Editing Phonautograph (section)

== Construction ==
[[File:Phonautogram - Scott 1859.jpg|70px|thumb|Detail of a phonautogram made in 1859]]
The phonautograph was patented on March 25, 1857 by Frenchman Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville,<ref name=TimeGraphics>{{cite web|url=https://time.graphics/event/41158|magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]|title=mar 25, 1857 - Phonautograph invented.|language=en-US|url-status=live|accessdate=July 13, 2022|archivedate=June 29, 2022|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20220629175625/https://time.graphics/event/41158}}</ref> an editor and typographer of manuscripts at a scientific publishing house in Paris.<ref name=NatParkService>{{cite web|url=https://www.nps.gov/edis/learn/historyculture/origins-of-sound-recording-edouard-leon-scott-de-martinville.htm|title=Origins of Sound Recording: The Inventors|publisher=[[National Park Service]]|language=en-US|url-status=live|date=July 17, 2017|accessdate=July 13, 2022|archivedate=January 22, 2022|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20220122002822/https://www.nps.gov/edis/learn/historyculture/origins-of-sound-recording-edouard-leon-scott-de-martinville.htm}}</ref> One day while editing Professor Longet's ''Traité de Physiologie'', he happened upon that customer’s engraved illustration of the anatomy of the human ear, and conceived of "the imprudent idea of photographing the word." In 1853 or 1854 (Scott cited both years) he began working on "le problème de la parole s'écrivant elle-même" ("the problem of speech writing itself"), aiming to build a device that could replicate the function of the human ear.<ref name=NatParkService/><ref name=FirstSounds>{{cite web|url=https://www.firstsounds.org/research/scott.php|title=Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville|publisher=First Sounds|language=en-US|url-status=live|date=2008|access-date=July 13, 2022|archivedate=July 1, 2022|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20220701004645/http://www.firstsounds.org/research/scott.php}}</ref> 

Scott coated a plate of glass with a thin layer of [[lampblack]]. He then took an acoustic trumpet, and at its tapered end affixed a thin membrane that served as the analog to the [[eardrum]]. At the center of that membrane, he attached a rigid boar's bristle approximately a centimeter long, placed so that it just grazed the lampblack. As the glass plate was slid horizontally in a well formed groove at a speed of one meter per second, a person would speak into the trumpet, causing the membrane to vibrate and the stylus to trace figures<ref name=NatParkService/> that were scratched into the lampblack.<ref name=BBCNews>{{cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7318180.stm|publisher=[[BBC News]]|title=Oldest recorded voices sing again|language=en|url-status=live|date=March 28, 2008|access-date=July 13, 2022|archivedate=April 17, 2022|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417185139/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7318180.stm}}</ref> On March 25, 1857, Scott received the French patent<ref>{{cite web|url=https://blogs.loc.gov/preservation/2021/12/introducing-irene/|author=Villafana, Tana|title=Observing the Slightest Motion: Using Visual Tools to Preserve Sound|publisher=[[Library of Congress]]|language=en-US|url-status=live|date=December 20, 2021|access-date=July 13, 2022|archivedate=January 3, 2022|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20220103215417/https://blogs.loc.gov/preservation/2021/12/introducing-irene/}}</ref> #17,897/31,470 for his device, which he called a phonautograph.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/recording/scott.html|title=Leon Scott and the Phonautograph|author=Schoenherr, Steven E.|publisher=[[University of San Diego]]|language=en-US|url-status=dead|date=1999|access-date=July 13, 2022|archivedate=February 7, 2018|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20180207234442/http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/recording/scott.html}}</ref> The earliest known intelligible recorded sound of a human voice was conducted on April 9, 1860 when Scott recorded<ref name=BBCNews/> someone singing the song "[[Au Clair de la Lune]]" ("By the Light of the Moon") on the device.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.npr.org/2008/03/27/89148959/sound-recording-predates-edison-phonograph|title=Sound Recording Predates Edison Phonograph|work=[[All Things Considered]]|via=[[NPR]]|language=en-US|url-status=live|date=March 27, 2008|access-date=July 13, 2022|archivedate=May 26, 2022|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20220526211443/https://www.npr.org/2008/03/27/89148959/sound-recording-predates-edison-phonograph}}</ref> However, the device was not designed to play back sounds,<ref name=BBCNews/><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nps.gov/edis/learn/historyculture/origins-of-sound-recording-edouard-leon-scott-de-martinville.htm|title=Origins of Sound Recording: The Inventors|date=2017|website=www.nps.gov|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170921003319/https://www.nps.gov/edis/learn/historyculture/origins-of-sound-recording-edouard-leon-scott-de-martinville.htm|archive-date=2017-09-21|url-status=live}}</ref> as Scott intended for people to read back the tracings,<ref name=Time5.1.18>{{cite web|url=https://time.com/5084599/first-recorded-sound/|magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]|title=What Was the First Sound Ever Recorded by a Machine?|author=Fabry, Merrill|language=en-US|url-status=live|date=May 1, 2018|access-date=February 13, 2022|archivedate=June 7, 2022|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20220607172532/https://time.com/5084599/first-recorded-sound/}}</ref> which he called phonautograms.<ref name=FirstSounds/> This was not the first time someone had used a device to create direct tracings of the vibrations of sound-producing objects, as [[tuning fork]]s had been used in this way by English physicist [[Thomas Young (scientist)|Thomas Young]] in 1807.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FaAYfJYVNXQC|title=Nineeenth-century Scientific Instruments|language=en-US|url-status=live|publisher=University of California Press|page=137|date=1983|isbn=9780520051607 |archivedate=February 15, 2017|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20170215062429/https://books.google.com/books?id=FaAYfJYVNXQC&pg=PA137&dq=thomas+young+tuning+fork&hl=en&ei=bsY5Tcm7GYmh8QOnppXYCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CFAQ6AEwBw}}</ref> By late 1857, with support from the Société d'encouragement pour l'industrie nationale, Scott’s phonautograph was recording sounds with sufficient precision to be adopted by the scientific community, paving the way for the nascent science of acoustics.<ref name=FirstSounds/> 

The device's true significance in the history of recorded sound was not fully realized prior to March 2008, when it was discovered and resurrected in a Paris patent office by First Sounds, an informal collaborative of American audio historians, recording engineers, and sound archivists founded to make the earliest sound recordings available to the public. The phonautograms were then digitally converted by scientists at the [[Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory]] in California, who were able to play back the recorded sounds, something Scott had never conceived of. Prior to this point, the earliest known record of a human voice was thought to be an 1877 phonograph recording by [[Thomas Edison]].<ref name=BBCNews/><ref name=NYTimes>{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/arts/27soun.html|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|author=Rosen, Jody|title=Researchers Play Tune Recorded Before Edison|language=en-US|url-status=live|date=March 27, 2008|access-date=July 13, 2022|archivedate=April 13, 2022|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20220413194226/https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/arts/27soun.html}}</ref> The phonautograph would play a role in the development of the [[gramophone]], whose inventor, [[Emile Berliner]], worked with the phonautograph in the course of developing his own device.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.loc.gov/collections/emile-berliner/articles-and-essays/gramophone/|title=The Gramophone|publisher=[[Library of Congress]]|language=en-US|url-status=live|access-date=July 13, 2022|archivedate=June 1, 2022|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20220601195449/https://www.loc.gov/collections/emile-berliner/articles-and-essays/gramophone/}}</ref>