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Absolute Measurements of Sound1

Abstract

IT is now more than thirty years since it occurred to me to devise an instrument that should be capable of measuring the intensity or loudness of any sound at any point in space, should be self-contained and portable, and should give its indications in absolute measure. By this is meant that the units should be such as do not depend on time, place, or the instrument, so that, though the instrument be destroyed and the observer dead, if his writings were preserved another instrument could be constructed from the specifications and the same sound reproduced a hundred or a thousand years later. The difficulty comes from the fact that the forces and amounts of energy involved in connexion even with very loud sounds are extremely small, as may be gathered from the statement that it would take approximately ten million cornets playing fortissimo to emit I horse-power of sound.

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WEBSTER, A. Absolute Measurements of Sound1. Nature 110, 42–45 (1922). https://doi.org/10.1038/110042a0

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