# Thomas Jefferson's Phonograph: Why not? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 2, 2003, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thomas-jeffersons-phonograph-why-not/146179 "2003-01-02T09:13:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2003, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thomas-jeffersons-phonograph-why-not/146179/1 "2003-01-02T09:13:12Z")
The technology to record sound on a wax cylinder is extremely simple: All you need is an armature connected to a cone of paper at one end and a needle stylus at the other, plus the requisite wax cylinder. Playback is exactly analogous to recording, in that all of the actions are reversed. No electrical power is needed: Edison designed hand-cranked devices, not electrical contraptions. So, why did it take us so long to figure all of this out? The most _delicate_ piece of machinery needed for the production of a phonograph is a machine to make needles of the requisite sharpness, but even cave men had bone needles. The most _complex_ piece of machinery needed to make a phonograph work is the armature. A certain skill is needed to get the ratios correct, but such skill is directly related to experience. Clocks designed in the Middle Ages showed a grasp of mechanical fine detail far in advance of what a phonograph would need. What am I missing? Why couldn’t Thomas Jefferson have either designed his own phonograph or bought an existing model? ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2003, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thomas-jeffersons-phonograph-why-not/146179/2 "2003-01-02T09:17:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Derleth \* > **What am I missing?** What am _I_ missing? What’s Jefferson got to do with this? ---
**Author:** ![Zagadka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zagadka/32/7272_2.png) [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2003, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thomas-jeffersons-phonograph-why-not/146179/3 "2003-01-02T09:22:52Z")
Not sure, Desmostylus, but I’ll glance over that little bit and assume it was a time frame reference. WAG: They did not have the understanding of exactly how to convert music to data and data to music (essentially what we are talking about here). Extended WAG: With the advent of electricity and electrical signals, people began thinking more about wave forms etc. ---
**Author:** ![Ice\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2003, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thomas-jeffersons-phonograph-why-not/146179/4 "2003-01-02T09:24:25Z")
I agree, I think the OP was using Jefferson as a time reference, **Desmostylus**. Hard to determine why the phonograph wasn’t invented earlier without knowing more about the ins and outs, but [Leon Scott](http://www.digitalcentury.com/encyclo/update/phono.html) was apparently the first: > [@](#): > > The first successful sound recording device was developed by Leon Scott de Martinville in 1855. Scott’s “phonautograph” used a mouthpiece horn and membrane fixed to a stylus that recorded sound waves on a rotating cylinder wrapped with smoke-blackened paper. There was no way at the time to play the sounds back, but the Frenchman’s device was a crucial foundation for the developments that would come two decades later. Scott’s phonautograph was manufactured and sold as a laboratory instrument for analyzing sound beginning in 1859. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2003, 9:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thomas-jeffersons-phonograph-why-not/146179/5 "2003-01-02T09:28:53Z")
I used Thomas Jefferson as a time reference. Why couldn’t have the phonograph existed in the 18th century? Indeed, why couldn’t it have existed in the 15th century? The phonograph is the only invention I can think of whose prerequisites seem to have been in place for centuries before its actual invention. ---
**Author:** ![Ice\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2003, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thomas-jeffersons-phonograph-why-not/146179/6 "2003-01-02T10:14:08Z")
This speech on the [birth of the recording industry](http://members.aol.com/allenamet/BirthRec.htm) bears out much of what you say, **Derleth** : > [@](#): > > There is no reason why the phonograph could not have been invented earlier - much earlier - than it was. The first successful model of 1877 contained no new or sophisticated materials, only parts well known to amateur scientists and mechanics: a rotating drum, a short screw-thread, a vibrating diaphragm, and a sharp stylus. However, no one found the combination obvious. The idea of a contraption that could talk could be found in fanciful literature for centuries, but any attempts to build such a machine became impossibly complex. Why not earlier? All the pieces weren’t put together, is the only answer I’d have. An interesting historical concept, though. ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2003, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thomas-jeffersons-phonograph-why-not/146179/7 "2003-01-02T10:18:38Z")
I see. Okay, it’s probably because the founding work in acoustics wasn’t done until 1809 by Ernst Chladni. He was the one that (I think) first addressed questions like how sound was transmitted, and what it actually was. ---
**Author:** ![Zagadka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zagadka/32/7272_2.png) [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2003, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thomas-jeffersons-phonograph-why-not/146179/8 "2003-01-02T10:18:41Z")
In the 3000 years of smelting metals, no one figured out that they could boil steam to turn a wheel or push a piston that makes something move and accomplishes something (usually the same thing accomplished by a water wheel or windmill). Or, rather, no one figured out a way to apply it. A lot of inventions wait in time for someone to come along and happen to have a wild thought cross their minds. Steam power, gunpowder as a weapon, printing press, using small bumps in a material to store information… many inventions are accidents of society more than results of scientific breakthroughs. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2003, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thomas-jeffersons-phonograph-why-not/146179/9 "2003-01-02T12:28:51Z")
There’s no fundamental reason that the phonograph couldn’t have been invented earlier (I once wrote a story about an early phonograph, way pre-Edison. Fiction, of course). What was supposed to have inspired Edison was his hearing a “playback recording telegraph” at high speed. This was a waxed disc that had the telegraph “dits” and “dashes” recorded by impressing them into the disc. At high speed. he imagined that it sounded like music or speech. This gave it an advantage over the smoked-glass recording method, in that it immediately suggested the mechanism for the phonograph. So the quick answer is that we needed an analogue to suggest the phonograph, and that wasn’t provided until the recording telegraph came along. Incidentally, there is the possibility of pre-Edison recordings. As Arthur C. Clarke noted in an essay (collected in his volume **The View from Serendip** , siomeone _has_ claimed to recover ancient recordings from chance media – brushstrolesd of paint and turned pottery. He cited an actual letter to Science or Nature magazine. The “Daedalus” column in Nature suggested a very similar idea, in fact. ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2003, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thomas-jeffersons-phonograph-why-not/146179/10 "2003-01-02T13:04:50Z")
So, **CalMeecham** , a piece of fiction that you wrote supports the OP’s contention. Is that the point that you’re trying to make? Or is your assertion simply the unsupported “there’s no fundamental reason”? ---
**Author:** ![Ice\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2003, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thomas-jeffersons-phonograph-why-not/146179/11 "2003-01-02T13:21:08Z")
Perhaps the reason the phonograph came about when it did, **Desmostylus** , is that was the point the “impossibly complex” became achievably simple (to quote back to my second link). ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2003, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thomas-jeffersons-phonograph-why-not/146179/12 "2003-01-02T13:39:57Z")
I humbly disagree, **Ice Wolf**. Your link refers to an 1806 experiment by Thomas Young. If this is indeed true, it predates my 1809 contention. Either way, it’s not a matter of complexity of manufacture, it’s more “nobody understood the theoretical background well enough”. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2003, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thomas-jeffersons-phonograph-why-not/146179/13 "2003-01-02T13:59:53Z")
> [@](#): > > In the 3000 years of smelting metals, no one figured out that they could boil steam to turn a wheel or push a piston that makes something move and accomplishes something (usually the same thing accomplished by a water wheel or windmill). Or, rather, no one figured out a way to apply it. Hero of Alexandria designed a sphere a couple-thousand years ago that rotated by directing jets of steam; but as you said, no one figured out a way to apply it. It seems it was just an interesting toy. ---
**Author:** ![Zagadka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zagadka/32/7272_2.png) [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2003, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thomas-jeffersons-phonograph-why-not/146179/14 "2003-01-02T14:01:52Z")
Lord knows how many times certain things have been invented, lost, and re-invented over the years. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2003, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thomas-jeffersons-phonograph-why-not/146179/15 "2003-01-02T14:22:13Z")
> [@](#): > > So, CalMeecham, a piece of fiction that you wrote supports the OP’s contention. Is that the point that you’re trying to make? Or is your assertion simply the unsupported “there’s no fundamental reason”? Do you actually read the posts? It would help. P.S. It’s CalMe **a** cham. ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2003, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thomas-jeffersons-phonograph-why-not/146179/16 "2003-01-02T14:34:52Z")
Sorry for the misspelling. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CalMeacham \* > \*\*So the quick answer is that we needed an analogue to suggest the phonograph, and that wasn’t provided until the recording telegraph came along. > \*\* Is _that_ the point you were making? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2003, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thomas-jeffersons-phonograph-why-not/146179/17 "2003-01-02T16:02:44Z")
> [@](#): > > Sorry for the misspelling. > > ## quote: > > Originally posted by CalMeacham > So the quick answer is that we needed an analogue to suggest the phonograph, and that wasn’t provided until the recording telegraph came along. > > * * * > > Is that the point you were making? There is hope for literacy yet. That’s a large part of it. Inventions often proceed by building upon ideas that have preceded them. Lasers didn’t come around until the maser had been invented, even though the technology needed to construct a laser had existed long before that time. The Laser was created because it was the visible light analogue to the Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. So, too, with the recording phonograph and the recording telegraph. ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2003, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thomas-jeffersons-phonograph-why-not/146179/18 "2003-01-02T19:28:55Z")
Look at the paperclip…is there anybody reading this that could not have taken a piece of wire and bent it to create this ingenious little invention? The phonograph also seems so simple - now. At the time, the idea of recording sounds must have seemed other-wordly. I think most inventions and technical breakthroughs look ridiculously simple in retrospect. I am sure in 100 years, people will look back and say - “Geez, back in 2003 they had computers, electricity, magnets and Pinto beans - and not one of them could create a simple anti-gravity machine? Idiots…” ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2003, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thomas-jeffersons-phonograph-why-not/146179/19 "2003-01-02T19:39:26Z")
I think **DMark** hit the nail on the head. ---
**Author:** ![Ice\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2003, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thomas-jeffersons-phonograph-why-not/146179/20 "2003-01-02T20:05:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Desmostylus \* > \*\*I humbly disagree, **Ice Wolf**. > > Your link refers to an 1806 experiment by Thomas Young. If this is indeed true, it predates my 1809 contention. > > Either way, it’s not a matter of complexity of manufacture, it’s more “nobody understood the theoretical background well enough”. \*\* No, I meant that, sometimes, inventions come about, out of all the parts developed thus far, when the complexity of ideas becomes achievably simple (Hence my requoting of the phrase I did). A case of “why didn’t _I_ think of that?” So, yes, I agree with **Tangent** that **DMark** has summed it up nicely. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thomas-jeffersons-phonograph-why-not/146179.md?page=2)