Month: January 2017

The Voice in the Soot: Humanity’s Earliest Known Recording

Image extracted from the video Let There Be Sound, Part 4 by First Sounds / CC BY.

This is the first known dated recording of the human voice, recorded in 1860 but only played back for the first time in 2008:

Au Clair de la Lune, 1860
Au Clair de la Lune, March 2008 release by First Sounds / CC BY.

Creepy, isn’t it? It reminds … Read the rest

What is a Sound?

Image by Mick Lissone, public domain.

In the novel The Phantom Tollbooth, the protagonist Milo journeys through a strange kingdom where the laws of nature, as we know them, do not quite hold. At one point he stumbles into the Valley of Sound, which has been completely enshrouded in silence since its Soundkeeper locked all sounds away in her fortress. Milo visits her in the fortress, the only … Read the rest