Fourier analysis’s mathematical elegance misled Ohm and Helmholtz

Evidence

The power of the (trained or prompted) ear to parse partials out of a tone induced both Ohm and Helmholtz to overplay the Fourier role in pitch perception. This, in turn, probably caused Ohm to make a mathematical blunder. Helmholtz also could not resist the Fourier deconstruction of tone, and substituted his own idea of nonlinear effects to account for the pitch in the presence of missing partials. — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2052

Categorization

• XREF: A cautionary instance of the map-territory error — mistaking the mathematical description of a signal for the perceptual mechanism.