The Faraday of Sound

Abstract

Rudolph Koenig was not formally associated with any school, institute, laboratory, or academy, nor was he even educated past secondary school. He was a scientific instrument maker, earlier trained as a violinmaker, who lived in a workshop/apartment near his products. Since the early 1860s, he had helped refine and spread Hermann von Helmholtz’s studies in acoustics through his creations in steel, brass, wood, glass and cast iron. Later in his career, however, he became one of the strongest critics of Helmholtz. In the controversies recounted below, he disputed Helmholtz’s theory and experimental findings related to the elusive, yet fundamental acoustical phenomena of combination tones and timbre.