IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2020 - 9

Book Reviews
William Liles

The Age of Electroacoustics
The Age of Electroacoustics: Transforming Science and Sound
By Roland Wittje, M.I.T. Press, 2016, 312 pages.

his book by Roland
Wittje, an associate
professor at Indian
Institute of Technology Madras in History of Science and Technology, is a
fascinating read. The author makes
the reviewer's job easier by actually
stating the intended purpose of his
work through a series of questions:

the queries shown above. Not only
does he succeed in doing so, he
also provides a thought provoking,
interesting book, assigning different
epochs to different chapters.
After the introductory Chapter 1,
Chapter 2 starts with the important
works of Hermann von Helmholtz
(On the Sensations of Tone as a
Physiological Basis for the Theory
of Music, first German edition
1863) and the third Baron Rayleigh,
a.k.a., John Strutt (The Theory of
Sound, 1877). This is a good starting point as these books, which are
still in print today, set a basis for
the study of sound at the time and
even detractors seem to agree upon
their value.
Chapter 3 covers the stor y
throughout WWI. Chapter 4, the longest in the book, addresses the
interwar years of the Weimar Republic. Chapter 5, the shortest, deals
with how the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NS) used electroacoustics in propaganda and
warfare plans. The final chapter, 6,
discusses different definitions of
noise and summarizes the answers
to the questions raised above.
As aptly pointed out by the
author, those epochs all influenced the field of acoustics very
differently. Prior to WWI, noise was
considered something that existed without being worthy of study
and sound was defined as only
musical notes. Thus, the study of
sound was the study of music and

1) What was the place of acoustics
within the discipline of physics
in the period, and how should
the transformations of the field
of acoustics be located within
the transformations of the field
of physics more generally?
2) Did acoustics become a scientific domain of its own?
3) Was acoustics seen as proper
academic physics?
4) What was the relationship between
acoustics and the physics community at large?
5) What effect did acoustics have
on our historical understanding
of physics at the time?
Having seen those questions on
page 3, I doubted that the author
would be able to explore the subject thoroughly and provide supportable answers in only 211 pages
(with an additional 36 pages of
notes). I was mistaken. He does a
really fine job of answering all of
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2020.2972240
Date of current version: 2 March 2020

MARCH 2020

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IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

what humans can hear with their
ears. As we realize today, that is a
very limited view. It would exclude
many areas of investigation, such
as infrasound c om mu n ic at ion
by elephants.
The author does a good job of
putting the study of acoustics in
context within social, political, academic, and industrial environments
through time. He concentrates primarily on the U.K. and Europe, with
a few references to the U.S. and
other countries. The Weimar Republic chapter of course deals almost
exclusively with Germany during
that era but that focus is acceptable
as Germany was then also addressing questions as to what physics
was in a broader context.
When WWI began, a major shift
occurred regarding the definitions
of noise and sound, and the recognition of the value of studying more
than musical notes as sound. The
sound made by an enemy airplane
was a signal to be detected, so that
the bearing, elevation, and range
could be determined for defensive
purposes. Valuable data could also
be obtained through studying the
sounds produced by U-boats or
long-range cannons. Suddenly what
was previously ignored as irrelevant
became of great interest. Noise was
redefined as that which is not the
intended signal. Noise abatement
also moved to the forefront - making ships and airplanes quieter
became very important.

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2020

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