Ohm’s law claims tone quality arises from combinations of simple tones

Evidence

By 1937, Dayton C. Miller of Case School of Applied Science (now Case Western Reserve University), himself a formidable figure in the acoustics of his day, stated Ohm’s law as follows: that all musical tones are periodic functions; that the ear perceives pendular [sinusoidal] vibrations alone, as simple tones; that all varieties of tone quality or tone color are due to particular combinations of a larger or smaller number of simple tones of commensurable frequencies; and that a complex musical tone or a composite mass of musical tones is capable of being analyzed into a sum of simple tones. — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2050

Categorization

• DEFINE: Gives the canonical statement of Ohm’s acoustic law as of 1937.