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Sunday, November 29, 2015

Edison Showed Off the Phonograph 138 Years Ago Today

On November 29, 1877, Thomas Edison gave the first public demonstration of his tin-foil phonograph. He hollered into a tube: "Mary had a little lamb. Its fleece was white as snow. And everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go!" The phonograph etched sound waves into tin foil wrapped around a cylinder, making these the first speech ever recorded.

Swapping some parts around, Edison immediately played back the sound. It was hand-cranked and scratchy, but it worked! This was a shocking invention, and led to rapid improvements—using wax cylinders for recording, mass-produced recordings, and also disc-based recordings.

Here's a modern demonstration of basically the same method, using a replica phonograph:

http://mentalfloss.com/article/71733/edison-showed-phonograph-138-years-ago-today

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