Ancient sounds recorded on pottery?
Martin Lechner
occured during the decoration process of pottery. The theory was, that
the decoration tools worked like the needle on old grammophones, and
this sounds could be recreated by laser scanning.
Does anyone know anything about that?
Was it tried out actually?
--
Best regards,
Martin Lechner
mailto:bruc...@sbox.tugraz.at
Ninjutsu in Graz: www.ninjutsu.at
Ken Down
> A long time ago I heard of the idea, that sound recording could
have > occured during the decoration process of pottery. The theory
was, that > the decoration tools worked like the needle on old
grammophones, and > this sounds could be recreated by laser scanning.
A highly dubious claim.
Consider the old gramophone recording apparatus, which consisted of a
tightly stretched membrane of some sort to which a needle was
attached. A wax cylinder, just in contact with the needle, was rotated
as you spoke. Your speech caused the membrane to vibrate, which in
turn caused the needle to dig into the wax, thus reproducing the
vibrations of the membrane.
Now imagine that instead of the tightly stretched membrane, you have
a loose floppy one. Then further imagine that this loose, floppy
membrane is made up of some thick jelly like substance. How many
vibrations are going to make it through to the needle?
That is the situation with this pottery business. Most of the shaping
was done with the bare hand. Where tools were used, they were held in
the hand - and it would take one heck of a loud noise to cause the
hand to vibrate!
Then consider the speed of the wheel's rotation and the circumference
of a pot. How long would it take for the pot to complete a single
rotation? Half a second, I should think, would be the absolute
maximum for useful work.
You would, therefore, need to have a sound that occurred precisely
during the last half second of work on the pot (because any sound
before that would be erased by the next turn of the pot). The chances
of anything meaningful being "recorded" are infinitesimally small -
and how would you sort out the half second of speech from the
background noise of the natural irregularities in the clay?
In short, even if it were possible that recording took place, it
would not be worthwhile attempting to recover it.
Ken Down
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RSeitz8258
the amplitude of the motion of an acoustically driven cutting tool is
small compared to the size of the largerparticles in almost all clay
mixtures. An extremely pure and fine grained slip would have to be used
to produce a recoverable audio recording in fired clay, and even then
the "record would skip its track unless the potters wheel was running as
true as a watchmaker's lathe.
The neccessary precision comes by design- using high Victorian
technology, it took the research laboratory owned by edison &Co, a lot
of perspiration to reduce to practice.
--
rseit...@aol.com (RSeitz8258)
pete
` Martin Lechner wrote:
`
`> A long time ago I heard of the idea, that sound recording could
` have > occured during the decoration process of pottery. The theory
` was, that > the decoration tools worked like the needle on old
` grammophones, and > this sounds could be recreated by laser scanning.
`
` A highly dubious claim.
[...]
`
` That is the situation with this pottery business. Most of the shaping
` the hand - and it would take one heck of a loud noise to cause the
` hand to vibrate!
`
` Then consider the speed of the wheel's rotation and the circumference
` of a pot. How long would it take for the pot to complete a single
` rotation? Half a second, I should think, would be the absolute
` maximum for useful work.
`
` You would, therefore, need to have a sound that occurred precisely
` during the last half second of work on the pot (because any sound
` before that would be erased by the next turn of the pot). The chances
` of anything meaningful being "recorded" are infinitesimally small -
` and how would you sort out the half second of speech from the
` background noise of the natural irregularities in the clay?
`
` In short, even if it were possible that recording took place, it
` would not be worthwhile attempting to recover it.
I would add to this that the things which would be recorded would be
strongly biased by their proximity, and the conducting medium. That
is, mostly you would get a record of the vibrations inherent in the
wheel mechanism, stone on stone. Any vibrations transmitted to the
scribing point through the air, would be lost in the noise.
--
==========================================================================
vincent@triumf[munge].ca Pete Vincent
Disclaimer: all I know I learned from reading Usenet.
Rus English
>occured during the decoration process of pottery. The theory was, that
>the decoration tools worked like the needle on old grammophones, and
>this sounds could be recreated by laser scanning.
>Does anyone know anything about that?
>Was it tried out actually?
-------------------------
Hello,
have also read of this. It was a perhaps 2 paragraph sciences news
item in a magazine, Scientific American or maybe Omni, about 15 years
ago. Some scientists in Australia wondered if they could hear sounds
embedded in the groves of clay pots made by spinning, in the manner of
a phonograph. They tried it, and it "worked". They heard a thunk,
thunk, thunking sound, perhaps due to a mechanical linkage used to
spin the pot. As I recall, they never expected to hear voices; this
was exactly what they thought they might hear. Before reading of their
work, it never occurred to me that ancient sounds might be recovered.
So I greatly appreciate their creative thinking, and willingness to
try something a little crazy.
And it opens thoughts to other things. Perhaps it is not just
incidental recordings that might be recovered. Long, long ago (1939
New York World's Fair), a company gave out souvenirs, I think wooden
rulers. Along one edge there were small notches. If you ran a playing
card along this edge, it actually "said" the name of the company. The
sound reproduction was very crude, but understandable. They had a
special machine that made the notches, but this is so low-tech, anyone
with a knife and a stick of wood - and lots of time to perfect it -
could also make talking sticks, especially if an easily reproduced
name or beginning of a chant. Do not know if the sound was AM or FM
encoded. It is said that people living today have no idea how
incredible it was in Edison's day to hear reproduced sounds for the
first time. Imagine what it might have seemed 4,000 years ago to hear
a stick speak the name of a god or king. And yet, as they hold some
ancient ceremonial staff, how many archaeologists even for a moment
think to run a card along the edge to see if it "speaks"? And if they
did hear a sound, how many would recognize it as a word in a language
that has not been spoken aloud for millennia?
Yes, yes, unlikely in the extreme, but still, an intriguing thought.
Rus English