Even Mersenne, who first measured sound speed, rejected simultaneous string modes

Evidence

The Minim Friar Marin Mersenne, educated by Jesuits, was an undeniable genius and strong supporter (and also a bit of a scientific competitor) of his contemporary, Galileo. (We first encountered Mersenne in chapter 2.) We have already mentioned that Mersenne made the first measurements of the speed of sound, using echoes. He was nonetheless confused about simultaneous vibrations of many different modes of the same object. He found them “impossible to imagine.” (No professor, therefore, should ever get frustrated with a student facing the same difficulty!) Even though he could hear up to five partials in a single complex tone, he could not quite come to accept that a string was somehow vibrating in at least five ways at once. — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 872

Categorization

• XREF: Ties to chapter 2’s first mention of Mersenne and his sound-speed measurement.
• CANDY: The genius who perfected sound speed finding simultaneous modes ‘impossible to imagine’ is an easy conversational nugget about how counterintuitive superposition is.