Sound Authorities : Scientific and Musical Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Britain

**__Sound Authorities__ shows how experiences of music and sound played a crucial role in nineteenth-century scientific inquiry in Britain.** In __Sound Authorities__, Edward J. Gillin focuses on hearing and aurality in Victorian Britain, claiming that the development of the natural sciences in this era cannot be understood without attending to the study of sound and music. During this time, scientific practitioners attempted to fashion themselves as authorities on sonorous phenomena, coming into conflict with traditional musical elites as well as religious bodies. Gillin pays attention to sound in both musical and nonmusical contexts, specifically the cacophony of British industrialization. __Sound Authorities__ begins with the place of acoustics in early nineteenth-century London, examining scientific exhibitions, lectures, spectacles, workshops, laboratories, and showrooms. He goes on to explore how mathematicians mobilized sound in their understanding of natural laws and their vision of a harmonious ordered universe. In closing, Gillin delves into the era’s religious and metaphysical debates over the place of music (and humanity) in nature, the relationship between music and the divine, and the tensions between spiritualist understandings of sound and scientific ones. "In Sound Authorities, Edward J. Gillin shows how experiences of music and sound played a crucial role in nineteenth-century scientific inquiry in Britain. Where other studies have focused on vision in Victorian England, Gillin focuses on hearing and aurality, making the claim that the development of the natural sciences in Britain in this era cannot be understood without attending to how the study of sound and music contributed to the fashioning of new scientific knowledge. Gillin's book is about how scientific practitioners attempted to fashion themselves as authorities on sonorous phenomena, coming into conflict with traditional musical elites as well as religious bodies. Gillin pays attention to not only musical sound but also the phenomenon of sound in non-musical contexts, specifically, the cacophony of British industrialization, and he analyzes the debates between figures from disparate fields over the proper account of musical experience. Gillin's story begins with the place of acoustics in early nineteenth-century London, examining scientific exhibitions, lectures, and spectacles, as well as workshops, laboratories, and showrooms. He goes on to explore how mathematicians mobilized sound in their understanding of natural laws and their vision of a harmonious order, as well as the convergence of aesthetic and scientific approaches to pitch standardization. In closing, Gillin delves into the era's religious and metaphysical debates over the place of music (and humanity) in nature, the relationship between music and the divine, and the tension between religious/spiritualist understandings of sound and scientific/materialist ones"-- Provided by publisher Contents 8 List of Figures and Tables 10 Introduction. Sounds and Sweet Airs: Science, Sound, and Music in Britain, 1815–1914 12 Part I. Experiments and Mathematics: The Making of Sound as a Scientific Object 34 Chapter 1. The Laboratory of Harmony: The Transformation of Sound within British Science, 1815–46 36 Chapter 2. A Harmonious Universe: Herschel, Whewell, Somerville, and the Place of Sound in British Mathematics, 1830–70 94 Part II. Contesting Knowledge: Mathematicians, Musicians, and Sound Measurements 132 Chapter 3. The Problem of Pitch: Mathematical Authority and the Mid-Victorian Search for a Musical Standard 134 Chapter 4. Accuracy and Audibility: Mathematics, Musical Consensus, and the Unreliability of Sound, 1835–81 176 Part III. Materialism and Morality: Religious Authority and the Science of Sound 210 Chapter 5. Musical Matter: Religious Authority, John Tyndall, and the Challenge of Materialism, 1859–1914 212 Epilogue. Musical Spiders and Sounds Scientific in the Modern Age 242 Acknowledgments 252 Notes 256 Select Bibliography 282 Index 308