Helmholtz’s resonance theory persisted for decades despite being flawed

Evidence

It would seem that Helmholtz’s resonating oscillator idea is discredited, but the notion that our hearing system depended on little oscillating resonators was still being investigated at least into the 1930s. Helmholtz’s original idea was clearly flawed from the start, but he refused to see the problems in favor of a theory “too beautiful to not be true,” a common tendency among physicists. Very often, they are right, but not in this case. — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 1984

Categorization

• XREF: The phrase ‘too beautiful to not be true’ echoes other famous physicist commitments to elegant theories; connects to Kuhn-style resistance to refutation.