Musical instrument manufacturer
Brian Bowers · Institution of Engineering and Technology eBooks · 2001
It was characteristic of Wheatstone that he was always alert both to the scientific lessons which might be learnt from everyday things and to the practical applications of scientific discoveries. For that reason, the division of subject matter between the previous chapter on Wheatstone's researches in sound and this chapter on Wheatstone as a musical instrument maker is somewhat arbitrary. He studied the transmission of sound because he was interested in the working of the instruments he made, and in particular the process by which sound created by the vibration of the strings of a piano or violin is transmitted to the sound board. His work on the transmission of sound, and also that on the development of an artificial voice, may be regarded either as pure research or as a potentially viable commercial venture which was superseded by electrical communication.