Leon Scott

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dictionary illustration of a phonautograph. The barrel is made of plaster of paris.
Dictionary illustration of a phonautograph. The barrel is made of plaster of paris.

Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville (1817April 26, 1879) was a French printer, librarian, and bookseller who lived in Paris. He invented the earliest known sound recording device, the phonautograph, in 1857. The phonautograph used a horn to collect sound, attached to a diaphragm which vibrated a stiff bristle which inscribed an image on a lamp black coated, hand-cranked cylinder. Scott built several devices with the help of Rudolph Koenig, a local musical instrument maker. Unlike Edison's similar 1877 invention, the phonograph, the phonautograph only created visual images of the sound and did not have the ability to play back its recordings. Scott's device was used for scientific investigations of sound waves.


[edit] References

This article about an engineer, inventor or industrial designer is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.