Science, history and Radio 4

I love the story of the Phonautograph.
In 1860 Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville designed and built a device which recorded sound waves on the most etherial of media, smoked paper.
Bizarrely, although he had no way of ascertaining this, the machine worked.
By a miracle the paper survived. A medium of smoke and paper, not reknowned for their longevity, managed to retain the image of a voice, for 148 years.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientists made incridibly high-definition copies of this paper, and constructed an incredibly elaborate device to not only reproduce the sounds, but to correct for the speed variation caused by the recording medium being hand cranked.
All this time, all this effort, all this incredible amazing ingenuity. And what for?
To make Charlotte Green have a giggling fit whilst reading the news on Radio 4.
Thus causing me to nearly park my car in the checkout at Aldi!
Priceless!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7318173.stm

Poor Charlotte

It really is an amazing story though and I LOVE Radio 4!

Thanks for that Gaz - I couldn't help smiling while listening either. I guess the one time you wouldn't want to listen is while driving your car.
On a more serious note I do wonder sometimes at the amount of time and money spent on 'preserving' history. Did we really need to have the 'actual sound' surely most people with at least half a brain could have been satisfied with the original bit of paper and the money and resources better spent on more important things!!