While proudly showing off his new fraternity house to friends, a college student led the way into the den. "What is the big brass gong and hammer for?" one of his friends asked.
"That's the talking clock", the man replied, with a grin. "Let me show you how it works!" And with that, he gave the gong an ear-shattering pound with the hammer.
Suddenly someone screamed from the other side of the wall, "KNOCK IT OFF, YOU IDIOT! IT'S 2 AM!"
Vincenzo GalileiDied 2 Jul 1591 (born 1520). Italian music theorist, lutenist and composer, who as the father of Galileo Galilei, adopted experimentation to prove aspects of acoustics, and may thus have influenced his son, Galileo, away from pure, abstract mathematics and towards making experiments and investigation. Vincenzo's discoveries in acoustics included some of the physics of vibrating strings and columns of air. In particular he was the first to show that the ratio of an interval was proportional to string lengths but varied as the square of the tension applied to the strings and as the cubes of volumes of air. He recognized the superiority of equal tempered tuning and compiled a codex of pieces illustrating the use of all 24 major and minor keys as early as 1584. |
