Sound Turned into Light 'An apparatus, the ultimate development of which may be that the deaf will "hear' by seeing, was demonstrated to the "Daily News" recently by Dr. E. E. Fournier A'Albe, the eminent scientist, world famous for his work on selenmum and his invention ofthe optophone, the instrument by which the blind read ordinary print.
The apparatus styled by its of resonating boxes provided with tiny mirrors attached to mica reeds. Each of these reeds is tuned to correspond to the fundamental note of its own resonator.
'The first acoustic spectroscope is provided with only 20 resonators, which cover just over an octave of, sound, but when a gramophone record of the "Yeomen of the Guard' was played about four feet from the apparatus the spots of light on the screen danced cheerily to the tune, indicating notes coming within the scope of the octave provided for.
Dr. Fournier d'Albe then showed that speech would cause vibrations.
"I see no reason," he said, speech should not ultimately become visible to the deaf in this way. Music presents a comparatively easy problem.
"I think it will be quite possible for the trained eye to see' speech owing to the fundamental tones, which will give some characteristic form to the medley of vibrations produced by a word, no matter who speaks it."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.