Acoustics at University of Texas: History and current introductory course in physical acoustics.

Abstract

As an academic discipline at the University of Texas, acoustics began in the 1930s under C. Paul Boner in Physics and Lloyd A. Jeffress in Psychology. World War II saw Boner and many physics graduate students go to Harvard for “war work,” largely in underwater acoustics. When the war ended, Boner returned and founded the Defense Research Laboratory, later named Applied Research Laboratories. Interest in acoustics grew in Physics during the postwar years but eventually waned in the 1950s and 1960s. Acoustical activity developed in the 1960s in the College of Engineering, chiefly Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. Today physical and engineering acoustics is a strong interdisciplinary program at Texas, with faculty in several departments in Engineering and still a vestige in Physics. In addition, much work on speech, hearing, and music is done in other parts of the University. Engineering features two basic courses in physical acoustics, Acoustics I and II, and five specialty courses, which are described in an accompanying paper. Here we concentrate on Acoustics I and II, which provide an introduction to propagation, reflection and transmission, refraction, normal modes, horn theory, propagation in stratified fluids, absorption and dispersion, waveguides, directional radiation, diffraction, and arrays.