The Phonofilm
Contrary to the popular idea, the history of attempts to record sound vibration photographically is not new. It dates back almost as far as the birth of the telephone itself. In 1879, Prof. Alexander Graham Bell and his associate, Tainter, succeeded in telephoning a short distance over a beam of light, using as a transmitter a very small mirror attached to a diaphragm. Less than a year after these experiments were published a man by the name of Fritts filed a patent application disclosing exactly the transmitting methods employed by Bell and Tainter, and in addition a moving photographic plate upon which the vibrating beam of light was to be photographed through a narrow slit transverse to the motion of the photographic surface. Fritts did nothing in the way of working out a practical method. The Fritts patent application was two generations ahead of the art and remained merely a “paper” patent.
- Print ISSN
- 0096-6460
- Published
- 1923-05
- Content type
- Original Research
- DOI
- 10.5594/J11630