Science de la nature et théorie musicale chez Isaac Beeckman

Abstract

SUMMARY. — The elaboration of the bases of musical theory was [one of the main interests of Isaac Beeckman. The notes in his diary concern two fields of physics : the problem of the vibration of musical bodies, especially strings, associated with the question of the quality of consonances, and the theory of the corpuscular nature of sound. The first aspect led to a remarkable geometric demonstration of the frequency of string vibration, but would seem to have obligatorily led to a waveform conception of sound transmission. The second aspect precisely excluded such a position, and Beeckman unambiguously affirmed the transport of air particles from the speaking mouth to the listening ear. The difficulty here is to attempt to reconcile these two theses into a noncontradictory theory of air fluxes.