicl phonograph. He was active in promoting camping and boy scout activities.
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Gardner, an associate at Bell Telephone Laboratories, concerning the oil drop experiment was published in Physics 'today, June 1982, pp.
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Causes of apparent discrepancies in recent work on the determination of the elementary electrical charge.
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10:349-73. 1932 Can we scientifically advise patients as to the effectiveness of hearing aids.
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I Hopeful trends in the testing of hearing and in the prescribing of hearing aids.
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From page 193... ...
1964 Normal vibration frequencies of a stiff piano string.
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