Helmholtz, Riemann, and the sirens: sound, color, and the ``problem of space

DOI10.1007/S00016-013-0109-1MaRDI QIDQ892377zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Peter Pesic

Publication date 19 November 2015

Published in Physics in Perspective (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-013-0109-1

zbMATH Keywords

EinsteinhearingHelmholtzRiemannspacevision

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

History of mathematics in the 19th century (01A55) History of mathematics in the 20th century (01A60)

Review text

The paper looks at Helmholtz's studies on hearing, which illuminated musical evidence through experiments with mechanical sirens that connected audible with visible phenomena, and showed how the concept of frequency unifies motion, velocity, and pitch. Riemann was also at work on the nature of hearing and the mechanisms of the ear, and his critique of Helmholtz's work on hearing led Helmholtz to respond and study Riemann's then-unpublished lecture on the foundations of geometry. The author shows that Helmholtz also drew a ``close analogy \(\dots\) in all essential relations between the musical scale and space, and concludes by observing that this work on hearing and seeing led to reconsideration and generalization of the concept of space that Einstein was later to shape into the general manifold of relativistic space-time.

Recommendations

• The unmusical ear: Georg Simon Ohm and the mathematical analysis of sound
• Riemann on geometry, physics, and philosophy -- some remarks
• Music between hearing and counting (a historical case chosen within continuous long-lasting conflicts)
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 897871
• Riemann and the modern concept of space

Cites work

• Analysis and synthesis: On scientific method - based on a study by bernhard riemann
• The birth of Lie's theory of groups

Cited in

(5)

• Helmholtz and the geometry of color space: gestation and development of Helmholtz's line element
• Music between hearing and counting (a historical case chosen within continuous long-lasting conflicts)
• The unmusical ear: Georg Simon Ohm and the mathematical analysis of sound
• Helmholtz, Schrödinger, and the first non-Euclidean model of perceptual color space
• Bernhard Riemann, the ear, and an atom of consciousness

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