1＋12＋13＋14＋. . . (see Algebra and Arithmetic). The occurrence of a similar proportion between segments of lines is the foundation of such phrases as harmonic section, harmonic ratio, harmonic conjugates, &c. (see Geometry: II. Projective). The connexion between acoustical and mathematical harmonicals is most probably to be found in the Pythagorean discovery that a vibrating string when stopped at 12 and 23 of its length yielded the octave and 5th of the original tone, the numbers, 1 23, 12 being said to be, probably first by Archytas, in harmonic proportion. The mathematical investigation of the form of a vibrating string led to such phrases as harmonic curve, harmonic motion, harmonic function, harmonic analysis, &c. (see Mechanics and Spherical Harmonics).
HARMONICA, a generic term applied to musical instruments
in which sound is produced by friction upon glass bells. The
word is also used to designate instruments of percussion of the
Glockenspiel type, made of steel and struck by hammers (Ger.
Stahlharmonika).
The origin of the glass-harmonica tribe is to be found in the fashionable 18th century instrument known as musical glasses (Fr. verrillon), the principle of which was known already in the 17th century.[1] The invention of musical glasses is generally ascribed to an Irishman, Richard Pockrich, who first played the instrument in public in Dublin in 1743 and the next year in England, but Eisel[2] described the verrillon and gave an illustration of it in 1738. The verrillon or Glassspiel consisted of 18 beer glasses arranged on a board covered with cloth, water being poured in when necessary to alter the pitch. The glasses were struck on both sides gently with two long wooden sticks in the shape of a spoon, the bowl being covered with silk or cloth. Eisel states that the instrument was used for church and other solemn music. Gluck gave a concert at the “little theatre in the Haymarket” (London) in April 1746, at which he performed on musical glasses a concerto of his composition with full orchestral accompaniment. E. H. Delaval is also credited with the invention. When Benjamin Franklin visited London in 1757, he was so much struck by the beauty of tone elicited by Delaval and Pockrich, and with the possibilities of the glasses as musical instruments, that he set to work on a mechanical application of the principle involved, the eminently successful result being the glass harmonica finished in 1762. In this the glass bowls were mounted on a rotating spindle, the largest to the left, and their under-edges passed during each revolution through a water-trough. By applying the fingers to the moistened edges, sound was produced varying in intensity with the pressure, so that a certain amount of expression was at the command of a good player. It is said that the timbre was extremely enervating, and, together with the vibration caused by the friction on the finger-tips, exercised a highly deleterious effect on the nervous system. The instrument was for many years in great vogue, not only in England but on the Continent of Europe, and more especially in Saxony, where it was accorded a place in the court orchestra. Mozart, Beethoven, Naumann and Hasse composed music for it. Marianne Davies and Marianna Kirchgessner were celebrated virtuosi on it. The curious vogue of the instrument, as sudden as it was ephemeral, produced emulation in a generation unsurpassed for zeal in the invention of musical instruments. The most notable of its offspring were Carl Leopold Röllig’s improved harmonica with a keyboard in 1786, Chladni’s euphon in 1791 and clavicylinder in 1799, Ruffelsen’s melodicon in 1800 and 1803, Franz Leppich’s panmelodicon in 1810, Buschmann’s uranion in the same year, &c. Of most of these nothing now remains but the name and a description in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, but there are numerous specimens of the Franklin type in the museums for musical instruments of Europe. One specimen by Emanuel Pohl, a Bohemian maker, is preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
For the steel harmonica see Glockenspiel. (K. S.)
HARMONIC ANALYSIS, in mathematics, the name given by
Sir William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) and P. G. Tait in their
treatise on Natural Philosophy to a general method of investigating
physical questions, the earliest applications of which seem
to have been suggested by the study of the vibrations of strings
and the analysis of these vibrations into their fundamental tone
and its harmonics or overtones.
The motion of a uniform stretched string fixed at both ends is a periodic motion; that is to say, after a certain interval of time, called the fundamental period of the motion, the form of the string and the velocity of every part of it are the same as before, provided that the energy of the motion has not been sensibly dissipated during the period.
There are two distinct methods of investigating the motion of a uniform stretched string. One of these may be called the wave method, and the other the harmonic method. The wave method is founded on the theorem that in a stretched string of infinite length a wave of any form may be propagated in either direction with a certain velocity, V, which we may define as the “velocity of propagation.” If a wave of any form travelling in the positive direction meets another travelling in the opposite direction, the form of which is such that the lines joining corresponding points of the two waves are all bisected in a fixed point in the line of the string, then the point of the string corresponding to this point will remain fixed, while the two waves pass it in opposite directions. If we now suppose that the form of the waves travelling in the positive direction is periodic, that is to say, that after the wave has travelled forward a distance l, the position of every particle of the string is the same as it was at first, then l is called the wave-length, and the time of travelling a wave-length is called the periodic time, which we shall denote by T, so that l = VT.
If we now suppose a set of waves similar to these, but reversed in position, to be travelling in the opposite direction, there will be a series of points, distant 12l from each other, at which there will be no motion of the string; it will therefore make no difference to the motion of the string if we suppose the string fastened to fixed supports at any two of these points, and we may then suppose the parts of the string beyond these points to be removed, as it cannot affect the motion of the part which is between them. We have thus arrived at the case of a uniform string stretched between two fixed supports, and we conclude that the motion of the string may be completely represented as the resultant of two sets of periodic waves travelling in opposite directions, their wave-lengths being either twice the distance between the fixed points or a submultiple of this wave-length, and the form of these waves, subject to this condition, being perfectly arbitrary.
To make the problem a definite one, we may suppose the initial displacement and velocity of every particle of the string given in terms of its distance from one end of the string, and from these data it is easy to calculate the form which is common to all the travelling waves. The form of the string at any subsequent time may then be deduced by calculating the positions of the two sets of waves at that time, and compounding their displacements.
Thus in the wave method the actual motion of the string is considered as the resultant of two wave motions, neither of which is of itself, and without the other, consistent with the condition that the ends of the string are fixed. Each of the wave motions is periodic with a wave-length equal to twice the distance between the fixed points, and the one set of waves is the reverse of the other in respect of displacement and velocity and direction of propagation; but, subject to these conditions, the form of the wave is perfectly arbitrary. The motion of a particle of the string, being determined by the two waves which pass over it in opposite directions, is of an equally arbitrary type.
In the harmonic method, on the other hand, the motion of the string is regarded as compounded of a series of vibratory motions (normal modes of vibration), which may be infinite in number, but each of which is perfectly definite in type, and is in fact a particular solution of the problem of the motion of a string with its ends fixed.
A simple harmonic motion is thus defined by Thomson and Tait (§ 53):—When a point Q moves uniformly in a circle, the perpendicular QP, drawn from its position at any instant to a fixed diameter AA′ of the circle, intersects the diameter in a point P whose position changes by a simple harmonic motion.
The amplitude of a simple harmonic motion is the range on one side or the other of the middle point of the course.
The period of a simple harmonic motion is the time which elapses from any instant until the moving-point again moves in the same direction through the same position.
The phase of a simple harmonic motion at any instant is the fraction of the whole period which has elapsed since the moving-point last passed through its middle position in the positive direction.
In the case of the stretched string, it is only in certain particular cases that the motion of a particle of the string is a simple harmonic motion. In these particular cases the form of the string at any instant is that of a curve of sines having the line joining the fixed
