General Principles of Sound Recording
E. C. Wente · Transactions of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers · 1928
THAT sound as perceived by the ear is the result of a disturbance in the air was known to the ancient Greeks, and that objects are set in vibration by intense sounds must have been observed by primitive man, but it was not until 1857, or less than a century ago, that the first instrument was constructed for making a graphical record of sound waves. In that year Léon Scott patented in France an instrument which he called the phonautograph.